Chapter XXI 

Empowerment of the Bearers of the Tathagata’s Teaching

The awakening beings of the earth, who emerged out of the earth in chapter 15 and are now seated around the Buddha in the stupa UFO, “equal in number to the atoms in the thousandfold world” (= 10⁸⁰), declare their intention to teach the Lotus Discourse so as to attain the Great Teaching, whereupon the Buddha and the whole assembly extend their tongues and emit innumerable rays of coloured light, reaching to the limits of the multiverse. After a long time they spit and snap their fingers, causing the earth to tremble and shake. Turning toward the earth, they all join their palms and chant, “Namah Sakyamunibuddaya,” that is, “Homage to the Shakyan sage, the Buddha.” This is according to the Chinese text. The Sanskrit text gives a longer mantra, “Namo bhagavate Sakyamunaye tathagatayarhate samyaksambuddhayeti vacam bhasante sma.” They scatter vast numbers of offerings including floral scents, necklaces, banners, parasols, etc. across the earth plane.  Interestingly, the earth is always referred to as a “plane,” and in post-quantum physics, it has been discovered that the topography of space is actually two dimensional, not three dimensional as it appears. This has led to the speculation that the universe is in fact a hologram!

The Buddha declares the merit and spiritual powers resulting from the concentration of the Tathagata to be infinite, and refers to the Lotus Discourse as a treasure house containing all the secrets of the Tathagatas. He says that all Buddhas are “emanations” of the primordial Buddha archetype or paradigm, that is both “without and within.”

Chapter XXII 

Final Entrustment

This chapter appears at the end of the Sanskrit edition of the Lotus Discourse, corresponding to chapter 27. However, Kumarajiva placed it here. Bunno Kato et al. argue in favour of Kumarjiva’s change.

Shakyamuni Buddha rises from his seat and in a gesture of benediction touches the heads of the awakening beings with his right hand three times and entrusts the self-evident teaching of enlightenment to the awakening beings, whereupon the awakening beings experience an intense bodily ecstasy. The emphasis on the body recalls Buddhaghosa’s statement that the meditation on the body is a unique revelation of  the Buddhist teaching. The discourse declares that the Buddhas in the assembly are emanations of his true body,  the body of reality itself.

Chapter XXIII 

Former Life of the Medicine King

The awakening being  Naksatrarajasamkusumitabhijna (‘One Whose Superknowledges have Been Beflowered by the Kings of the Constellations’) asks the Buddha to recount the history of Medicine King. Medicine King is an important Mahayana awakening being  who first appears in Chapter X, to whom the Buddha reveals that all those who hear even a single verse or phrase of the Lotus Discourse will achieve supreme and perfect enlightenment in accordance with the Law of Moral Causality.

In response, the Buddha tells the story of the Tathagata Buddha Candrasuryavimalprabhasri (‘Pure and Bright Excellence of Sun and Moon’), who taught the Lotus Discourse to the awakening being  Sarvasattvapriyadarsana (‘Seen with Joy by All Living Beings’). ‘Seen with Joy by All Living Beings’ attained the meditative concentration that ‘displays all manner of physical bodies,’ and made offerings to the Buddha, including the sacrifice of his own body, which is somewhat controversial. Because of this sacrifice, ‘Seen with Joy by All Living Beings’ was spontaneously reborn in the pure realm or Buddha field of ‘Pure and Bright Excellence of Sun and Moon’ in the house of King Vimaladatta (‘Pure Virtue’) seated in the cross-legged posture, whereupon he flew up approximately 210 meters (690 feet) into the presence of the Buddha ‘Pure and Bright Excellence of Sun and Moon’ seated on a “platform.” The Buddha tells ‘Pure and Bright Excellence of Sun and Moon’ that tonight the Buddha will pass. The Buddha entrusts the teaching to ‘Pure and Bright Excellence of Sun and Moon’, and directs him to build stupas for whatever relics remain, whereupon he passes on in the last watch of the night (approximately 2 to 6am, about the same time that Shakyamuni Buddha is supposed to have attained enlightenment). ‘Pure and Bright Excellence of Sun and Moon’ cremates the Buddha and, overcome by grief, he burns his forearms, which are miraculously restored by an Act of Truth. We are familiar with the Power of Truth from the Pali Canon, which the Lotus Discourse explains as an oath that is real and not vain.

