Although we were your sons then as we are now, we wished to hear only the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle. If we had aspired for the teaching of the Great Vehicle, you would have already expounded it to us.

Subhūti, Mahā-Kātyāyana, Mahā-Kāśyapa, and Mahā-Maudgalyāyana speak this passage in Chapter Four of the Lotus Sūtra. This is before they tell the story of the Wayward Son. They explain their realization that the Buddha holds nothing back from us. The reason we hear expedient teachings rather than the highest teaching is because of the limits of our own aspiration. When we aspire to become Buddhas, we receive the highest teaching.

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Therefore, Śāriputra!
I expounded an expedient teaching
In order to elinate their sufferings.
That was the teaching of Nirvāṇa.
The Nirvāṇa which I expounded to them
Was not true extinction.
All things are from the outset
In the state of tranquil extinction.

The Buddha provides this explanation to his disciple Śāriputra in Chapter Two of the Lotus Sūtra. In this part of the story, the Buddha has announced that everything he had taught up until then, including the teachings of suffering and Nirvāṇa, were merely preparation for his highest teaching: the realization of the same enlightenment he reached. With the teaching of Nirvāṇa, the Buddha helps us take responsibility for our own situation rather than relying on an external force to make us happy. One problem with Nirvāṇa is that we can believe that it is something we do not have now. When we extinguish the fires of our delusion, we see the world with the Buddha’s eyes. We see the world for what it is, right here and right now.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

The father thought, ‘These sons are pitiful. They are so poisoned that they are perverted. Although they rejoice at seeing me and ask me to cure them, they do not consent to take this good medicine. Now I will have them take it with an expedient.’

The Buddha gives this description as part of the Parable of the Wise Physician in Chapter Sixteen of the Lotus Sūtra. In the story, the physician’s children have mistakenly taken poison, yet refuse the remedy their father provides for them. The children are just like us as we cling to our attachments and delusions and refuse the good medicine of the Buddha Dharma. This refusal can be for many reasons. The children may think the remedy is worse than the poison. They may be holding out for another remedy that may be even more pleasant. They may enjoy being poisoned. They may not trust that their father can cure them. As the father in the story faked his death to bring the children to their right minds, the Buddha seems to disappear from our lives so that we may learn to accept the teaching he provides for us. And as the father reappeared to the children once they took the remedy, the Buddha reappears to us when we practice his teaching.

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He will be able to recognize
All the sounds and voices
Inside and outside the one thousand million Sumeru-worlds,
[Each being composed of the six regions]
Down to the Avīci Hell and up to the Highest Heaven.
And yet his organ of hearing will not be destroyed.
He will be able to recognize everything by hearing
Because his ears are sharp.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Nineteen of the Lotus Sūtra about those who practice the Buddha Dharma. We may believe that a spiritual practice leads us to “otherworldly” experiences that allow us to escape the problems we find in the world around us. These verses remind us that the teachers of the Dharma become more engaged with the world around us rather than becoming separate from it. It is through our right practice of the Lotus Sūtra that we become aware of the world as it is, and our place in making it better.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

They will be able to recognize all the sounds and voices inside and outside the one thousand million Sumeru-worlds, although they have not yet obtained heavenly ears. Even when they recognize all these various sounds and voices, their organ of hearing will not be destroyed.

The Buddha gives this explanation to Constant-Endeavor Bodhisattva in Chapter Nineteen of the Lotus Sūtra, describing those who keep the Lotus Sūtra. As we shed our delusions and see the world more for what it is, we begin to see and understand things not visible or comprehensible to those still mired in their suffering and attachment. Knowing the suffering we have left behind, we may be lured into abandoning this world and those in it. In this chapter, the Buddha shows that all of the sense organs we have in this life, sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and thought, all of these can be used either to increase our delusion or bring us towards awakening. The Buddha reached enlightenment in this world, and so do we.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

Now I will tell you
About my previous existence
And also about yours.
All of you, listen attentively!

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Six of the Lotus Sūtra. When the Buddha taught in India 2500 years ago, people took for granted that their lives continued from previous lives and would continue on into future lives. Whatever comforts we enjoy or calamities we endure in this life were thought to be caused by what we did in our former lifetimes. Our actions today were thought to determine what happens in our future lives. To our modern understanding this can sound mystical and unlikely. But if we understand that everything, including our joy and suffering, has causes and conditions, whether or not we realize these results immediately, we know that the result of creating benefit is benefit, and the result of creating harm is harm. When we hold the happiness of all beings to be as precious as our own, we would no more mistreat others than we would want them to mistreat us.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

Thereupon the Buddha said to World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva:

“Receive it out of your compassion towards this Endless-Intent Bodhisattva, towards the four kinds of devotees, and towards the other living beings including gods, dragons, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, human and nonhuman beings!”

In Chapter Twenty-Five of the Lotus Sūtra, Endless-Intent Bodhisattva offers a necklace of gems with inestimable value to World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva. At first World-Voice-Perceiver refuses to take it, and only accepts it when the Buddha asks him to receive it for the benefit of all beings. This reminds us that when we cultivate a mind of compassion, anything we receive is not meant to be held for our personal benefit. It is meant to be transformed into something beneficial for all beings.

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The Buddhas joyfully display
Their immeasurable, supernatural powers
Because [the Bodhisattvas from underground]
[Vow to] keep this sūtra after my extinction.

The Buddha sings these verses to Superior-Practice Bodhisattva (Jōgyo, Viśiṣṭacārītra) in Chapter Twenty-One of the Lotus Sūtra. Superior-Practice is the leader of the Bodhisattvas who came up from underground in Chapter Fifteen when the Buddha asked who would continue to keep and practice this sūtra after his physical extinction in this world. Nichiren saw himself as the embodiment of Superior-Practice, and all of us who are determined to lead all beings to enlightenment through this Wonderful Dharma as embodiments of the Bodhisattvas who came up from underground. The powers of the Buddhas only seem supernatural to those who are mired in delusion and ignorance. They are nothing more than turning the poison of anger into the medicine of energy; the poison of isolation into the medicine of compassion; the poison of attachment into the medicine of wisdom.

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Make offerings to World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva with all your hearts! This World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva-mahāsattva gives fearlessness [to those who are] in fearful emergencies. Therefore, he is called the ‘Giver of Fearlessness’ in this Sahā-World.

The Buddha gives this description of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva (Kannon, Kanzeon, Avalokitesvara) to Endless-Intent Bodhisattva in Chapter Twenty-Five of the Lotus Sūtra. World-Voice-Perceiver is the embodiment of compassion. When we make offerings to compassion, we show how much we value it. In this world of conflict, we are taught to value aggression and violence rather than compassion. Those who do not dominate others are judged as targets for domination. If we clear away the delusion of our self-importance, and see other beings as worthy of happiness just as we are, we find ways for everyone to benefit together.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

Know this, Śāriputra!
I once vowed that I would cause
All living beings to become
Exactly as I am.

That old vow of mine
Has now been fulfilled.
I lead all living beings
Into the Way to Buddhahood.

The Buddha sings these verses in Chapter Two of the Lotus Sūtra. Earlier in the chapter he explained that all the teachings he used before the Lotus Sūtra were mere expedients, intended to use our desire for happiness to bring us out of our suffering and onto the path of enlightenment. The expedient teachings were tailored to the ignorant and deluded minds of those who heard them, but had not yet revealed the true wisdom and compassion of the Buddha. Now that we have met this Wonderful Dharma, we are assured of our enlightenment and that of all beings. We learn to see innumerable Buddhas in limitless worlds through unimaginable time, and our own true selves at the heart of reality.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com