Here it’s important to note that the Stupa does not come from some distant heaven, but springs up out of the earth. This means that this world and ourselves in it are affirmed, as this is where the truth about the nature of reality is to be found, and to be taught. In other words, this world has a kind of buddha-nature within it, here symbolized by the Stupa that comes up out of the earth with Abundant Treasures Buddha in it.

So, too, the fact that all of the buddhas throughout the entire universe come to this world, or at least to a purified version of this world, shows a powerful affirmation of our world. The Pure Land, this story implies, is to be found here. This is the land that Shakyamuni Buddha transforms into a Pure Land, even if only temporarily.

Such affirmations are not just sentiments; they are an indication of where our own energies should go – that is, into purifying this world and realizing the buddha-nature of things in this world, thus enabling us both to see this world as a Pure Land and to transform it into a Pure Land.

We are to understand that the number of Buddhas throughout the universe is incredibly large, and that all of them are, in some sense, subordinate to Shakyamuni Buddha. Thus, Shakyamuni Buddha, as well as being the Buddha of this world, in which suffering has to be endured and can be, is also a universal buddha – a buddha who is somehow present everywhere in time and space.

The exact meaning of the Chinese term used for these many buddhas is not very clear. They can be said to be “representatives,” or perhaps “duplicates” or “replicas” of Shakyamuni, but I think that they can best be understood as embodiments of Shakyamuni. Certainly, they are not, as some would have it, mere “emanations.” The complex point is that they are both independently real apart from Shakyamuni Buddha and in some sense subordinate to him. Put abstractly, we have here one of several images in the Dharma Flower Sutra in which the reality and togetherness of being both one and many is affirmed: here are both the one central reality of Shakyamuni, somehow represented throughout vast reaches of space, and the reality of many buddhas, each with their own lands and their own attendant bodhisattvas. Nowhere in the Sutra is it suggested that these buddhas and their lands are in anyway unreal. Other worlds are less important – to us in our daily lives – than is our own world, but that does not mean that they are any less real than our world.

This story [of the arrival of the Stupa of Treasures] presents us with an interesting image of the universe as a place in which Shakyamuni and his world, which is our world, is central, and yet Shakyamuni is far from being the only buddha. First of all, there is the buddha named Abundant Treasures, who comes out of the distant past in a dramatic way in order to praise Shakyamuni Buddha for teaching the Dharma Flower Sutra. The resulting image of two buddhas sitting side by side on a single seat is a unique one. But this image is dependent on another, which reaches not into the distant past, but into distant reaches of contemporary space to reveal the innumerable buddhas in all directions. In other words, it is only after all the worlds have been integrated into a single buddha land that the congregation is able to see Abundant Treasures Buddha and the two buddhas sitting together in the stupa.

A related point of secondary interest in this story is the common courtesy in the greetings brought to Shakyamuni. After all the buddhas from all over the universe have assembled and seated themselves on their lion seats in the much expanded and purified world, each of them instructs his attending bodhisattva to go to Shakyamuni Buddha to ask to be included in witnessing the opening of the Stupa of Abundant Treasures Buddha. But first, they are told, they should inquire about Shakyamuni Buddha’s health, about whether he has any illnesses or worries, and similarly about the health and spirits of the bodhisattvas and shravakas of this world.

These greetings are not just about his physical condition, but about the Buddha’s mental or spiritual condition as well. This tells us something not only about common courtesy, but also about the nature of the Buddha in this Sutra. He is not indifferent to what happens in the world, but one who himself suffers, both physically and mentally.

In the Dharma Flower Sutra there are several ways in which the humanity, or what we would now call the “historicity,” of Shakyamuni Buddha is affirmed and even insisted upon. He is placed within fantastic stories, such as this one, in which he can be seen as much more than human, but from time to time we are reminded that this same Shakyamuni is a man. We are reminded that he is one who left his father’s castle, who became awakened under the bodhi tree, who went to Varanasi to teach, and so on, and, perhaps most importantly, a man who at the end of his life died and his body was cremated.