Under two billion Buddhas in the past, I always taught you in order to cause you to attain unsurpassed enlightenment. You studied under me in the long night. I led you with expedients. Therefore, you have your present life under me.

“Śāriputra! I caused you to aspire for the enlightenment of the Buddha in your previous existence. You forgot all this, and thought that you had already attained extinction. In order to cause you to remember the Way you practiced under your original vow, I now expound to the Śrāvakas this sūtra of the Great Vehicle called the ‘Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’

Formerly [Śāriputra wrongly assumed] with delight that he was enlightened, but [the Buddha], contradicting him, admonished him to drive himself to achieve it. The fact that the Lesser Vehicle had no great hope in earlier times, but now [the Buddha] grants the group a prophecy, implies that there is no “lesser” in li. The [Buddha’s] motive fog reviewing the practices [of Śāriputra] in the remote past is to show that it was [Śāriputra’s own] merits that invited such prophecies, but he did not mention this, because he had his mind set on secretly directing the collective sentiment of the congregation at the time.

Thereupon the Buddha said to Śāriputra: “Now I will tell you in the presence of this great multitude including gods, men, śramaṇas, and brāhmanas.”

This is the second segment. The gist of this part is that because there never has been the path of the Lesser Vehicle (Hinayāna) it turns out that [the Lesser] merely has been pointing toward the Buddha [path]. The enlightenment Body-son [Śāriputra] has built up was so profoundly manifest that [the Buddha] granted him a prophecy of his enlightenment. The story of the prophecy should not be held to be true in a real sense. [It was designed] merely for leading forward those who aspired to the prophecy.

I sat alone under a tree or walked about mountains and forests, thinking, ‘We [and the Bodhisattvas] entered the same world of the Dharma. Why does the Tathāgata save us only by the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle?’

Now I understand that the fault was on our side, not on yours…

The reason why he, upon hearing, was enlightened is because since earlier days he had had this thought every moment: “We will all equally enter into the Dharmahood; how could the Thus Come One limit it just to the Lesser [Vehicle] (Hinayāna)? Yet it is our own [fault] that we have taken merely the Lesser. Why did the Buddha do [it] this way? It is because [the Buddha] preached by means of a gradual process, namely, the Lesser first and the Greater later, certainly in that order [but not vice versa]. If I had waited for him to preach the Greater, I would have certainly obtained the Greater. But straight upon hearing [the Buddha] preach the Lesser, [I] immediately thought this to be the real Lesser. Having befriended my own [self-]interest, and ‘basing conclusions on it,’ [I] have always since been vexed at my own fault. Now hearing that they are one, and that we can enter into the Dharmahood without differentiating, [I] became awakened right away.” The intention of [the Buddha] himself was not in the Lesser; the disciples were thus vexed at their own fault. Now [Śāriputra] being awakened in such a way, his joy must be boundless. To wait also means “[We] should have waited.”

I have never felt like this before. Why is that? We [Śrāvakas and the Bodhisattvas] heard this Dharma before. [At that time] we saw that the Bodhisattvas were assured of their future Buddhahood, but not that we were. We deeply regretted that we were not given the immeasurable insight of the Tathāgata.

[Śāriputra] has expressed his joy [for attaining] what he had wanted to understand formerly. His [long held] intention to understand helped him to realize what he heard, namely, “such a Dharma as this.” Hearing that all beings are bound to become Buddhas, and seeing the bodhisattvas receive the prophecy of their enlightenment, he was sorely grieved himself that he alone was not included in this. What he heard today tallies with [what he heard] in the past. Thus once the [doctrine] was passed to him, he was immediately awakened. He regretted in the past having missed the Greater [Vehicle]; now his enlightenment obviously made him delighted.

Śāriputra, who felt like dancing with joy …

From this phrase to the beginning of [the parable of] “the burning house” there are altogether three segments explaining the purport. The first [segment] explains that Śāriputra has achieved understanding within himself and issues outward what he has comprehended. Because his doubts, arisen earlier, were serious, his anxiety and worry were very deep. Now, the first [among the congregation] enlightened to the One Vehicle, he expressed his pleasure, saying that he wanted to dance for joy. Unable to get over his pleasure, he could not help saying so. It is shown here that, by resort to the traces, [the Buddha] exigently draws [the attention of] the congregation of the moment, making the collective sentiment at the time deeply earnest.

In faculties there is [the distinction between] keeness and dullness: it follows that in enlightenment there is [the differences between those who can be awakened] early and [those who can only be awakened] late. [The Buddha] hitherto has made a presentation of the Dharma Blossom in a straightforward way, and those disciples with keen faculties have obtained an understanding of it, [as shown] in the preceding. Those who are dull have not been awakened yet. Thus [the Buddha] will explain it by resort to a parable. li is so profound and unfathomable that it is difficult to grasp it in one encounter. Therefore, [the Buddha] by evervarying adaptation, resorts to worldly things (shih) and images to depict his recondite purport. The worldly things borrowed to be analogized with li are referred to as parable.

I for the first time sat at the place of enlightenment[,]
[And attained enlightenment].
For three weeks afterwards,
I gazed on the tree,
Or walked about, thinking:
“The wisdom I obtained is
The most wonderful and excellent.
The living beings [of the six regions]
Are dull, attached to pleasures,
And blinded by stupidity.
How shall I save them?”

The fact that for the first seven days [the Buddha] “beheld the
Tree,” means that he intended to express his desire to requite the favors [he had received]. That he “walked about” for the intermediate seven days means that as [the future Buddha], while walking around [in meditation], [he] perfected the Tao under the shady trees; these favors thereby must have been requited. For the final seven days, he meditated on how to ferry the multitudinous beings across [to the other shore]. [Then] the Brahmā king begged [the Buddha] to turn the Dharma [wheel]. Perceiving (or stimulated by) (kan) [this request] [the Buddha] gave him transformative instruction.

The Leading Teachers expound the Dharma with expedients
After realizing at the place of enlightenment:
“This is the abode of the Dharma and the position of the Dharma.
The reality of the world is permanently as it is.”

This articulates what was said earlier, [namely, the passage] “know that the dharmas are ever without a nature of their own (svabhāva).” In this way, therefore, they came to “know that [the dharmas] are without a nature of their own.”

The Buddhas, the Most Honorable Bipeds,
Expound the One Vehicle because they know:
“All things are devoid of substantiality.
The seed of Buddhahood comes from dependent origination.”

[This refers to] the doctrine of the [supreme or highest] emptiness suggesting that li is the nondual ultimate.

The Buddha provides the conditions (pratyaya) for li to arise. Now that li is not dual, how can it afford to be threefold? “For this reason they preach the One Vehicle.”

Those who bowed to the image of the Buddha,
Or just joined their hands together towards it,
Or raised only one hand towards it,
Or bent their head a little towards it
And offered the bending to it,
Became able to see innumerable Buddhas one after another.

What is shown in this and following paragraphs is that beings in the time of the past Buddhas planted the good seeds; one tiny part of one kind of good deed after another, they were all accumulated to perfect the Tao.