Overall Teaching

One the one hand, the stūpa and the words of Prabhūtaratna Buddha serve to arouse great faith in the assembly about the stūpa, and on the other hand, the deeper meaning of the inherent quality of the awakened within beings is expressed.

Summary

• 1. A seven-jewelled stūpa arises before the Buddha. (32b) 

  2. A voice issues forth from the stūpa and declares that what the Buddha taught was true. (32b-c) 

  3. The assembly is amazed. 

  4. The stūpa then rises into the air. 

  5. Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Mahāpratibhāna (Great Eloquence) asks why the stūpa emerged and why the voice came forth from it. 

  6. The Buddha explains that in the distant path a Buddha called Prabhūtaratna (Manifest Jewel) who made a great vow: 

  7. If the Lotus Sūtra is taught after his parinirvāṇa, his stūpa will appear and praise it, and anyone who wishes to pay him homage should build a great stūpa. 

  8. Mahāpratibhāna wants to see the form of Buddha Prabhūtaratna, and the Buddha explains that he also vowed that after the Buddha preaching the Lotus Sūtra where his stūpa appears gathers all his magically created forms, then Buddha Prabhūtaratna’s form will appear. (32c) 

  9. The Buddha makes all the worlds in which his magically created forms teach the Dharma, appear to the assembly. (32c-33a) 

  10. The world became completely pure and each Buddha came under a great jewelled tree in the sahā world. 

  11. The manifested beings are so numerous that they have not yet all arrived, so the Buddha transforms all other lands and transports the assembled devas and humans to them. 

  12. All these worlds are entirely pure and composed of jewels with great jewelled trees and flowers; they were perfectly level and adorned with banners, umbrellas, and incense. 

  13. When all the Buddhas and beings had gathered in all the directions, the Buddhas each sent an attendant with jewelled flowers to honour and inquire after Śākyamuni Buddha and ask him, on behalf of all Buddhas, to open the stūpa. (33b) 

  14. Śākyamuni Buddha opens the stūpa and inside everyone sees Tathāgata Prabhūtaratna sitting on a lion seat in meditation, and he declares that he has come to hear Śākyamuni Buddha preach the Lotus Sūtra. (33b-33c) 

  15. After all Buddhas praise Śākyamuni Buddha, he is offered a seat next to Buddha Prabhūtaratna.  

  16. The assembly then requests that they can be in the air with the two Buddhas: they thereupon are raised into the air, and Śākyamuni Buddha declares that he will enter parinirvāṇa soon, so he will transmit the Lotus Sūtra to them. (33c) 

  17. He then utters a verse summary. (33c-34b) 

  18. The verse summary emphasises that it is far more difficult to hear and vow to preserve the Lotus Sūtra then any other number of tasks. 

  19.  Preserving the Lotus Sūtra is preserving the form of the Buddha.

Analysis 

The surface text of the chapter does not require elaboration. However, how can we understand this chapter on a deeper level? 

A number of writers, including Nikkyo Niwano, Nichiren, and Tao-sheng, indicate that the stūpa and the Buddha within it represent the inherent and underlying quality of Buddhahood, which is found within beings. The Lotus Sūtra is the knowledge that gives rise to this, and, as Tao-sheng says about the previous chapter, does not necessarily mean the text in book-form, but something that may be realised in a manifold number of ways.  

The Buddha within the stūpa is just a representation of the hidden and underlying Buddha within us all: this Buddha is fundamentally not separate from the historical Buddha, hence why he invites Śākyamuni Buddha to sit beside him. The stūpa rises into the air to indicate the loftiness of this quality, which, when the beings realise it, allows them to be raised to that height also. Thus Buddha also announces his parinirvāṇa while sitting next to this eternally abiding Buddha to indicate that parinirvāṇa does not mean the end of the Buddha – the physical death of the Buddha is inconsequential for the true form of the Buddha.  

That being said, the realisation is still gradual. The revelation of all the worlds and all the Buddhas to the assembly is a gradual process to emphasis this.