The Buddha tells ‘One Whose Superknowledges have Been Beflowered by the Kings of the Constellations’ that ‘Seen with Joy by All Living Beings’ was the awakening being now known to the assembly as Medicine King, who sacrificed his body, which surpasses all other offerings, to the teaching billions of times in past lives. Just as self-sacrifice is the supreme virtue, so is the Lotus Discourse the supreme and most profound discourse, like Mount Sumeru, the axis of the world; the sun; the moon; or the sage king, destroying all obscurities and imperfections. In particular, it is the discourse of the path of awakening, with the power to save all living beings.

Like a clear, cool pond, it can slake the thirst of all. As a chilled person finds fire, as a naked person finds clothing, as a merchant finds a chief, as a child finds its mother, as a passenger finds a ship, as a sick person finds a physician, as darkness finds a torch, as a poor person finds a jewel, as the people find a king,  as a commercial traveller finds the sea, as a candle dispels darkness, this scripture of the Dharma Blossom also, in the same way, can enable the beings to separate themselves from all woes, from all sickness and pain, and can loose all the bonds of birth and death.

The merit of hearing, writing, or worshipping it is limitless. The same is said of the present chapter of the Lotus Discourse. A woman hearing this chapter of the Medicine King will never again be reborn in an inferior body. If she practises it, she will be reborn in the Western paradise called Sukhavati (lit. ‘full of joy, blissful’), the pure land of Amitabha, the Buddha of Immeasurable Life and Light. They will gain the supernatural insights of an awakening being, especially the understanding of the principle of unborn teachings (Kato et al. have “will attain transcendent powers and the assurance of no rebirth”).  This will be true of the final five-hundred-year period called the Decay of the Law, characterized by the demise of the True Teaching, strife, and division. According to the Mahasamnipata Discourse (2^nd-6^th centuries CE) this period will begin two thousand years after the Great Passing, or about 1600 CE according to the best modern reckoning (2100 at the latest). The 17^th century corresponds to the Scientific Revolution, referred to in the Pali Canon as the satthantarakappa (“sword interval” or “age of science”), the General Crisis, and the intensification of the European conquest of the Americas that has led to the existential crisis of the 21^st century. I have discussed this prophecy in my book, Conversations with the Buddha. A person hearing this chapter will attain the Divine Eye whereby they will see Buddhas, much as the great English awakening being  William Blake saw infinity in the palm of his hand and eternity in an hour. Swedenborg was of course born in 1688.

Before we all go out and immolate ourselves, however, I would like to remind the reader of the essential hermeneutic of the Lotus Discourse that the verses of the Lotus Discourse conceal innumerable secret meanings (see Chap. XIX). That is to say, the Lotus Discourse is an esoteric discourse that is not to be understood literally. Similarly, Jesus advises his followers to cut off your hand or your foot or rip out your eye rather than to wind up in the unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43 ff., ASV; cf. Matt. 9:29 f.). There is a similar allusion to self-immolation somewhere in the Pali Canon, but I would not recommend interpreting this advice literally. The Pali Canon contains explicit warnings against committing suicide in the pursuit of salvation. The Buddha, of course, forbade the taking of life in the Five Precepts and in the Vinaya. Nevertheless, Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim fanatics have interpreted this sort of teaching literally, to their detriment.

Chapter XXIV 

The Bodhisattva “Quivering Voice”

The protuberance on top of Shakyamuni Buddha’s head begins to glow, and a ray originating from his forehead illuminates the eastern quarter, revealing innumerable numbers of spherical worlds, including the pure land of the Buddha. 0This realm includes the awakening being  Gadgadasvara. The Lotus Discourse names multiple meditative concentrations (‘meditations’) achieved by Gadgadasvara, including:

• ‘Fine standard’;
• ‘Dharma Blossom’;
• ‘Pure Excellent’;
• ‘Sport of the king of constellations’;
• ‘No objects’;
• ‘Seal of knowledge’;
• ‘Enables one to understand the speech of all living beings’;
• ‘Collects all merits’;
• ‘Pure’;
• ‘Play of magical powers’;
• ‘Lamp of knowledge’;
• ‘King of adornment’;
• ‘Pure glow’;
• ‘Pure womb’;
• ‘Unshared’; and
• ‘Turns to the sun’.

