We should not think that the Buddha is some kind of all-powerful god who can awaken all living beings by himself. The Buddha of the Dharma Flower Sutra, like all beings, lives interdependently with others. He needs his children, his bodhisattvas, to do his work in this world, working both for their own liberation and for the liberation of others.

Shinran, the great founder of the True Pure Land (Jodo Shin-shu) tradition of Japanese Buddhism, thought it important to say that human beings are utterly dependent on the “other-power” of the Buddha and can accomplish nothing good by their “own-power.” But in the Dharma Flower Sutra we cannot find this radically dualistic distinction between the power of the Buddha and the power of others. In this Sutra, the power in us, the buddha-nature in us, is always both our own power and the power of the Buddha embodied in us.