This story [of the arrival of the Stupa of Treasures] presents us with an interesting image of the universe as a place in which Shakyamuni and his world, which is our world, is central, and yet Shakyamuni is far from being the only buddha. First of all, there is the buddha named Abundant Treasures, who comes out of the distant past in a dramatic way in order to praise Shakyamuni Buddha for teaching the Dharma Flower Sutra. The resulting image of two buddhas sitting side by side on a single seat is a unique one. But this image is dependent on another, which reaches not into the distant past, but into distant reaches of contemporary space to reveal the innumerable buddhas in all directions. In other words, it is only after all the worlds have been integrated into a single buddha land that the congregation is able to see Abundant Treasures Buddha and the two buddhas sitting together in the stupa.

Up to this [Chapter 10] in the Sutra the term bodhisattva has been used in at least two distinctly different ways. On the one hand, it is used as a kind of title or rank for great, well-known, and basically mythical bodhisattvas such as Maitreya and Manjushri. Such great bodhisattvas, often called bodhisattva great ones, are very important in Buddhism, as they can symbolize great virtues such as compassion and wisdom, and serve as ideal models of what we can be.

We have seen in earlier chapters that shravakas, beginning with Shariputra, are actually bodhisattvas – they are on the way to becoming buddhas. But we never find such expressions as “Shariputra Bodhisattva.” A somewhat different use of “bodhisattva” is being made, one in which the term does not represent a rank and status but a kind of relational activity. Accordingly, anyone can be a bodhisattva for someone else. The primary meaning of this is, of course, that we ourselves, the hearers or readers of the Dharma Flower Sutra, can be bodhisattvas and indeed sometimes are.

In this story [of the jewel in the robe], using the treasure clearly means using it to enjoy life. Life is difficult, but we are much freer, more able to appreciate, more able to cope with whatever difficulties life presents us if we have an appropriate attitude toward life and toward ourselves. Having a good attitude toward life, for the Dharma Flower Sutra, means seeing everything that comes to us as a gift, more especially as an opportunity, as what we call a “learning experience.” Yes, life can be very difficult, but if we approach the troubles and difficulties that come our way as opportunities for learning, we will enjoy life more fully.

In Mahayana Buddhism, the importance of helping others is often stressed. But we should know that even helping others is never merely helping others – it always contributes to our own enjoyment of life as well. The Dharma Flower Sutra encourages us to look for and cultivate the good both in ourselves and in others.

Though it may have such a result, the Dharma should not be practiced merely for the sake of obtaining a peaceful or comfortable life, a kind of palace. We too should give our palaces to the Buddha, which means that we should have deeply felt compassion toward others and a desire to help others. The great teacher Nichiren said that a hundred years of practice in a pure land was not equal to a day of practice in this impure land. We must do the hard work of a bodhisattva.

According to the simile of the great cloud and rain, every living being is, in one sense, equally valuable. Each has its own function within the larger whole. Each has its own integrity, its own value for itself, its own goodness, its own purposes, its own beauty. The rain nourishes according to the needs of the various plants. A big tree requires more water than a small shoot of grass. But this does not necessarily mean that the big tree is superior to the small blade of grass; it’s just bigger. Different living beings play different roles in the ecology of the planet. Each of us depends on a vast network of living beings, which are dependent on each other. Thus, a certain harmony or peace is required – not necessarily a perfect harmony, but enough of a harmony to enable the system to function and survive through growth and modification.

Today, many believe that the minimal harmony necessary for human survival on earth is being destroyed by earth’s dominant group of living beings – human beings. Whole habitats – rainforests, wetlands, uncultivated plains, natural rivers and streams – have been destroyed and are still being destroyed, probably at an increasing rate. Increased economic activity virtually everywhere also means increasing pollution of the air and water and the very soil upon which we depend for much of our food. In addition to such environmental destruction, humankind has developed weapons of enormous destructive power that could hardly have been imagined a century ago.

In this sense, human beings have made themselves more important, that is, more powerful, than other living beings in this ecosystem. They threaten to destroy even the minimal harmony that makes life on earth possible.

This is a situation well beyond what the Indian compilers of the Lotus Sutra could have imagined. It would be foolish to claim that the Sutra provides a recipe for solving the kind of problems that threaten the planet today. But, in principle, the Sutra is hardly silent about such matters. It calls upon us to recognize that – in important respects – all living beings are equal. All are nourished by the same processes, symbolized in the simile as the rain of the Dharma.

For followers of the Dharma Flower Sutra, there is no such thing as a “hopeless case.” Everyone, without exception, has within himself or herself an inner strength, a great power, to flourish in some way.

And yet, in this story, upon seeing the great power and wealth of the father, the son runs away in fear. Sometimes, when we see how great is the Buddha’s treasury – how great the responsibility of compassionate knowing – we too may run away in fear. It is not easy to be a follower of the Dharma Flower Sutra or of the bodhisattva way. It involves taking responsibility, both for one’s own life and for the lives of others. And that can be frightening. That is why it is not enough for a religion to teach doctrine; it must provide assurance, over and over again – assurance that life can be meaningful, even wonderful, assurance that can overcome our natural tendency to run away in fear.

At a meeting some time ago of the International Buddhist Congregation in Tokyo, a young woman described how, dissatisfied with the faith in which she had been raised, she had searched among Christian and Buddhist traditions for an appropriate faith for herself, finally discovering with some joy the importance of having faith in herself. We might think that faith in oneself is not enough. And indeed it isn’t. But it is an important beginning. The poor man in this story was not able to become a functioning contributor to his family and society until he gained some respect for and confidence in himself.

We should realize that in this story it is the lure of the three “lesser” vehicles that actually saves the children. In running out, the children are pursuing the shravaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva ways. And here, these three ways, including the bodhisattva way, are essentially equal, as they are equally effective, perhaps with one appealing to some of the children, another to others, and the other to still other children. These “smaller” vehicles, in other words, are sufficient for saving people, that is, for enabling them to enter the One Buddha Vehicle and become bodhisattvas, ones who are on the way to becoming buddhas themselves.

There are two versions of the story, one in prose, the other in verse. Except for the fact that the verse version gives much more detail about what can be seen by the Buddha’s beam of light, the two versions are basically the same. Yet there are some interesting small differences. For example, in the prose version Manjushri Bodhisattva explains that the purpose of the beam of light is to announce that the Dharma Flower Sutra is about to be taught, while at the end of the verse version he says that its purpose is “to help reveal the principle of the true nature of all things.”

This phrase, “the true nature of all things,” has been variously translated and interpreted. There are two major possibilities: One is that it is an affirmation of the reality of the everyday world of concrete realities, as opposed to views that understand this world to be a product of our minds or an illusion. The other possibility is that it is a claim that the Buddha’s teachings reveal the nature of all things, namely, that all things are interrelated and interdependent, ultimately empty of independent nature. The fact that a kind of equivalence of announcing the teaching of the Dharma Flower Sutra and revealing the principle of the true nature of things suggest this latter interpretation. That is: the Dharma Flower Sutra itself reveals the true nature of things.