Gadgadasvara declares that he will go to the earth plane to worship Shakyamuni Buddha and visit the awakening beings there. ‘Knowledge Conferred by the King of Constellations named Pure Flower’ (Kamaladalvimalanaksatrarajasamkusumitabhijna) warns Gadgadasvara not to disparage the earth plane, though he admits it is filthy, because even there perfect Buddhas and awakening beings may be found. By the power of his meditative concentration ‘Knowledge Conferred by the King of Constellations named Pure Flower’ causes a rain of lotus flowers to appear on Vulture Peak. Manjushri begs Shakyamuni Buddha to tell them what meditative concentration ‘Knowledge Conferred by the King of Constellations named Pure Flower’ has attained, so that they too might practise it and see his marks. ‘Knowledge Conferred by the King of Constellations named Pure Flower’ travels through several realms in order to reach Vulture Peak along with his entourage of awakening beings in a tower-like aerial vehicle called “seven-jewelled terrace” and ascended to a height of 210 meters (690 feet). Descending from his aerial vehicle, he approaches the Buddha, presents him with a jewelled necklace (mala?), and asks to see the body of Prabhutaratna, the ‘truth  body’ of the Buddha in the aerial stupa from chapter XI.

Padmasri (‘Floral Excellence’) wants to know how ‘Knowledge Conferred by the King of Constellations named Pure Flower’ developed these psychic powers. Shakyamuni tells Padmasri that ‘Knowledge Conferred by the King of Constellations named Pure Flower’ performed many meritorious deeds over many lifetimes, in numerous different bodies and roles, including divine beings and humans, even including women, as well as worshipping the Buddha ‘King of the Sound of Thunder in the Clouds.’ He also teaches the Lotus Discourse. Indeed, he can assume whatever form is necessary to save beings.

Finally, the Buddha tells Padmasri that ‘Knowledge Conferred by the King of Constellations named Pure Flower’ dwells in the concentrative meditation called “manifestation of the body of all forms.” This concentrative meditation is also associated with a sacred utterance (which is not given). Gadgadasvara then returns to his own pure land and tells ‘Knowledge Conferred by the King of Constellations named Pure Flower’ everything that has occurred.

Chapter XXV 

The Universal Gateway of Avalokitesvara

The awakening being  Aksayamati (‘Inexhaustible Mind’) rises and asks the Buddha why Avalokitesvara (lit. “the lord who looks down on the cries of the world”) is called “Observer of the Sounds of the World.” The Buddha declares that those who call upon the name of Avalokitesvara will gain deliverance from suffering, pain, and torment because of the great merit of the awakening being. Like the doctrine of the ‘Buddha  potential,’ this is another “secret doctrine” of the Lotus Discourse, in which Avalokitesvara is mentioned for the first time. Nevertheless, Avalokitesvara is also revered in Theravadin countries, where he is referred to as Natha-deva (Sri Lanka), Lokanat (Myanmar), and Lokesvara (Thailand). Although he is sometimes identified with the Future Buddha, Maitreya, this is erroneous. The Buddha’s hyperboles recall Jesus’ statement that those who have faith could move mountains, which is of course literally false, thus begging the question of what is actually meant. An interesting detail is the reference to ghosts, which apparently afflict others with an “evil eye” (Kato et al. have “wicked eyes”; Kern has “wicked designs”). As with Jesus’ pronouncement about faith, the sticking point in the Buddha’s statement is that one must have “single-minded concentration.” In previous talks, I have referred to the theory of the egregore, whereby the concentration of millions of prayers directed to a common symbolic focus results in an accumulation of merit (“psychic energy”) associated with that egregore that can be “accessed” similarly to the principle of the Transfer of Merit. Thus, the Buddha says, “For this reason the beings should ever bear him in mind.” Avalokitesvara may also be seen as a symbol of the compassion of all Buddhas, as Samantabhadra or Adi-Buddha is a symbolic representation of the universal quality of Buddhahood, and thus ultimately efficacious. From this perspective, the historicity of Avalokitesvara as a awakening being is moot.

