Notes 

This chapter begins the section on the propagation of the sūtra in the second, effectual, part. This regards the propagation of the sūtra as conceived of as more than a teaching of the historical Buddha, but a teaching of the true Buddha nature always present. 

Overall Teaching 

Those who hear, accept, and rejoice in this sūtra attain great merit. 

Summary 

• 1. Maitreya asks the Buddha how much merit people acquire after rejoicing in this sūtra. (46b) 

  2. The Buddha explains that if, after the Buddha’s “parinirvāṇa,” people, hearing this teaching, pass it on joyfully from one to another until it reaches the fiftieth person, the merit of that fiftieth person will be declared: (46c) 

  3. Supposing a person were to engage in great acts of charity for eighty years, but then decides to instruct them in the Dharma before he dies. 

  4. Suppose that everyone who he taught instantly passed through the four stages and became an arhat. 

  5. Maitreya declares that that donor’s merit was immeasurable when giving, let alone when he causes beings to become arhats. 

  6. The Buddha declares that the merit of that person is not comparable with the amount of that fiftieth person who hears and joyfully accepts even a single verse of the Lotus Sūtra, even much more so the first person. 

  7. The Buddha explains that one who hears this in passing, or offers a seat to someone where this sūtra is being taught, will attain at least a rebirth in the heavenly realms. (47a) 

  8. Anyone who listens to it for even a single instant will have good rebirths, with good appearance, and life after life will re-encounter the Dharma and accept it. Let alone one who teaches it to others. (47a) 

  9. The Buddha reiterates in verse. (47a-c) 

Analysis 

This chapter emphasises that the sūtra will have good effects long after the parinirvāṇa of the Buddha. Even though the effects are greater from hearing it first hand, they still exist when it is heard second hand.