We usually think that Sakyamuni led a limited existence, was born in India over two millennia ago, and died there at the age of eighty. This is correct as far as history goes. But from the essential standpoint, such a limited existence is not the true form of Sakyamuni. An eternal and immortal existence, which exists within and beyond the limited one, is the substance of Sakyamuni Buddha. The vital point of [Chapter 16], “The Duration of the Life of the Tathagata,” is that Sakyamuni, as a historical figure, declares that his essence is eternal and immeasurable. This declaration, the salient feature of the Lotus Sutra, cannot be found in any other sutra.

In Chapter 2, “Expedients,” the Buddha taught that his purpose in this world is to cause all people to open the treasury of the wisdom of the Buddha and for them to be shown, attain, and enter into this treasury. The Buddha Wisdom, of course, is the Buddha’s enlightenment; so this is the same as causing people to attain enlightenment. The teachings which have been developed since Chapter 2 are expressed [in Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata,] in terms of Sakyamuni’s deepest and most heartfelt desire. [The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata] chapter’s final words show the Buddha’s hope that all living beings will attain the same Buddhahood which he himself enjoys.

[Chapter 25, The Universal Gate of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva,] ends with verses which repeat the same themes we have seen. Faith in World-Voice-Perceiver is widespread in Asia. Many beautiful works of art have depicted this popular Bodhisattva, sometimes showing her as female and sometimes as male. In English, she is often misnamed the “Goddess of Mercy.” Among the many representations of Avalokitesvara, seven figures are particularly famous, and more especially, two of them: the “World-Voice-Perceiver of Eleven Faces,” and “World-Voice-Perceiver of a Thousand Hands.” The thousand hands signify that World-Voice-Perceiver offers a multitude of gifts to our suffering world.

[In Chapter 17, The Variety of Merits,] the Five Stages or Categories for the future … show us what practitioners of the Lotus Sutra should do once Sakyamuni has entered into Nirvana and is no longer physically present among us. These five categories for practice in the future are quite similar to the four faiths in the present… . Both imply a lifetime of effort and hard work on the long road to perfection. (We might even find them discouraging; “nobody is perfect.”) But before dismissing them as impossible to fulfill, we should note again that both begin with the same first step, that of joyfully accepting the message of eternal life in Chapter 16. Then gradually the practitioner begins to read and discern the deeper meaning of the Sutra, finally becoming a teacher of it.

In this story [in Chapter 16, The Duration of the Life of the Tathāgata], the physician, the children’s father, is compared to the Buddha, and the children are like us, ordinary people. The father’s fictitious death is like the Buddha’s entrance into Nirvana. The children suffering from poison means that our life is afflicted by various worldly desires, the most basic of which are called the “three poisons” (greed, anger, and ignorance). We who writhe in agony but reject the Buddha’s eternal existence, are like delirious children. Only when he has left us, and we have found no other remedy, will we accept the remedy which he has left behind for us to take. And only after we have taken it in faith, does he reveal himself to us in his glorious reality.

We can comprehend this as a theory, or understand in our minds what is meant by the Eternal Buddha, but still not have faith in him. We can understand Buddhism, but still not realize its power. Only when we believe in him, can we actually see the Buddha.

In Chapter 15, the “Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground,” the earth split open before Sakyamuni, and countless Bodhisattvas welled forth. Among these Bodhisattvas, four of them were the leaders. Their names were Superb-Action, Limitless-Action, Pure-Action, and Steadily-Established Action. They and the innumerable great beings accompanying them had appeared in this world to take on the task of disseminating the Lotus Sutra after Sakyamuni’s extinction. In [Chapter 21], “Supernatural Powers of the Tathagatas,” Sakyamuni assigns them the mission for which they had come, and transmits the Sutra to them for dissemination in the future.

One of the special concepts of the Lotus Sutra is that a place where the Lotus Sutra is expounded is itself the Place of Enlightenment. This means that anywhere we accept, believe, recite, and practice the Lotus Sutra is the Place of Enlightenment. It is not necessary for us to erect temples, fine buildings, or monuments in select holy places.

On September 12, 1271, when he was fifty years old, the government arrested Nichiren. Officials secretly attempted to behead him at Tatsu-no-Kuchi on the seashore near Kamakura, but a sudden miracle spared Nichiren and the government had to exile him instead to the Island of Sado. During his exile on Sado, the saint further deepened his religious contemplation and wrote some of his major works, such as Kaimoku-sho (“Opening the Eyes”) and Kanjin-honzon-sho (“The Most-Venerable-One Revealed by Introspection”). In these writings, Nichiren clarified the practical significance of the Great Bodhisattvas from underground, including Superb-Action Bodhisattva, as the propagators of the Primal Mystery (Hommon) in the evil ages after the extinction of the Buddha.

In Buddhism, people worship not only Sakyamuni Buddha but also other Buddhas, such as Amitayus (in the west) and Aksobhya (in the east). Such Buddhas have different names and attributes, and different life spans, long or short. The longest existing one is thought to have lived for several tens of kalpas. At any rate, they are all limited entities, because all of them eventually entered into Nirvana. The main point of the Lotus Sutra is that all Buddhas, by whatever names they may use, are temporary manifestations of the eternal, infinite, and immortal Sakyamuni Buddha. He transforms himself into other Buddhas when necessary to redeem and guide people, who understand him in various ways according to their particular times, places, and levels of culture.

The [ten suchnesses in Chapter 2, Expedients,] seem logical and self-explanatory. Its logic, however, is not easy for ordinary people to understand. For example, “as such” implies “as it is,” and refers to an ultimate truth which has been grasped intuitively. It is understood by a religious intuition (called prajna in Sanskrit) entirely beyond our ordinary way of understanding things as this or that. “As such” also represents reality or the ultimate truth—the way something really is, not the way we think it is. These ten perspectives are called the “Ten Suchnesses.” Chih-i of China (538-97) and Nichiren of Japan (1222-82) used them in formulating their philosophical doctrines of “each of the ten realms of existence contains the other nine in itself,” and “one thought is the three thousand worlds.”