The second peaceful practice concerns the things we say. The list is a reminder of how we should speak, avoiding such things as being overly critical of others and other sutras. It is a fine line between pointing out differences in belief and practice and drifting to arrogance and disdain. We might be tempted to adopt the harsh language of Nichiren without fully manifesting the heart of Nichiren. The words are cheap and easy to use, the compassion and caring is difficult to manifest. There is also a time and place for things and this age we live in calls for great wisdom in discerning which approach is the most beneficial to the listener first and foremost and not to our own egotistical needs at proving superiority. As the Buddha says, the teacher should not have hostile feelings, nor dislike them but should have peace of mind. We should always have the wish to attain enlightenment for ourselves and cause others to do the same.

All too often we forget that because we live in this time, an age so far removed from Shakyamuni Buddha, that somehow we are unable to have a connection to the Buddha. We may sometimes think it is beyond our capacity to understand the Buddha or to understand this Lotus Sutra. Yet simply by our protection of the sutra, our daily practice and praise of the sutra and our genuine efforts to share this sutra with others we are automatically in the presence of Many Treasures Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha and all the other Buddhas and replica Buddhas. You all have heard me say something like this many times, and I can’t stress enough how true this is and how important this promise is.

I can’t stress this enough that we who practice today have been given a promise that fundamentally is greater than any promise given to the contemporary disciples of the Buddha. With this promise by the Buddha those who practice today actually have a stronger more direct connection to the Buddha than those who lived during the lifetime of the Buddha. We will, by the merit of our practice of the Lotus Sutra, be able to be present with Shakyamuni, Many Treasures as well as all the replica Buddhas. For anyone who practices the Lotus Sutra to lament they were not born in the time of the Buddha some 2500 years ago it will be like saying they would rather have a lesser teaching of the Buddha than the fundamental truth of all Buddhas as revealed in the Lotus Sutra.

Following the arrival of the Stupa comes a very important point in this grand drama, one we can easily overlook as we are in awe and amazement of the events that have just happened. The Buddha inquires of the assembly who will teach the Lotus Sutra in this world, the Saha world after the he has died. The Buddha in these requests shows his shift from the present to the future. We have already seen that all of those who received predictions of future enlightenment will perform their practices in some other realm but not this world. None of the contemporaries of the Buddha will attain enlightenment by doing their activities in our world. The Buddha wants to know, however, who will ensure that the Lotus Sutra is taught to future practitioners.

The Buddha makes a promise and this is significant to those of us who practice and teach the Lotus Sutra in the world in this age some several thousand years after the Buddha. A promise is made that whoever protects the Lotus Sutra in the Saha world, our world, will be able to be in the presence of not just the Buddha Shakyamuni but also all of his replica Buddhas as well as Many Treasures Buddha.

There are two causes at work when the Stupa of Treasures appears that are stated in Many Treasures original vow. In other words there are two things that make the appearance of Many Treasures and his stupa possible. The first cause, or the first requirement was the original vow of Many Treasures. By making his vow originally he set into motion the actualization of it happening. In our own lives it would be comparable to making a determination to do something. Because of our promise or determination we put into motion the actualization of that thing we determined. This is one reason why I feel that when we take vows to practice Buddhism it is so important to really understand the significance of making that promise. We should become people of our word, doing what we promise to do, in all situations.

The second cause, which enabled Many Treasures Buddha to appear, was the supernatural powers he obtained as the result of his own practice of the Lotus Sutra. In other words Many Treasures Buddha made a vow, which he could carry out because of his accumulated benefit of practicing the Lotus Sutra. Many Treasures Buddha, wishing to repay his gratitude for the many benefits he had obtained, promised to appear whenever the Lotus Sutra was taught, and he was able to do this because he received the merit and made the promise.

In our own lives, we have the hidden treasure, the gem of Buddhahood, which we can ignore and let lay dormant. On the other hand we can choose to make a vow, or a determination, to manifest and then carry out the necessary activities to actualize the vow to manifest our Buddhahood. All this we can do through our faith in the Lotus Sutra.

In Chapter 13, the predictions for Maha-Prajapati Biksuni and Yasodhara Biksuni come about in an indirect sort of way. The Buddha notices his aunt, the woman who raised him after his mother died in child birth, looking at him. I can just imagine it to be one of those looks only a mother could give a child, something on the order of a scolding without words. This would be a look that probably told the Buddha, hey aren’t you forgetting something.

At any rate the Buddha guesses what his aunt is thinking and asks her if she thought that somehow she had been left out of all the predictions that have now covered every practitioner type, Sravakas, Pratyekabuddhas, Bodhisattvas. He says he had already assured the Sravakas of their enlightenment and that he did not exclude her from that general grouping. In this I believe the Buddha realizes that even though he had implicitly included women in the general prediction, he realizes now that the women really need it clearly stated not just for them but for the males in the congregation.