Abundant Treasures Buddha, we are told several times, is extinct, having died in the distant past and his body presumably having been cremated. Yet here he is in the present, speaking and acting very much alive. This seems to cast some doubt on the reality of death or the meaning of “extinction.” But it expresses an important truth – the past is not merely dead and gone; it is alive, or at least can be, in the present.

This is not to say that the Dharma Flower Sutra denies the pastness of the past or abolishes the reality of time. But it does affirm that in an important sense the past can be alive in the present. This is, of course, an anticipation of what the Sutra affirms about Shakyamuni Buddha. He too died and was cremated long ago, but is alive still.