The Buddha says that Avalokitesvara will appear to suffering beings in whatever forms are necessary for their emancipation, whether a buddha, hermit buddha, disciple, king, elder, householder, official, brahman, male or female monastic or lay follower, woman, male or female child, divine being, antigod, any other human or nonhuman being or nature spirit. Thus, he appears continuously throughout the world in innumerable guises, conveying the gift of fearlessness.

Chapter XXVI 

Sacred Spells

The awakening being  Medicine King rises and asks Shakyamuni Buddha how much happiness can be obtained because of receiving, keeping,  reading, reciting, or copying the Lotus Discourse. The Buddha replies that anyone who reads, recites, understands, and practises as little as a single short verse of the Lotus Discourse will experience happiness greater than that of someone who makes an astronomical number of offerings to the buddhas.

Medicine King then gives a mantra to the preachers of the teaching for their protection. Hurvitz notes that most of these mantras use feminine singular vocative verb forms. Kern remarks: “I take these to be epithets of the Great Mother, Nature or Earth, differently called Aditi, Prajna, Maya, Bhavani, Durga.” They are largely untranslatable.

Brave Donor, Vaisravana, Realm Holder, and ten demon daughters also recite their own protective mantras for the benefit of the preachers of the teaching. As a result, 68,000 thousand accept the doctrine of the unborn teachings (“the assurance of no rebirth” according to Kato et al.; Kern has “the law that has no origin”).

Chapter XXVII 

Former Life of King “Beautiful Array”

The Buddha tells the assembly about Subhavyuha, King Fine Adornment, who lived incalculable ages ago, in the realm and age of a buddha called Wisdom Adorned with Flowers. This king had two sons, well-practised in the perfections of an awakening being, as well as the following concentrative meditations:

• Sun, stars, and constellations;
• Pure ray;
• Pure colour;
• Pure sparkle;
• Eternal adornment (lovely in adornment);
• Womb of great, imposing excellence (womb/embryo of great glow);
• Dharma blossom.

Fine Adornments was a follower of Brahmanism, but his wife and their two sons were attracted to the teachings of the Buddha, and the sons sought to hear the Buddha preach the Lotus Discourse. Persuading their father by a magical display, strongly reminiscent of the UFO phenomenon, the sons seek their mother’s permission to become monastics in order to follow the Buddha, which she gives, because buddhas are as hard to find “as it would be for a one-eyed tortoise to encounter a hole in a floating piece of wood.” Whereupon the whole family, including a large retinue from the king’s palace, go to where the Buddha Wisdom Adorned with Flowers is. They scatter pearls over him, and experience a vision of the buddhas, luminous, made of subtle matter, seated on a couch on a terrace with four pillars. The Buddha in his turn predicts the future buddhahood of King Fine Adornment. The king confers his realm on his younger brother and he, his wife, sons, and retinue all become monastics. After a very long time of practising the Lotus Discourse the king attains the concentrative meditation called “adornment of all pure merit” and ascends into empty space to a height of 210 meters (690 feet).

The Buddha preaches the merits of spiritual friendship to the king. The king describes the Buddha in an interesting passage, including a reference to his eyes, which are long, broad, and blue. (Blue eyes are a very rare genetic trait in Nepal and are likely introduced by ancient West Eurasian gene flow—most plausibly during and after the Indo‑Aryan migrations into the subcontinent.) After praising the Buddha, the king departs.

Now the Buddha addresses the assembly and informs them that the awakening being  Floral Excellence is none other than King Fine Adornment. His wife the lady Pure Virtue is the awakening being  Marks of Adornment. The sons are Medicine King and Above Medicine.

Chapter XXVIII 

Encouragement by Samantabhadra

The Lotus Discourse ends with Samantabhadra, the awakening being identified with the Adi or Primordial Buddha, coming out of the east, the direction of the rising sun, along with a vast retinue of human and nonhuman beings. Arriving at Vulture Peak, he bows to Shakyamuni Buddha and circles him seven times, clockwise. Telling the Buddha he has come to hear the Lotus Discourse, he asks the Buddha how the people will “attain” the Lotus Discourse after the Buddha passes. The Buddha tells Samantabhdara that such a person will attain the Lotus Discourse if they fulfil four conditions:

1. They must be the object of the protective mindful thoughts of the buddhas (Kato et al. have “be under the guardianship of the buddhas”);
2. They must plant the roots of many excellent qualities (Kato et al. have “plant the roots of virtue”);
3. They must “collect” a number of “right concentrations” (Kato et al. have “enter the stage of correct concentration”);
4. They must “launch” the thought of rescuing all living beings (Kato at al. have “aspire after the salvation of all the living”).

