That heavenly flowers rain both on the Buddha and on the whole assembly is very important. It means that it is not only beautiful and rewarding to preach the Dharma; it is also beautiful and rewarding to hear it. It is, in other words, one of the ways in which there is equality among all of those in the congregation, including the Buddha. This shows that there should be no sharp distinction between teachers and learners. While many forms of Buddhism have adopted a kind of system in which some are authorized to be permanent teachers and others to be students, the Dharma Flower Sutra teaches that we should all be both teachers and learners. Nonetheless there will be times when some are in special positions as teachers or as learners – but this should always be understood as temporary and relative. All can and need to be teachers, and all can and need to be learners.

That this Chapter comes last and therefore can be seen as a kind of conclusion to the Sutra means that the Dharma is not complete without being put into practice – that is, without being put into action in everyday, concrete life. It is not enough to study and gain wisdom, not enough to feel compassion. One must also embrace the Sutra by embodying it in one’s life. Faith is not faith if it is only believed, or only felt; it must be lived. One must strive to become a buddha by being a bodhisattva for others, which means nothing more and nothing less than embodying Buddha Dharma by helping others in whatever ways are appropriate and in whatever ways one can. Among those ways is giving encouragement and strength to others, being Universal Sage Bodhisattva for them.

One of the truly liberating teachings of the Dharma Flower Sutra and Mahayana Buddhism generally is that one does not have to become a monk or nun in order to follow the bodhisattva way of being, just like the Buddha himself, a Dharma teacher. As we see most explicitly in Chapter 10 of the Dharma Flower Sutra, anyone can be a Dharma teacher for others. Such Dharma teachers are all children of the Buddha. But here being a child of the Buddha is not so much an alternative, as it is when one leaves home to follow a buddha, as it is an addition, a kind of fulfillment of being a child of one’s biological parents. This is what is symbolized in this story by the fact that the whole family – father, mother, children, and servants – gives up domestic life in order to follow a buddha together.

Thus, the meaning of this story for us is that we can be children of our parents and parents of our children, or have no children at all, and still be children, true followers, of the Buddha. potential to be a true child of the Buddha, according to the Dharma Flower Sutra, is not initially something we have to earn or learn, it is given to us, just as both our parents and our children are given to us. Relationships created by birth can be grossly distorted or even forgotten, but cannot be completely destroyed or abolished. So, from the moment of our birth, our relationship with the Buddha, a relationship that has close affinities to the relationship of a parent with a child, is always being given to us and can never be completely rejected or abolished.

Compassion is a useful virtue, in that it can be effectively used by anyone. One of the most impressive things one can experience, as I have on many occasions, is the compassion that dying people often have for those around them. On many occasions I have seen dying people attempt to calm and cheer friends and relatives at their bedside. Of course, everyone can be wise to some degree as well, but there surely is a sense in which the way of compassionate action is more open to everyone than a way that emphasizes the acquisition of wisdom.

Compassion is best embodied in skill, in compassionate action. The tools in the hands of the Thousand-armed Kwan-yin symbolize the many means by which Kwan-yin can help living beings in need. This imagery is, I believe, revealing of the kind of wisdom embodied in Kwan-yin – not some kind of esoteric knowledge of the mind alone, but the practical wisdom found not only in minds but also in hands.

But skill is, after all, a kind of wisdom. So compassion should not be seen in contrast to wisdom but only in contrast to disembodied wisdom. To be compassionate is to embody compassion, not just to feel it or think about it or contemplate it. It is to actualize compassion in the world, wherever we are, and thus in our relationships with relatives, neighbors, friends, and even strangers. It is to be compassionate. This is to embody the Buddha, that is, to give life to the Buddha in the present world.

Though hardly unique to [Chapter 24] of the Lotus Sutra, one very clear message here is the one given by his buddha to Wonderful Voice Bodhisattva: Don’t make light of Shakyamuni’s world! Even though its ground is not made of gold or other precious materials but of dirt, even though it is not smooth but includes many high and low places and even rocks and mountains, even though its buddha and bodhisattvas are extremely short and unattractive compared with ours, one should never think that world is inferior.

