Up to this [Chapter 10] in the Sutra the term bodhisattva has been used in at least two distinctly different ways. On the one hand, it is used as a kind of title or rank for great, well-known, and basically mythical bodhisattvas such as Maitreya and Manjushri. Such great bodhisattvas, often called bodhisattva great ones, are very important in Buddhism, as they can symbolize great virtues such as compassion and wisdom, and serve as ideal models of what we can be.

We have seen in earlier chapters that shravakas, beginning with Shariputra, are actually bodhisattvas – they are on the way to becoming buddhas. But we never find such expressions as “Shariputra Bodhisattva.” A somewhat different use of “bodhisattva” is being made, one in which the term does not represent a rank and status but a kind of relational activity. Accordingly, anyone can be a bodhisattva for someone else. The primary meaning of this is, of course, that we ourselves, the hearers or readers of the Dharma Flower Sutra, can be bodhisattvas and indeed sometimes are.