Tao-sheng: ‘Such A Dharma As This’

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.