In the missing half of [Chapter 5], there are two additional similes: a simile of light and one of clay and pottery. According to the first, just as the light of the sun and the moon illuminates the whole world – those living beings who do good and those who do ill, the tall and the short, things that smell good and things that smell foul – so too the light of the Buddha’s wisdom shines equally on all the living according to their capacities. Though it is received by each according to what it deserves, the light itself has no deficiency or excess. It is the same everywhere. According to the second simile, the simile of the clay and pottery, just as a potter makes different kinds of pots from the same clay – pots for sugar, for butter, for milk, and even for some filthy things – they are all made of the same clay, just as there is only one Buddha Vehicle.

It is worth noting in passing that in both of these similes there is an obvious inclusion of bad or unpleasant things. This is one of the ways in which the Dharma Flower Sutra expresses universality, the idea that there are no exceptions, no one is left out of the Dharma. Everything is affected by Buddha Dharma. One Vehicle is for all living beings.

Whereas the parable of the burning house can lead us to believe that the One Vehicle replaces the three vehicles just as the one cart seems to replace the three carts, here we can understand the Sutra’s intention to be inclusive of all beings. The many living beings, whether good, bad, both, or neither, are all nourished by the same rain, by the same Buddha Dharma.

It is also important to recognize that the kind of universalism affirmed in the Dharma Flower Sutra does not in any way diminish the reality and importance of particular things. The fact that the pots are made of one clay does not make the pots any less real. Similarly, that many beings of various kinds are illuminated by one light affirms both the oneness of the light and the many-ness of the living beings. Thus the universalism of the Dharma Flower Sutra is at the same time a pluralism, an affirmation of the reality and importance both of unity and of variety.