This medicine is like the rain of the Dharma in Chapter 5, the same rain that goes everywhere to nourish all kinds of plants, but is received differently because people are different in their abilities, in what they like and dislike, and in their backgrounds. In other words, Buddha-medicine needs to be different for different people. What is important is to discern what medicine will actually work for someone. The medicine prepared for and given to the children is not really medicine at all for them until they actually take it. A medicine that is not taken, no matter how well prepared and no matter how good the intentions of the physician, is not effective, not skillful, not yet really medicine.

The same is true of the Buddha Dharma. It has to be taken or embraced by somebody, has to become real spiritual nourishment for someone, in order to be effective. Again, this is why in the Dharma Flower Sutra teaching is always a two-way relationship. Dharma is not the Dharma until it is received and embraced by someone. And, of course, people are different – so the Dharma has to be taught in a great variety of ways, using different stories, different teachings, poetry as well as prose, and so on.

The same is true of religious practices. For some Buddhists, meditation is effective; for others, recitation; for others, careful observance of precepts; for still others, sutra study; and so on. It is through an ample variety of teachings and practices that the Dharma has been effective and can be effective still. If we insist that there is only one proper way to practice Buddhism, it would be as if the physician in this story decided to let the children die because they did not immediately take the medicine he had offered.