Formally, these four conditions appear to refer to taking refuge, cultivating virtue or ethics, meditation, and generating the mind oriented toward awakening.

The Sanskrit version notes that “the Dharma-circuit of the White Lotus of the True Teaching … is unbroken Thusness.”

The awakening being Universally Worthy declares that he will protect anyone who in the coming degenerate age receives and keeps the Lotus Discourse. Those who read and recite the Lotus Discourse will see the body of Universally Worthy, who will instruct them in the Lotus Discourse. Specifically, they will attain three mantras or “charms”: the “turning” mantra, the mantra “that can be turned to a hundred thousand myriads of millions of uses,” and the mantra of “skill in the use of dharma-sounds.” Kern has “talisman of preservation,” “talisman of hundred thousand kotis” or tens or hundreds of millions; and “talisman of skill in all sounds.” Hurvitz interprets these as “the charm that brings all other charms into one’s power”; the charm that “brings all manner of things into one’s power”; and the charm “that enables one to understand all sounds.” However, Kato et al. interpret them to refer to “the contemplation of the void,” “the contemplation of existence,” and “the contemplation of the Middle Path.”

Universally Worthy presents a practice in which one aspires to the Lotus Discourse continuously for 21 days, culminating in a vision of Universally Worthy, “mounted on my white elephant with six tusks.” Universally Worthy will teach him and give him a mantra, which he recites. Copying the discourse alone will result in rebirth in the dimension of the thirty-three gods of the Vedic pantheon, the highest heaven that maintains a physical connection with the rest of the earth-plane, at the peak of Mount Sumeru, at a height of 80,000 yojanas, about 640,000 miles, which is in deep space almost three times the distance form the earth to the moon.  

The Lotus Discourse includes an interesting description of life in the heaven of the thirty-three, including eighty-four thousand female musicians who entertain the inhabitants (cf. the “celestial maidens” of the Quran). This tradition of female nymphs inhabiting higher worlds is also found in the Pali Canon.

They who read, recite, and interpret the Lotus Discourse will be reborn in the ‘contented,’ ‘satisfied,’ or ‘joyful’ heaven, the residence of the Future Buddha, Maitreya, as well as Shakyamuni Buddha’s mother, Maya.

Shakyamuni Buddha declares that those who receive, keep, read, recite, recall, cultivate, practise, and copy the Lotus Discourse have seen Shakyamuni Buddha himself and are “covered by his robe.” Such a one will be freed from passion,  fondness for the “manuscripts of the external paths” (the implication being that the Lotus Discourse describes an “internal” or esoteric path), and wrongdoers. They will have the Power of Merit and attain complete and final emancipation. Those who mock them will be born blind. Those who criticize the Lotus Discourse will be reborn as lepers. Those who mock the Lotus Discourse itself will be reborn ugly, deformed, and diseased. This is of course the doctrine of moral causality.

Upon the completion of this chapter the assembly of awakening beings all attain the mantra “that can be turned to a hundred thousand myriads of uses.” The assembly rejoices at the Buddha’s Word, they bow to him, and depart. Thus, the Lotus Discourse ends.

Appendix I

Discourse of the Teaching of the Infinite Gateways

The Innumerable Meanings Sutra (ca. 400–450 CE) was traditionally translated into Chinese in 481 CE by Dharmajātayaśas, an Indian monk. The Sanskrit title is Anantamukha-nirdeśa-sūtra. Traditionally it is regarded as a prologue to the Lotus Discourse. It is referred to in chapter I of the Lotus Discourse. The title refers to the infinite diversity of phenomena, all of which arise out of formlessness, which is the true nature of reality. 

Chapter 1. According to the Lotus Discourse, the Buddha teaches the Discourse of Innumerable Meanings as a prologue to the Lotus Discourse. The Lotus says that the awakening beings watch over and are instructed by the Discourse. The Buddha enters into a meditation called “the station of innumerable meanings,” characterized by immobility. 

