The bodhisattva way is affirmed throughout the Dharma Flower Sutra. The Sutra does not reject other ways, neither the shravaka way nor the pratyekabuddha way, but it does make them subordinate to the way of bodhisattvas, which, revealingly, is also called “the Buddha Way.” This is because the bodhisattva way is understood to be a path leading one to becoming a buddha, that is, to embodying the Buddha in one’s life. Lesser goals may be useful and effective in leading one to the bodhisattva way, but they should be regarded as entrances to the way, or resting places along the way.

Thus it is that the four great bodhisattvas – Superior Practice, Unlimited Practice, Pure Practice, and Firm Practice – who lead the great horde of bodhisattvas who emerge from the earth are said to display, or correspond to, the four great bodhisattva vows:

Firm Practice: However innumerable living beings are, I vow to save them all;

Pure Practice: However innumerable hindrances are, I vow to overcome them all;

Unlimited Practice: However innumerable the Buddha’s teachings are, I vow to master them all;

Superior Practice: However supreme the Buddha Way is, I vow to reach it.

These four vows make clear what the way of the bodhisattva is: It is devotion to the goal of helping everyone to attain the potential they have within themselves to be a buddha.

[A]n enormously large group of bodhisattvas spoke to the Buddha, telling him not to worry as after his extinction, “in a frightful and evil age,” even if cursed and abused or attacked with swords and sticks they would teach the Sutra everywhere. In such an evil age, “full of dreadful things, evil spirits will take possession of others to curse, abuse, and insult us.” In order to teach this Sutra they will wear “an armor of patient endurance” and “endure all such difficult things.” “We will cherish neither our bodies nor our lives,” they say, “but care only for the unexcelled way,” protecting and upholding in ages to come “what the Buddha has entrusted to us.” Repeatedly driven out from stupas and monasteries, they will endure such troubles, going wherever there are those who seek it to teach the Dharma entrusted to them by the Buddha. We are, they say, “emissaries” of the Buddha, “facing multitudes without fear,” in order to spread the Dharma. (LS 257-60)

We do not know what circumstances in India led to this kind of anticipation of abuse and persecution of followers of the Dharma Flower Sutra, but, especially for Nichiren and his followers, these words could be seen as anticipating their own experience. They were a powerful encouragement to endure suffering and persist in teaching the Sutra to others no matter how great the difficulties.

Today, few of us have to face such extreme persecution for teaching the Lotus Sutra. But most followers of the Sutra certainly do face difficulties, especially from those who are antagonistic toward the Sutra and toward those who seek to teach it. And in most, if not all, of the world such antagonism may be directed more intensely toward women. We know that Mahaprajapati and Yashodhara had to overcome great difficulties and even hostility toward women in order to become nuns and teachers of the Dharma.

There are other kinds of difficulties as well, difficulties in understanding the Sutra, difficulties in translation and interpretation, difficulties adequately embodying the teachings in our everyday lives, difficulties in teaching or preaching it, difficulties in sharing our enthusiasm for it. Indeed, for those who want to uphold the Dharma Flower Sutra, there is no shortage of difficulties. It is all too easy to become disheartened and discouraged and want to give up.

Chapter 13, especially perhaps in the final verses, “We will cherish neither our bodies nor our lives, but care only for the unexcelled way,” can be a wonderful encouragement to continue despite such difficulties. If others have faced terrible abuse and persecution, surely we too can face difficulties and survive.

As we see in Chapter 12 of the Dharma Flower Sutra, there are two stories, both of which suggest the importance of enabling by seeing. The first is ostensibly a story about Devadatta, someone whom everyone, at least in the Buddhist world, knows is the epitome of evil. But in Chapter 12 we find none of this, which everyone knows already. Instead we find the Buddha telling a story about a previous life in which Devadatta was his teacher. We may think this story is mainly about Devadatta, but, more importantly, it is a story about the Buddha, especially about the Buddha’s ability to see the bodhisattva in Devadatta. The Buddha enables Devadatta by assuring him that he too is to become a buddha.

The second story in Chapter 12 is about the dragon princess who becomes a buddha in an instant. Present are two men, Shariputra, who thinks that it is impossible for a woman to become a buddha, and Accumulated Wisdom Bodhisattva, who thinks it is crazy to think that a little girl could become awakened suddenly. What the dragon princess says to them is very interesting. “Just watch,” she says, “use your holy powers to watch me become a buddha even more quickly than it took for Shakyamuni Buddha to take a jewel from my hand.” (LS 283) In a sense, a little girl becomes a buddha for them, but she can do this only if they used their “holy powers,” their vision, to allow her to be a buddha for them, to open themselves to her being a buddha for them.

