I can’t stress this enough that we who practice today have been given a promise that fundamentally is greater than any promise given to the contemporary disciples of the Buddha. With this promise by the Buddha those who practice today actually have a stronger more direct connection to the Buddha than those who lived during the lifetime of the Buddha. We will, by the merit of our practice of the Lotus Sutra, be able to be present with Shakyamuni, Many Treasures as well as all the replica Buddhas. For anyone who practices the Lotus Sutra to lament they were not born in the time of the Buddha some 2500 years ago it will be like saying they would rather have a lesser teaching of the Buddha than the fundamental truth of all Buddhas as revealed in the Lotus Sutra.