In considering Chapter 13, Encouragement for Keeping this Sutra, I’ve always been influenced by Rev. Ryusho Jeffus’ Lecture on the Lotus Sutra entry on the topic.
Lecture on the Lotus SutraIn Chapter 13, the predictions for Maha-Prajapati Biksuni and Yasodhara Biksuni come about in an indirect sort of way. The Buddha notices his aunt, the woman who raised him after his mother died in child birth, looking at him. I can just imagine it to be one of those looks only a mother could give a child, something on the order of a scolding without words. This would be a look that probably told the Buddha, Hey aren’t you forgetting something?
At any rate the Buddha guesses what his aunt is thinking and asks her if she thought that somehow she had been left out of all the predictions that have now covered every practitioner type, Sravakas, Pratyekabuddhas, Bodhisattvas. He says he had already assured the Sravakas of their enlightenment and that he did not exclude her from that general grouping. In this I believe the Buddha realizes that even though he had implicitly included women in the general prediction, he realizes now that the women really need it clearly stated not just for them but for the males in the congregation.
And that’s probably why I stumble when considering Nikkyō Niwano’s take on this portion of the Lotus Sutra.
Buddhism for Today, p162It may seem strange that the Buddha in his predictions had left them until last and that before mentioning them he had given his prediction to the dragon king’s daughter, who was, so to speak, an indirect disciple instructed by Mañjuśrī, and only an eight-year-old girl. This priority has the following meanings. First, as already mentioned in the explanation of the Buddha’s prediction to Ānanda and Rāhula, for those closest to the Buddha, like the Bhikṣunī Mahāprajāpatī, who had brought up Śākyamuni from babyhood, and the Bhikṣunī Yaśodharā, who had been his wife and had given birth to his son, such intimacy could have become a hindrance rather than a help to their practice. The Buddha teaches us that someone like the dragon king’s daughter, who is a perfect stranger to the Buddha, can receive the Law with ease, while we may find great difficulty in instructing those closest to us, such as our parents and spouses. The delay of the Buddha’s prediction to the Bhikṣunī Mahāprajāpatī and the Bhikṣunī Yaśodharā does not mean that they were considered inferior to the dragon king’s daughter.
The observation that it is difficult to instruct those closest to us is a lesson we should take to heart, but that is not the lesson the authors of the Lotus Sutra intended with this story. Mahāprajāpatī and Yaśodharā received predictions here to underscore that everyone – male and female – has the potential to enter the path and become Buddhas. They represent all women of faith, not just the Buddha’s relatives.