Normally we think of Buddha Dharma as coming from the Buddha. This is correct, of course. But it is also essential to see that the Dharma, and therefore the Buddha, can come to us from many sources – if we open ourselves to it.

The title of the English version of the autobiography of the founder of Rissho Kosei-kai, Nikkyo Niwano, is Lifetime Beginner. The term “beginner” has connotations of being inexperienced or green. The implication of this is, of course, that one always needs to be learning, always needs to be open to new experience, new stories, new ideas. It is easy to think of this remarkable man as being self-taught, which in a sense he was. But he was self-taught only by learning from others, a great variety of others. He learned, for example, about Buddhist teachings from Buddhist scholars, including some very famous Buddhist scholars, but he also learned about Buddhism, and received the Buddha Dharma from ordinary members of Rissho Kosei-kai. He was a lifetime learner. The importance of being open to others, of learning from them, even of seeing the Buddha in them, is something we might learn from the story ofWonderful Voice Bodhisattva.

Whatever else it is, the great Stupa in this story is a literary device providing a reason for assembling all of the buddhas from all directions. This Stupa springing out of the earth from the past could be material from a dream, or from a rich imagination. But it can also be said that Abundant Treasures Buddha symbolizes the truth, the Dharma that does not change and is a kind of ground or basis for all teaching of the Dharma. In this way, Shakyamuni Buddha can symbolize the teacher of the Dharma. And the two buddhas sitting together on a single seat would indicate both that the teacher is to be respected as much as the truth itself, and the opposite, namely, that however devoted we may be to Shakyamuni Buddha for teaching, we should remember that our devotion should be based on his teaching the truth.

Rahula was also known as a “first” – first in quietly doing good. It is said that this means that he followed the Vinaya precepts, the rules for monks, very strictly. Like Ananda, he became one of the Buddha’s ten principal disciples.

As he was Shakyamuni’s only biological son, it was only natural that Shakyamuni Buddha would make an extra effort not to show any favoritism toward him. Thus there are many stories of Rahula being treated by his father just like any other follower.

While the name Ananda means “bliss” or “joy,” the name Rahula means “obstruction,” “bond,” or “fetter.” Born just shortly before the future Buddha left home to pursue enlightenment, it is said that he was named Rahula by his grandfather after the future Buddha announced immediately after the birth of his son that an “obstruction” (rahula) had been born. Like many sons of noble Shakya families of the time, the future Buddha apparently had been thinking of leaving home from a fairly young age. It is said that his own father, the king, had arranged for his marriage to Yashodhara when he was nineteen in order to discourage him from leaving home. Ten years later, Rahula was born, and it was said that Shakyamuni called him Rahula because he created “bonds” of affection. This story would later be used to show how a bond of love can be an impediment or hindrance to one who wants to follow the life of a monk.

Though his age at the time is far from certain, Rahula was about seven years old when Shakyamuni returned to his home in Kapilavasthu with many of his followers and stayed in a bamboo grove outside the city. Yashodhara pointed his father out to the boy, but at first Shakyamuni paid no attention to his son. When they were about to leave, Yashodhara told Rahula to ask for his father’s blessings. He did so, and Shakyamuni beckoned to him to follow him. When they reached the forest, Shakyamuni told Shariputra to shave the boy’s head, put him in monk’s robes, and make him the first novice monk. In some accounts, Yashodhara tells Rahula to ask his father for his inheritance and his wealth, and the Buddha instead makes him the inheritor of his spiritual wealth by turning him into a novice monk.

Just as according to Fa-hsien nuns worshiped at the stupas of Ananda, novice monks worshiped at the Stupa of Rahula, who apparently died before his father did.

In [Chapter 8: The Assurance of Future Buddhahood of the Five Hundred Disciples], as in others, when the Buddha describes the future buddha land of Purna after he has become the buddha named Dharma Radiance, he says that his land will be without women, that men will have no sexual desire, and that they will be born without having mothers. Historically, such a misanthropic attitude toward women probably reflects the experience of celibate monks living in India twenty centuries ago. Sexuality and gender has been an ongoing problem for Buddhism. This is in large part because sexual desire in men can be seen as the prime embodiment of desire and greed – everything that Buddhism, especially traditional Indian Buddhism, opposed and sought to abolish. Women were seen as the cause of men’s sexual desires, and thus as embodiments of evil.

With respect to attitudes toward women, Buddhism was something of an improvement over Hinduism. Women were, for example, admitted into the community as ordained nuns, as was true in Jainism. But nuns were radically subordinated to monks and it was believed that only through rebirth as a man could a woman have any possibility of awakening fully.

