In Chapter 8, “Receipt of Prophecy by Five Hundred Disciples,” the Buddha predicts the future Buddhahood of Purna, one of his ten outstanding disciples. His full name is Purnamaitrayaniputra (son of Maitrayana). Maitrayana, which was the name of his mother, is Sanskrit for “the fullness of loving kindness.” He was foremost among the Buddha’s senior disciples in giving excellent Dharma talks. Purna was present in the assembly when the Buddha predicted the Buddhahood of the four bhikshus, and he was so moved by this that he came to stand near the Buddha as he was teaching. Then the Buddha looked at Purna and began to praise his fine qualities and practice, and predicted that he would become the Buddha Dharma Glow (Dharmaprabhasa) in a Buddha Land called Well Purified (Suvishuddha).

The feeling of the shravakayana is that you cannot yourself become a Buddha, you cannot be equal to a Buddha, because the Buddha is too great, he is unique. Along with this belief was the feeling that you don’t need to become a Buddha, so there is no need to cultivate bodhichitta, the aspiration to attain Buddhahood, in order to help others. You have a lot of suffering and you want to stop your suffering, so you concern yourself only with your own safety and liberation. You are satisfied with a small path, a small nirvana.

Out of his compassion and love for us, the Buddha gave the small vehicle teaching of nirvana in the beginning. But after a time, our skillful guide tells us it is time to go farther on the path. Even though many of us may be satisfied to stay and enjoy the peace and bliss of individual nirvana, the Buddha reminds us of our ultimate goal: to arrive at the shore of freedom and well-being and then extend a hand to others so that they may cross over to liberation. From the path of the shravakayana we continue onto the bodhisattva path of the Mahayana and continue our journey to the end.

The Buddha is our skillful guide, our teacher of the way. The Buddha gives us just one path, One Vehicle, to arrive at universal wisdom. But when we have gone only halfway we are already worn out. So the Buddha created a magical city – nirvana – the goal of the Hinayana path. Tasting the fruit of individual nirvana, we like it so much that we decide that it is quite enough for us and we do not want anything more.

Underlying this attitude is a kind of inferiority complex. We do not believe that we ourselves can become a Buddha because only such a great being as the Buddha could attain perfect wisdom. Mere humans are not capable of this. In terms of the historical dimension, the Buddha was a human being, like us. But after the Buddha’s parinirvana, people very much missed his presence, his personality. Even though he repeatedly warned his disciples, “Don’t take refuge in anyone, in any person – take refuge only in the Dharma and in yourselves,” the Buddha had been a refuge for the Sangha. So they began to envelop him in many layers of mysticism and made him into a deity to worship. They began to believe that the Buddha was unique, and he lost his status as a human being. The human dimension of the Buddha is more accessible to us than the deified Buddha that was created after his parinirvana.

Living beings cannot see into their own true nature right away, but the Buddha can. The Tathagata looks deeply into different beings, their forms, their essence, and their innate dispositions, and so is able to offer the Dharma in the way that is most beneficial to them. Seeing that one kind of disciple will best be able to follow a particular path of practice, the Buddha opens that Dharma gate. Mahayana sutras often mention “84,000 Dharma doors,” which is a way of saying that there are an infinite number of teachings and methods by which living beings may be liberated.

The Dharma is described as being “of a single flavor.” Just as the rain has one function, one effect – to nourish all the different species of plants and cause them to grow – the different teachings offered by the Tathagata as skillful means have but one taste – the taste of liberation and universal wisdom that delivers all beings to the realm of peace and joy.

In [Chapter 5] the Buddha uses the example of medicinal herbs. Throughout the worlds there are innumerable valleys, fields, and gardens that contain countless species of plants. Every species has its own name and character, its own life cycle, its specific strengths and properties. None is exactly like another. Living beings are the same. They are of many different types. The sphere of activities of one person is like this; the social circumstance of another person is like that. Living beings are thus like the innumerable kinds of plants that grow in different environments.

One day the clouds came and covered the entire cosmos, and rain fell on all the species of plants. Some plants were very small with slim branches, some were very large with broad leaves, and some were neither small nor large. There were so many species, so many types of plants, yet they all benefited fully from the rain, each according to its own needs and capacity.

The teachings of the Buddha are like this. The rain of the Dharma falls not just on one class or type of human being. Whether they are shravakas, pratyekabuddhas, or bodhisattvas, monastics or laypeople, nobles or peasants, workers or warriors, male or female, child, youth, adult, or elder – all beings benefit from the Tathagata’s teachings. The Dharma is universal and has the capacity to serve all kinds of people, not just one social class, one nation, or one kind of understanding.

The Buddha says in a gatha:

I am the Dharma King,
With respect to the Dharma acting completely at will.

The Buddha, the Dharma King, grasps the true nature, the ultimate dimension, of all things (dharmas) and therefore has the ability to use various skillful means to teach beings in the phenomenal realm – this world of form and appearances called “samsara.” The various teachings are Dharma doors, and a Buddha is someone who can enter any of these Dharma gateways at will and use them in a very free and skillful way, just as a great poet knows how to use words with great artistry and skill. So the teachings may appear in different forms, but ultimately they all lead to the One Vehicle, the Buddha vehicle, in which all beings realize their innate Buddha nature. This is absolute freedom in the field of time and space, nirvana right in the realm of samsara, and this is the great insight of the Buddha that was renewed in the Mahayana.

The Sutra tells us that the Buddha says to himself, “I am the Father of the beings; I must rescue them from their woes and troubles and give them the joy of incalculable and limitless Buddha wisdom.” The word “Father” here is a symbol of the Buddha’s love and concern for his children, all living beings. A father will use any means to rescue his children from a dangerous situation. That is how the Buddha feels about us. He sees how we are attached to our games, living in an illusion, and because of this we are not able to see the danger of our situation. So out of his love for his children, all living beings, he uses various methods to lead them out of suffering.

A disciple of the Buddha is the spiritual child of the Buddha. Our parents brought us into the world; they give us our physical body. When we come to the practice, we are reborn into our spiritual life, thanks to the Buddha. In the sutras it is said that the disciple is “born from the mouth of the Buddha.” From the mouth of the Buddha comes the sound of the true teachings, and from the true teachings comes our spiritual life. This beautiful image of the Buddha as the spiritual father of all beings is a symbol of his great love. The idea of “father” here symbolizes only a heart of love that is able to embrace all beings. It is not about authority or domination. The father does not fly into a rage, he does not punish us and send us away. His only function is to love. And because the father loves his children, he uses many different ways – skillful means – to save beings from danger. The verses say:

Even though the Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones,
Resort to expedient devices,
The living beings whom they convert
Are all bodhisattvas.

All the Buddhas throughout space and time, not just Shakyamuni Buddha, use these skillful means to help bring living beings out of the burning house. The Buddha’s original teachings – the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Three Dharma Seals, and dependent co-arising – contained the idea of the essential Buddha nature of all beings, their capacity for Buddhahood, in fact, their assurance of Buddhahood. Once living beings are able to enter the One Vehicle, they are all bodhisattvas. These two ideas in this chapter of the Lotus Sutra are very important.

When we hear this story [of the burning house], we may think it’s just a children’s story and that it doesn’t really have anything to do with our lives. But if we look more deeply into our minds and the state of mind of those around us, we see that this parable expresses the truth about our situation. We’re full of craving, always running after things. We want to become the director or president of a company, we want to buy a beautiful car or a nice house, or go on an exotic vacation. We don’t see that the world we’re living in, driven by craving and delusion, is like a burning house.