The Discourse of Innumerable Meanings is divided into three chapters, on the virtues, preaching, and the ten merits (virtuous conduct, dharma preaching, and ten blessings in Gene Reeves’s translation).

The Discourse of Innumerable Meanings begins with the Buddha on Vulture Peak, accompanied by an assembly of twelve thousand monastics, eighty thousand awakening beings, all of whom have obtained the truth body, i.e., arhantship and emancipation (see below), who know all the ways of the teaching, and understand the secret of the nature of reality, and a large number of human and non-human beings, including male and female Buddhist monastics and householders, kings, princes, and people in all stations of life.

Desire being dampened, the gateway to emancipation is opened by mindfulness of the breathing (the “Tathagata’s dwelling”), and the cooling of the passions. The realization of interconnectedness and emptiness ameliorates suffering. 

The awakening being called “Great Adornment” approaches the Buddha, worships him, and praises him in verse for his transdual illumination and dispassion, detached even from thinking, and thus having attained that which is beyond thinking, marked with all the signs of greatness. He declares that all living beings are divine. 

The Buddha reveals himself to the assembly as a transdual body of light that is at the same time not a body, with symbolic features, the marks of a superior being, that are not features of a physical body. These are of course the thirty-two marks of a superior person.

Chapter 2. Great Adornment then asks the Buddha about the teaching of the Tathagata. The Buddha reveals that soon he will enter final emancipation, and that he will now answer any questions. Everyone in the assembly asks the Buddha which doctrine facilitates the quick attainment of Perfect Enlightenment. The Buddha declares that the doctrine of Innumerable Meanings facilitates the quick attainment of Perfect Enlightenment. He declares this doctrine as follows:

All dharmas were originally, will be, and are in themselves void in nature and form; they are neither great nor small, neither appearing nor disappearing, neither fixed nor movable, and neither advancing nor retreating; and they are nondual, just emptiness. 

The question that Great Adornment asks and the Buddha’s answer definitely confirms that wisdom is the salvific principle, everything else being skilful means. Thus, by perfect understanding one attains perfect enlightenment. The beginning and end of the path are paradoxically the same. Moreover, not all doctrines are equal. Some doctrines are truer and more powerful and effective at facilitating the attainment of perfect enlightenment (doctrine of the Power of Truth). According to the Innumerable Meanings Discourse and the Lotus Discourse, the doctrine just articulated is therefore the supreme and essential Buddhist teaching, consisting of the realization that every phenomenon and every moment is essentially empty in nature and form and non-dual or trans-dual, comprehending all contradictions within themselves and therefore inherently binary and non-binary, dual and transdual at the same time.

Now it just so happens that this profoundly esoteric doctrine has become the central discovery of quantum physics, almost 2,500 years after the Buddha’s enlightenment.

The Buddha goes on to instruct Great Adornment that because of discrimination and self-seeking suffering arises and human beings experience transmigration through the endlessly recurring cycles of existence. The Buddha advises awakening beings to cultivate compassion for all living beings, and to observe the arising (uppāda), persistence (ṭhiti), and dissolution (bhaṅga) of all changing phenomena, realizing that some phenomena produce good results and other phenomena produce bad results because of their nature, leading to pleasure and displeasure, happiness and suffering. 

The awakening being should next observe that this process characterizes every moment and instant – nothing is essential and everything arises out of emptiness, cycles within cycles, processes within processes, with no “matter,” no essential substance, at all. All is naught.

The Innumerable Meanings originate from one law. This one law is formlessness. Being formless, it is called the real aspect of things. 

This theory of momentariness (khanika-vado) or universal flux produces a paradox, because every moment, being infinitesimal, must exist and not exist simultaneously. To be extended in space or time is to be substantive and thus illusory and transient. This paradox reemerged in the 20^th century in the split screen experiment of quantum physics (like Shrodinger’s cat, which is both alive and dead at the same time, so before it goes through the double split the photon is neither a wave nor a particle). This tells us very clearly that the universe is not material in any ordinary sense.

Through this realization, living beings are disabused of their illusory desire for things, which is impossible, since everything is in flux, no desire can be satisfied, and attain the central point of realizing their true nature. Awakening beings aid suffering beings, which in turn results in happiness and perfect enlightenment for themselves and others. 

