One question that may come up for some as they read [the parable of the burning house] and think of the Buddha as the old man is why was the house in such bad shape, especially since the man in the story was wealthy. If we think of the house as representing the universe and all the things that make up the universe and we realize that nothing avoids the process of decay then even though the house is now rundown and falling to pieces, at one time it was a very nice dwelling. Everything in the universe is subject to the change and eventual decay. The old man could not stop it from occurring; the Buddha cannot stop it from occurring. But through our Buddhist practice, the practice of the single vehicle taught in the Lotus Sutra we can exit the cycle of birth and rebirth and thereby escape the four sufferings.