Universal Sage is famously late arriving to hear Śākyamuni preach. When he does arrive with “many hundreds of thousands of billions of Bodhisattvas” he asks the Buddha:

“World-Honored One! Tell me how the good men or women who live after your extinction will be able to obtain this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma!”

And Śākyamuni responds with four requirements:

“The good men or women will be able to obtain this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma after my extinction if they do the following four things: 1. secure the protection of the Buddhas, 2. plant the roots of virtue, 3. reach the stage of steadiness [in proceeding to enlightenment], and 4. resolve to save all living beings. The good men or women will be able to obtain this sūtra after my extinction if they do these four things.”

These four things that must be accomplished are examples of how we are led to turn our faith into action. This is how Gene Reeves explains it in The Stories from the Lotus Sutra:

“Three of these are matters of action, things we do or can do. At least to some extent we can choose to plant roots of virtue, choose to join those who are determined to be awakened, and choose to be determined to save all the living. The first of the four, on the other hand, is quite different. Being protected and kept in mind by buddhas is not something we can choose; rather, it is more like a gift. Faith, at least in one of its dimensions, is the trust and confidence that we are always under the care of buddhas.

“Being under the protection and care of buddhas does not mean that no harm can come to us. We should know that even with the protection of buddhas, the world is a dangerous place. Shakyamuni Buddha, we should remember, was harmed more than once during his teaching career and probably died from food poisoning. We can never entirely escape from a whole host of dangers, including disease, aging, crime, and war. What the Lotus Sutra teaches is not that we can be completely free from danger, but that no matter what dangers we have to face, there are resources, both in ourselves and in our communities, that make it possible for us to cope with such dangers. By having faith in the Buddha, doing good by helping others, genuinely aspiring to become more and more fully awakened through wise and compassionate practice, and by extending our compassion not only to our family and our friends but to all living beings, the dangers we face will recede into the background. They will not go away, but we will not be dominated by them.

“To have faith in the Buddha is to take refuge in the Buddha. It means that embodying the Buddha in our everyday lives is our highest good. This is to live in faith, to trust life itself.

In Chapter 28, Universal Sage promises the Buddha:

“World-Honored One! If anyone keeps this sūtra in the defiled world in the later five hundred years after your extinction, I will protect him so that he may be free from any trouble, that he may be peaceful, and that no one may take advantage of his weak points. Mara, his sons, his daughters, his subjects, his attendants, yakṣas, rākṣasas, kumbhāṇḍas, piśācakas, kṛtyas, pūtanas, vetādas or other living beings who trouble men shall not take advantage of his weak points. If anyone keeps, reads and recites this sūtra while he walks or stands, I will mount a kingly white elephant with six tusks, go to him together with great Bodhisattvas, show myself to him, make offerings to him, protect him, and comfort him, because I wish to make offerings to the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.”

The six-tusk white elephant has great symbolic meaning, as explained by Gene Reeves in The Stories of the Lotus Sutra:

“This can be understood to mean that taking the Sutra seriously gives one extraordinary strength or power. The elephant itself is often a symbol of strength or power, the whiteness of the elephant has been taken to symbolize purity, and the six tusks have been taken to represent both the six paramitas or transcendental bodhisattva practices and purification of the six senses. But if the elephant is taken to be a symbol of power, we should understand that this is not a power to do just anything. It is a power to practice the Dharma, strength to do the Buddha’s work in the world, power to be a universal sage

“Though the image does not come from this story [in Chapter 28] but from the much more involved visualization of the Sutra of Meditation on the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva, the elephant on which Universal Sage Bodhisattva rides is very often depicted as either walking on blossoming lotus flowers or wearing them like shoes. If the elephant is not standing, a lotus flower will be under the foot of Universal Sage. Such lotus blossoming should be understood, I believe, as an attempt to depict in a motionless picture or statue something that is actually very dynamic – the flowering of the Dharma.”

Here again we see how faith and practice are joined to bring about transformative change, both in ourselves and in others. We are not promised salvation by some divine being. We are offered an opportunity to walk a path. As Reeves says:

“It is significant that Universal Sage and his elephant come not to offer us a ride to some paradise above the masses of ordinary people but to bring the strength of an elephant for doing the Buddha’s work in the world, so that the Dharma can blossom in us, empowering us to be bodhisattvas for others, enabling us to see the Buddha in others and to experience the joy of seeing buddhas everywhere.”