Great Adornment is perplexed, complains that the Buddha’s doctrine is incomprehensible, he is ambivalent, and asks him to explain the relationship between all of the previous doctrines taught by the Buddha and this singular new doctrine that he now says alone leads to perfect enlightenment. He declares that this is the highest teaching, which leads to the realization of the tenth stage of the path of the awakening being (see below). 

In reply, the Buddha declares that all awakening beings will attain perfect Buddhahood. He explains that hitherto as a result of sitting under the Bodhi tree for six years he taught different beings according to their different natures, faculties, and attainments and what they needed to do at that time, and compares the doctrine of cleansing water that appears in many different forms, such as streams, rivers, wells, ponds, creeks, ditches, and seas, yet they all have the same essential cleansing quality, again echoing Laozi. 

All through his teaching, however, the Buddha declares that the essential truth that all phenomena “are naturally vacant, ceaselessly transformed, and instantly born and destroyed,” i.e., the doctrines of selflessness, change, and the chain of causation. This is the purifying water. Although it is a single teaching, according to the differences between beings it is perceived and understood by them differently and thus beings attain to different degrees of realization and develop different schools of thought and practice, all based on their personal preferences, predilections, and prejudices. Thus, buddhas appear differently to different beings in different places and at different times. Similarly, early, middle, and late teachings do not have the same meaning. Only buddhas and tenth stage awakening beings can understand the ultimate truth. Awakening beings who grasp this doctrine fully transcend mortality.

Thirty-two thousand awakening beings attain the meditation called Innumerable Meanings.  Innumerable Meanings itself is a meditative realization, as indicated at the beginning of the Discourse, and thus a meditation of the vipassana (“insight”) type. Clearly, the induction of such a meditative realization is the purpose of the Discourse. 

Chapter 3. Great Adornment declares that the Discourse of Innumerable Meanings is three times profound. Those who hear the Discourse will obtain the divine powers; the Four Noble Truths; the chain of causation (emptiness); the Six Perfections; the four degrees of attainment culminating in arhantship; and the aspiration to enlightenment, whereas those who do not hear it will never achieve Buddhahood. Great Adornment asks the Buddha to explain the Discourse, which is inconceivable and profound. 

Referring to the “great direct way,” the Buddha says that the Discourse enables people to attain Buddhahood quickly and without pain. He states that the Discourse comes from the place where the buddhas are and enables people to attain Buddhahood by awakening the aspiration for enlightenment, love, ecstasy, dispassion, generosity, obedience, perseverance, assiduity, meditation, wisdom, salvation, the ten virtues, non-existence, non-retrogression, and non-defilement. Thus, cultivation of the thought of awakening is the first inconceivable merit power (or “amazing power of blessing,” in Reeves’s translation) of the Discourse.

Perfectly understanding the doctrine of innumerable meanings is the second meritorious power of the Discourse. This doctrine has two aspects. First, it refers to the interior meaning of the teachings of the Buddha. Second, it refers to the self-propagation of the teaching, whereby meanings (memes) multiply themselves dynamically and thus create and perpetuate a continuous teaching development through history. 

Achieving superlative compassion is the third meritorious power.

Achieving superlative cognition of the meaning of the teaching is the fourth meritorious power.

The Buddha compares himself to a king, the Discourse to a queen, and the awakening being to their son, alluding to a formula called in Cabala the Tetragrammaton, יהו, referring to “the secret law of the buddhas,” each of whom rediscovers the teaching in, for, and by themself. Thus, the teaching propagates itself through the lineage of the buddhas.

The fifth meritorious power of the Discourse is to enable those who keep, read, recite, and copy the Discourse to realize the awakening way even though they still have faults and delusions, and convert living beings through their personal charisma.

The sixth meritorious power is that they will deliver beings from their delusions, making them overcome all suffering, and attain the law, the merit, and the way, equal to a Tathagata, by communicating the teaching to them. 

The attainment of the rare or extraordinary mind and the Six Perfections is the seventh meritorious power. They attain confidence in the certainty of immortality while still alive; mortality and delusion are destroyed naturally; and they attain the seventh stage of an awakening being.

This is the third reference in the Discourse to the stages of the awakening path or way. Here the seventh inconceivable meritorious power or amazing blessing is identified with the seventh stage of an awakening being. The identity of the number as well as the previous references including the first stage of immobility suggest that the ten merit powers or blessings correspond to the ten stages of an awakening being.

