There are four entrances to the [power of the] Dharma shown in the chapter “Bodhisattva Maitreya” [Chapter 17, The Variety of Merits]:

1. The entrance of realization. Just as it says in the Lotus Sutra:
   While I was explaining about the duration of this Tathāgata’s life span, living beings equal [in number] to the sands of sixty-eight hundred thousand myriads of koṭis of Ganges Rivers realized receptivity to the truth that all things have no origination.

   It should be known that “receptivity to the truth that all things have no origination” refers to the knowledge that is realized in the first stage [of the bodhisattva path]. That those of one to eight rebirths realized highest, complete enlightenment means they realized the enlightenment of the first stage. “Those of one to eight rebirths” refers to ordinary people who are established [in the path of the Great Vehicle] and are able to realize the first stage. According to their powers and capacities, they will all achieve the first stage in one to eight rebirths. That the [knowledge attained in the first stage] is called “highest, complete enlightenment” means [that those who attain it] are released from [the cycle of] birth and death in the divisions of the three realms, and that according to their capacities they are able to perceive the true buddha-nature. Although they are considered to have attained enlightenment, they are not considered to have totally completed the expedient nirvana of a tathāgata.

2. The entrance of faith. Just as it says in the Lotus Sutra:

   Moreover there were living beings, equal to the number of particles in the eight worlds, who all produced the thought of highest, complete enlightenment.

3. The entrance of honor. Just as it says in the Lotus Sutra:

   [When the Buddha explained that] all these bodhisattvas, great beings, had attained the great benefit of the Dharma, mandārava flowers rained down from the sky. …

4. The entrance of hearing the Dharma. It should be known that this
   [entrance] is explained in the chapter “Joyful Acceptance.”