The Dharma Flower Sutra often reflects such attitudes, as appears to be the case in this chapter. But, as we will see later, it sometimes takes a more generous view of women and of their potential to be Dharma teachers and become buddhas in the future. Thus the Sutra is consistent in teaching that every living being has the potential to become a buddha in this world. In doing this, in maintaining the consistent teaching of universal buddha-nature, the Sutra takes an important step toward teaching the equality of men and women.

Yet while the Dharma Flower Sutra does take a step forward with respect to equality, going beyond Hinduism, beyond traditional Buddhism, and even beyond many Mahayana sutras, it only takes a step, and not a very large one at that, falling far short of today’s standards. We can, I believe, love the Dharma Flower Sutra and seek to follow its important teachings while still recognizing that, like everything else, it has limitations. We should not forget that the Sutra itself teaches that all Buddhist teachings are skillful means, relative to their time and circumstance, including the details of the Dharma Flower Sutra. In this sense, though ahead of its time in most ways, in some other ways the Lotus Sutra reflects the limitations of the culture and time in which it arose.

While there are several important things one might learn from this story [of the Magic City], its central message is quite clear: while we may think that nirvana, a condition of complete rest and quiet, is our final goal, it is not. While we may think that nirvana is salvation, that is only a useful illusion from which we will eventually need to move on. According to the Dharma Flower Sutra, it is always an illusion to think that we have arrived and have no more to do, to think that if we reach some kind of experience of happiness or comfort, we have reached the end of the path.

Similarly, while we may think that the Buddha entered final nirvana, becoming “extinct” and thus no longer active, that too is only a useful illusion, as the Buddha is working still, enabling us to live and work with him to save all the living. In Chapter 16 of the Sutra we can find these words:

In order to liberate the living,
As a skillful means I appear to enter nirvana.
Yet truly I am not extinct.
I am always here teaching the Dharma. (LS 296)

The Buddha has used teachings, including the teaching of his own final nirvana, to help people along difficult roads.

In many of the parables in the Dharma Flower Sutra, it is a father figure who represents the Buddha. It is possible that the use of such stories influenced the teachings of the Dharma Flower Sutra, leading it, probably more than any other Buddhist text, to emphasize the father-like nature of the Buddha, personalizing him as it were. Over and over, the Lotus Sutra uses personal language to speak of an ultimately important reality. Far from being “absolute,” or even “omniscient,” as the Buddhist tradition has sometimes claimed, the Buddha of the Dharma Flower Sutra is someone who is very concerned for his children. This means, in effect, that the happiness of the Buddha, the fulfillment of the Buddha’s purpose, depends – again – on us.

One of the ten great disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha, Shariputra was usually regarded as first in wisdom, sometimes regarded as first among the disciples, and sometimes even mistaken by Jains as the leader of the Buddhist movement. Shariputra was a brahman, a member of the highest caste in India, who left a wealthy family to follow one of the six great non-Buddhist teachers. This teacher taught skepticism about knowledge of things we cannot see – such things as other worlds, causation, and so forth.

It is said that Shariputra and Maudgalyayana (called “Maha Maudgalyayana,” Great Maudgalyayana, in his only appearance in the Lotus Sutra) were close friends before they became monks. One day when they were in a crowd of people watching dancing girls and enjoying a festival, Shariputra suddenly realized that all of those people now having so much fun, and he himself, would soon be dead. He resolved to seek liberation from a condition in which the conclusion to everything is death. After listening to several other teachers, he decided, with Maudgalyayana, to become a disciple of the skeptic Sanjaya. Later, after meeting a monk who told him only that the Buddha’s main teaching was that all things are produced through causation, together with Maudgalyayana and all of the other disciples of Sanjaya, he joined the Buddha’s following. This was about a year after Shakyamuni’s awakening.

Legend also has it that when he was about to die, Shariputra requested permission from the Buddha to do so before the Buddha himself, as he would not be able to stand the grief of witnessing the Buddha’s death. With the Buddha’s permission he returned to his home with one disciple. Saying “I have been with all of you for forty years. If I have offended anyone, please forgive me,” he lay down on his bed, and quietly passed away.

It is extremely important, I believe, to understand that the many skillful means are always within the One Buddha Way, not alternatives to it. The many skillful means are “skillful” only because they skillfully lead to the One Way, and the One Way exists only by being embodied in many skillful means. Understanding the One Way and the many skillful means as separate, alternative ways has been a great mistake, a mistake that has sometimes led to disrespect, intolerance, and disdain for others.