The eighth meritorious power is the power of devotion to the Discourse as the body of the Buddha (dharmakaya). 

The ninth meritorious power is the joyful leap into the unknown, rebirth.

The tenth meritorious power corresponds to the tenth stage of the awakening way, called the dharma-cloud, characterized by the bodily realization of the divine power.

The ten stages are further divided into reversible and irreversible modes. The awakening being  can fall back from the first six stages into a lower degree of spiritual cultivation. However, once one reaches the seventh degree the ultimate attainment of Buddhahood is certain. 

In addition, the eighth-stage awakening being  is technically equivalent to the attainment of arhantship and emancipation. 

Great Adornment vows on behalf of himself and the assembly that they will propagate the teaching and that by their Power of Truth the teaching will be propagated throughout infinite worlds. This alludes of course to the doctrine of the Transfer of Merit.

In conclusion, one can see that the Innumerable Meanings Discourse is less a reaction against the Pali discourses than a deeper exegesis of the Pali recension, including references to the same essential doctrines, including the truth body; precepts; concentration (meditation); the salvific power of wisdom; liberation; insight into liberation; the dust of desire; emancipation; the twelvefold chain of causation (interconnectedness); suffering; the nondual; the body; the thirty-two characteristics and the eighty features of a great man; the mental body; mantras; sacred utterances; emptiness; tranquility; the changeable world of rebirth; the six classes of rebirth; loving-kindness; the three characteristics; the four modes; the theory of momentariness; buddha nature; the four fruits; the three paths; the 84,000 teachings; skilful means; indifference; the continuity of the Buddhist philosophy; the Power of Truth; the Four Noble Truths; the Six Perfections; the Tathagata; the Tathagata’s dwelling; final emancipation; and more.

Thus ends the Innumerable Meanings Discourse.

Notes

^[1] However, we know from Kern that the cyphers can be ignored (Suddharma-Pundarika, p. 149, n. 3; etc.). This number, 680, is extremely interesting. It is the cube of 2 × 5 × 17, and is a tetradedral, or triangular pyramidal, number. It represents a pyramid with a triangular base and three sides (cf. chapter 11). The tetrahedron is the fundamental structural unit of existence according to R. Buckminster Fuller, an idea revived in the unified quantum theory of reality of the Quantum Gravity Research (QGR) group, a scientific think tank founded by Klee Irwin (whether Irwin knows that he has rediscovered Fuller’s theorem I am not sure). The sutra’s emphasis on “open space” is interesting in this context. Interestingly, 68 is also a “happy number,” which means that repeatedly adding up the sum of the squares of its digits leads eventually to unity.

[2] Kern has “obtained the dharani that makes a hundred thousand kotis [ten million] of revolutions” (ibid, p. 311). Kato notes that “the door, or method, of the hearing and keeping of dharani” refers to the first of our “fearlessness” of a wisdom being, fearlessness in proclaiming all truth. The other three are proclaiming the truth of perfection, exposing obstacles to the truth, and proclaiming the way to end all suffering.  Kato further notes, “the dharani of numberless revolutions or evolutions is the power to discriminate manifold phenomena without error. By this discrimination a bodhisattva destroys all his perplexities and exhibits many Buddha-laws” (Threefold Lotus Sutra, p. 257 f. and nn. 1 and 2).

[3] Hurvitz notes the alternative translation, “palaces,” but opines that vehicles is what is meant.

[4] About ten quadrillion vigintillion and one-hundred thousand quadrillion vigintillion atoms (10⁷⁸ to 10⁸²), according to modern scientific reckoning.

^[5] This is chapter XXVII of the Sanskrit (Kern) edition of the Lotus Sutra, entitled anuparīndanāparivartaḥ (anu + parindana + parivartah). Skt. anu = ‘fine, minute, atomic’; parindana = ‘gratification, present.’ The Chinese title is 嘱累品 – ‘enjoin, implore, urge’ + ‘bind together, twist around; accumulate involve, implicate; tired, weary, strain, work hard.’ Kern gives it the title dharmaparyaya, ‘turning the dharma,’ i.e., inaugurating the cycle.

[6] Cite Sarah Shaw.