As we see in Chapter 12 of the Dharma Flower Sutra, there are two stories, both of which suggest the importance of enabling by seeing. The first is ostensibly a story about Devadatta, someone whom everyone, at least in the Buddhist world, knows is the epitome of evil. But in Chapter 12 we find none of this, which everyone knows already. Instead we find the Buddha telling a story about a previous life in which Devadatta was his teacher. We may think this story is mainly about Devadatta, but, more importantly, it is a story about the Buddha, especially about the Buddha’s ability to see the bodhisattva in Devadatta. The Buddha enables Devadatta by assuring him that he too is to become a buddha.

The second story in Chapter 12 is about the dragon princess who becomes a buddha in an instant. Present are two men, Shariputra, who thinks that it is impossible for a woman to become a buddha, and Accumulated Wisdom Bodhisattva, who thinks it is crazy to think that a little girl could become awakened suddenly. What the dragon princess says to them is very interesting. “Just watch,” she says, “use your holy powers to watch me become a buddha even more quickly than it took for Shakyamuni Buddha to take a jewel from my hand.” (LS 283) In a sense, a little girl becomes a buddha for them, but she can do this only if they used their “holy powers,” their vision, to allow her to be a buddha for them, to open themselves to her being a buddha for them.

Normally we think of Buddha Dharma as coming from the Buddha. This is correct, of course. But it is also essential to see that the Dharma, and therefore the Buddha, can come to us from many sources – if we open ourselves to it.

The title of the English version of the autobiography of the founder of Rissho Kosei-kai, Nikkyo Niwano, is Lifetime Beginner. The term “beginner” has connotations of being inexperienced or green. The implication of this is, of course, that one always needs to be learning, always needs to be open to new experience, new stories, new ideas. It is easy to think of this remarkable man as being self-taught, which in a sense he was. But he was self-taught only by learning from others, a great variety of others. He learned, for example, about Buddhist teachings from Buddhist scholars, including some very famous Buddhist scholars, but he also learned about Buddhism, and received the Buddha Dharma from ordinary members of Rissho Kosei-kai. He was a lifetime learner. The importance of being open to others, of learning from them, even of seeing the Buddha in them, is something we might learn from the story ofWonderful Voice Bodhisattva.