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.”