Overall Teaching 

This chapter enumerates the benefits of obtained by a propagator of the Lotus Sūtra. 

Summary 

• 1. The Buddha explains that those who preserve and propagate this sūtra will attain hundreds of qualities of each of the six faculties: (47c) 

  2. Their eyes will see all realms and beings, as well as their deeds and states of birth. 

  3. Their ears will hear the sounds of all beings, even though it isn’t a divine faculty. (48a-b) 

  4. Their noses will smell the fragrances of pleasant plants and aromas, as well as beings, throughout the cosmos. They will know whose scents they are and where they are. They can also know where valuable objects are through scent. They can know who is practicing Dharma, and how well. (48b-49b) 

  5. Their tongues will render all tastes like the nectar of immortality. Their tongues will expound the Dharma and all heavenly beings will attend to hear. (49b-c) 

  6. Their bodies will be as pure as lapis lazuli and the entire world system, with its beings and those teaching the Dharma, will appear in their body. (49c-50a) 

  7. Their minds will be pure and they will be versed in the meaning of the Dharma: all they teach will be in accord with the Dharma. This is all because they preserve the Lotus Sūtra. (50a-b) 

Analysis 

While chapters seventeen and eighteen enumerated the benefits of accepting the “lifespan of the Tathāgata,” this chapter emphasises the purity of the six faculties. If, as we learn from the Sabba Sutta, the six faculties are “the all,” the purity of “the all” and thus our world, arises from the purity of our mind, that is, a mind that accepts, preserves, and propagates the Lotus Sūtra. Purity of mind gives rise to purity of body: cutting off ignorance cuts of the rest of the twelve links.