There are two versions of the story, one in prose, the other in verse. Except for the fact that the verse version gives much more detail about what can be seen by the Buddha’s beam of light, the two versions are basically the same. Yet there are some interesting small differences. For example, in the prose version Manjushri Bodhisattva explains that the purpose of the beam of light is to announce that the Dharma Flower Sutra is about to be taught, while at the end of the verse version he says that its purpose is “to help reveal the principle of the true nature of all things.”

This phrase, “the true nature of all things,” has been variously translated and interpreted. There are two major possibilities: One is that it is an affirmation of the reality of the everyday world of concrete realities, as opposed to views that understand this world to be a product of our minds or an illusion. The other possibility is that it is a claim that the Buddha’s teachings reveal the nature of all things, namely, that all things are interrelated and interdependent, ultimately empty of independent nature. The fact that a kind of equivalence of announcing the teaching of the Dharma Flower Sutra and revealing the principle of the true nature of things suggest this latter interpretation. That is: the Dharma Flower Sutra itself reveals the true nature of things.