The Dharma Flower Sutra, in my experience, is a wonderful flowering of Buddha Dharma. Whenever I pay close attention to some passage in it, something I had never seen before is revealed to me and I learn from it. But it is also a book that arose in a particular historical context and was composed and translated within particular social settings. It is not entirely free from error, or at least not free from perspectives that we now regard as deficient or even morally wrong. In saying that followers of the Lotus Sutra should not associate with butchers or those who sell meat, with those who raise animals for their meat, or with those who hunt, the Sutra is reflecting values embodied in the Indian caste system, in which such people were despised.

Rather than taking such a view literally, we can understand it to be an exhortation to think carefully about whom we associate closely with. And this consideration brings us back to the third of the four conditions discussed earlier – the idea that we should be most closely associated with a group of people who are determined to follow the bodhisattva way as best as they are able. Having gained the strength that comes from meeting the four conditions and encountering Universal Sage Bodhisattva on his white elephant with six tusks, we need to have no fear of associating with butchers, ranchers, or hunters, or even with pimps. For it is the compassion of the Buddha, modeled for us in the Dharma Flower Sutra by Kwan-yin, the Regarder of the Cries of the World, that will encourage us to be rooted in the suffering and misery of this world, shunning no one. And for some followers of the Dharma Flower Sutra at least, this might mean, not only not avoiding those who are despised by the society in which we live, whether they be a racial minority, or a minority identified by disease or mental illness, or some other despised group, but actively being with and supporting such people.

It is written that terrible things – leprosy, missing or bad teeth, ugly lips, a flat nose, squinty eyes, deformed hands and feet, body odor, severe illness, and so on, often for many generations – will come to those who expose the faults of followers of the Sutra. (LS 397—98) This passage is often used by the Sutra’s detractors to show that the Lotus Sutra is extremely intolerant. But we should be careful about this. At least a couple of things need to be said.

One is that the context makes it clear that what is being talked about primarily is not evil-doers but followers of the Lotus Sutra. The passage concludes with, “Therefore, Universal Sage, if anyone sees someone who receives and embraces this sutra, they should get up and greet them from afar, as if they were paying reverence to the Buddha.” The purpose of the passage is not, in other words, an attempt to describe consequences of evil actions; rather, it is to urge that special respect be given to those who embrace the Sutra.

Second, the passage does not point to supernatural intervention or action to punish evil-doers. It is not about literal punishment at all. At most, it should be taken to mean, again, that actions have consequences. Thus, just as planting good seeds is likely to produce good results, planting rotten seeds by doing bad things is likely to have bad results.

Having said this, perhaps we should also take a quick look at an earlier passage, one in which it is said that those who follow the Dharma Flower Sutra not only will no longer be attached to worldly pleasures, they will have no liking for scriptures of non-Buddhists or other jottings, nor ever again take pleasure in associating with such people or with other evil people, be they butchers or those who raise pigs, sheep, chickens, and dogs, or hunters, or pimps. The common thread here, of course, has to do with profiting from the sale of flesh, animal or human. It shows that some Buddhists have taken very seriously the prohibition against killing or profiting from killing and, in this case, prostitution.

Here, in Chapter 28 of the Dharma Flower Sutra, Universal Sage becomes the vehicle for specifying the four conditions necessary for acquiring the Dharma Flower Sutra. Three of these are matters of action, things we do or can do. At least to some extent we can choose to plant roots of virtue, choose to join those who are determined to be awakened, and choose to be determined to save all the living. The first of the four, on the other hand, is quite different. Being protected and kept in mind by buddhas is not something we can choose; rather, it is more like a gift. Faith, at least in one of its dimensions, is the trust and confidence that we are always under the care of buddhas.

Being under the protection and care of buddhas does not mean that no harm can come to us. We should know that even with the protection of buddhas, the world is a dangerous place. Shakyamuni Buddha, we should remember, was harmed more than once during his teaching career and probably died from food poisoning. We can never entirely escape from a whole host of dangers, including disease, aging, crime, and war. What the Lotus Sutra teaches is not that we can be completely free from danger, but that no matter what dangers we have to face, there are resources, both in ourselves and in our communities, that make it possible for us to cope with such dangers. By having faith in the Buddha, doing good by helping others, genuinely aspiring to become more and more fully awakened through wise and compassionate practice, and by extending our compassion not only to our family and our friends but to all living beings, the dangers we face will recede into the background. They will not go away, but we will not be dominated by them.

To have faith in the Buddha is to take refuge in the Buddha. It means that embodying the Buddha in our everyday lives is our highest good. This is to live in faith, to trust life itself. Such faith is not a license to stupidly do dangerous things, but it does make it possible to live an abundant life, without undue fear or caution, even perhaps in the eyes of the world to be a little foolish. This is part of what it means to be in the care of the buddhas.

That this Chapter comes last and therefore can be seen as a kind of conclusion to the Sutra means that the Dharma is not complete without being put into practice – that is, without being put into action in everyday, concrete life. It is not enough to study and gain wisdom, not enough to feel compassion. One must also embrace the Sutra by embodying it in one’s life. Faith is not faith if it is only believed, or only felt; it must be lived. One must strive to become a buddha by being a bodhisattva for others, which means nothing more and nothing less than embodying Buddha Dharma by helping others in whatever ways are appropriate and in whatever ways one can. Among those ways is giving encouragement and strength to others, being Universal Sage Bodhisattva for them.