What the sutra condemns is not other people, and not the lesser vehicles, but arrogance — especially the arrogance of thinking one has arrived at the truth, at some final goal. Rather, we are called upon by this sutra to be “lifetime beginners,” people who know they have much to learn and always will. The five thousand who walk out of the assembly in the second chapter are said to be like twigs and leaves and not really needed, but in chapter 8 they too are to be told that they will become buddhas.

Thus śrāvakas are also bodhisattvas. In every paradise, or paradise-like Buddha-land, there are countless śrāvakas, indicating that the śrāvaka-way is not to be rejected or discarded, but relativized, seen within a larger context, which is the encompassing Buddha-way. Many śrāvakas, of course, do not know that they are bodhisattvas, but they are nonetheless. The Buddha says to the disciple Kāśyapa at the end of chapter 5:

What you are practicing Is the bodhisattva-way.
As you gradually practice and learn,
Every one of you should become a Buddha.