Since I became a Buddha, I [also] have been expounding various teachings with various stories of previous lives, with various parables, and with various similes. I have been leading all living beings with innumerable expedients in order to save them from various attachments, because I have the power to employ expedients and the power to perform the pāramitā of insight.
What has been stated so far is all about praising the Buddha’s wisdom. The present statement is the direct recounting of what Śākyamuni says he did himself. Entitling the [present] chapter (“Expedient Devices”) has yielded this phrase. The preceding words, accords with what is appropriate, may then be seen as bringing “encumbrances”; it is necessary thus to explain this again. [The Buddha] said “[what he preaches] accords with what is appropriate,” in the sense that “in accordance with” the kind of disease there should be “what is appropriate.” Diseases are myriad in kind. [By the same token] the teaching cannot be in a set pattern; but its fundamental purpose is to lead [beings] to cast aside their “encumbrances.” Otherwise [even] for a day, their “encumbrances” would not be loosened from (or “abandon”) li. Hence, he said, “since achieving Buddhahood.”