Completely eliminating suffering is thought by many to be impossible. It seems beyond our ability to achieve such a condition of life, and so we seek other conditions, sometimes helpful and sometimes harmful. Yet, fundamentally, ending suffering is the significant driver or motivator in the lives of people. The Buddha initially taught the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the Twelve-Link Chain of Causation, as ways to begin to break free of the cycle of suffering. Finally though in the Lotus Sutra, he teaches not only the elimination of suffering but the creation of a life of indestructible joy. The Buddha teaches this is not just something only attainable by a select and rare Buddha but by all people, that all people can become Buddha’s because they already have that condition within their lives.

The Buddha teaches us rebirth is not necessary to the attainment of enlightenment, and there is no fundamental difference between the enlightenment we are capable of achieving and the enlightenment achieved by the Buddha or by any Buddha of any realm. There is not an enlightenment of Sravakas, or an enlightenment of Pratyekabuddhas, or enlightenment unique to Bodhisattvas. There really is one enlightenment, and that is of Buddhahood, and it is something inherent in all life.

No longer is there a fundamental difference between the enlightenment of people and the enlightenment of Buddhas. The Buddha is showing us the path to an enlightenment that is exactly like that of all Buddhas. This is really what I think is remarkable. There is a way for us as common mortals to become enlightened just as the Buddha was, though I think it is also important to realize that our own individual manifestation of that enlightenment will perhaps look different than the Buddha’s. In other words, my enlightenment will not be an enlightenment of sitting under a tree, it might be an enlightenment of working with sick people. Your enlightenment may be an enlightenment that manifests as any number of things such as a clerk, or a computer operator, or doctor, or lawyer, or a mother and father, or child. It can manifest in any number of ways, not dependent upon our occupation or unique skills, but on our innate capacity, on the truth of the condition of Buddhahood being always present in our lives.

The Buddha, in Chapter 2, tells his contemporary disciples that the teachings they had been taught were only a stepping stone to a great way of practice which he says is not a Sravaka practice, not a Pratyekabuddha practice, and not a Bodhisattva practice, but it is in a way a combination of all of those practices. Instead of there being three different ways of practicing according to a persons capacity, there is in fact only one way of practicing. That single way of practicing is on the one hand combining all the three different ways into one, and – now this is important – it is the awareness and realization that there is an even higher state than Nirvana as a goal. There is the fundamental truth that all Buddhas are awakened to and that is Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.

The three vehicle practices of Sravaka, Pratyekabuddha, and Bodhisattva are all being replaced as individual, unique, and different ways of attaining Buddhahood by a single way of attaining supreme enlightenment. This way is the practice of Bodhisattva, which includes all the practices of the three previous vehicles. No longer is it the wish of the Buddha for people to think of their own practice as something unique to themselves. Beginning with the Lotus Sutra the Buddha wants all practitioners of Buddhism to see their practice as part of a greater objective of saving other people, of teaching and spreading Buddhism, and of seeking the supreme enlightenment of Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.