We can only guess what is behind the concern contained in this statement. Obviously, the writers believed that someone was not taking this world seriously enough. Does it indicate a time and place where people thought some distant land, some faraway paradise, was to be preferred to this world? Does it indicate a reaction to a worldview that rejected the reality and importance of this world in favor of some ideal world? We cannot be sure. But it is very clear that both here and in many other places the Dharma Flower Sutra emphasizes the value and importance of life in this world, the home of Shakyamuni Buddha, in which the path of the bodhisattva can be taken, the land that is our only home and place of practice.

The final verses of Chapter 21 have sometimes been taken to be the final teaching of the Sutra and therefore to be especially important. They express, quite simply, the power and possibility that each of us has to make a positive difference wherever we are.

After the extinction of the Tathagata,
Anyone who knows the sutras preached by the Buddha,
Their causes and conditions and proper order,
Will teach them truthfully in accord with their true meaning.
Just as the light of the sun and the moon Can dispel darkness,
Such a person, working in the world,
Can dispel the gloom of living beings, Leading innumerable bodhisattvas
Finally to dwell in the One Vehicle.

The long and broad tongue reaching to the Brahma heaven testifies to the truth of what had been taught. It is a way of affirming that what the Buddha teaches is true, especially true in the sense of being effective in relieving suffering. This tongue symbolizes the length and breadth the Dharma: it is both broad or inclusive and long in that it can reach everywhere. Though it takes many forms, the Dharma goes everywhere and is one; that is, it is neither divided nor fragmented.

Thus this image of the long and broad tongue reaching to the heavens is called a symbol of nimon-shin’itsu, “two gateways, one in faith.” That is, in faith the two halves of the Sutra are one, and Shakyamuni Buddha and the Original Buddha are one. …

This unity of Shakyamuni Buddha and the Original Buddha is related to the Dharma Flower Sutra’s repeated affirmation of the reality and importance of this concrete, actual world. The original, universal Buddha is always an embodied Buddha – for us, principally Shakyamuni Buddha, who is uniquely the Buddha of this world, the one declared in the Lotus Sutra to be the “father of this world.” The abstract universal and original Buddha has to be embodied in order to make a difference in this world. Without Shakyamuni Buddha, for us at least, there might be no buddha at all. Even the three Pure Land Sutras, which are the textual basis for devotion to Amida Buddha, like the Dharma Flower Sutra are said to have been preached on Eagle Peak by Shakyamuni Buddha. Regardless of what buddha is the main object of art or devotion, the whole Buddhist tradition has its historical origin in Shakyamuni Buddha.

This medicine is like the rain of the Dharma in Chapter 5, the same rain that goes everywhere to nourish all kinds of plants, but is received differently because people are different in their abilities, in what they like and dislike, and in their backgrounds. In other words, Buddha-medicine needs to be different for different people. What is important is to discern what medicine will actually work for someone. The medicine prepared for and given to the children is not really medicine at all for them until they actually take it. A medicine that is not taken, no matter how well prepared and no matter how good the intentions of the physician, is not effective, not skillful, not yet really medicine.

The same is true of the Buddha Dharma. It has to be taken or embraced by somebody, has to become real spiritual nourishment for someone, in order to be effective. Again, this is why in the Dharma Flower Sutra teaching is always a two-way relationship. Dharma is not the Dharma until it is received and embraced by someone. And, of course, people are different – so the Dharma has to be taught in a great variety of ways, using different stories, different teachings, poetry as well as prose, and so on.

The same is true of religious practices. For some Buddhists, meditation is effective; for others, recitation; for others, careful observance of precepts; for still others, sutra study; and so on. It is through an ample variety of teachings and practices that the Dharma has been effective and can be effective still. If we insist that there is only one proper way to practice Buddhism, it would be as if the physician in this story decided to let the children die because they did not immediately take the medicine he had offered.