Day 10 concludes Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood, and opens Chapter 7, The Parable of a Magic City.

Having last month introduced the 16 princes, it’s time to conclude this portion of Chapter 7 with the plea by the princes.

Thereupon the sixteen princes, having praised the Buddha with these gathas, begged the World-Honored One to turn the wheel of the Dharma, saying, ‘World-Honored One! Expound the Dharma, and give peace and many benefits to gods and men out of your compassion towards them!’ They repeated this in gathas:

You, the Hero of the World, are unequalled.
Adorned with the marks
Of one hundred merits,
You have obtained unsurpassed wisdom.
Expound the Dharma and save us
And other living beings of the world!

Expound the Dharma, reveal the Dharma,
And cause us to obtain that wisdom!
If we attain Buddhahood,
Others also will do the same.

You, the World-Honored One, know
What all living beings have deep in their minds,
What teachings they are practicing,
And how much power of wisdom they have.

You know their desires, the merits they obtained,
And the karmas they did
In their previous existence.
Turn the wheel of the unsurpassed Dharma!

The Daily Dharma from Dec. 25, 2016, offers this:

You, the World-Honored One, know
What all living beings have deep in their minds,
What teachings they are practicing,
And how much power of wisdom they have.

Day 9 covers Chapter 5, The Simile of Herbs, and introduces Chapter 6, Assurance of Future Buddhahood.

Having last month concluded The Simile of Herbs chapter, it’s time for the Assurance of Future Buddhahood for Maha-Kasyapa.

Thereupon the World-Honored One, having sung these gathas, said to the great multitude [of bhiksus]:

This Maha-Kasyapa, a disciple of mine, will see three hundred billions of Buddhas, of World-Honored Ones, make offerings to them, respect them, honor them, praise them, and expound an innumerable number of their great teachings in his future life. After that, on the final stage of his physical existence, he will become a Buddha, called Light, the Tathagata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One. His world will be called Light-Virtue; and the kalpa in which he will become that Buddha, Great-Adornment. The duration of the life of that Buddha will be twelve small kalpas. His right teachings will be preserved for twenty small kalpas, and the counterfeit of his right teachings will be preserved also for twenty small kalpas. His world will be adorned, and not be defiled with tile-pieces, rubble, thorns or dirt. The ground [of his world] will be even, and devoid of pits and mounds. It will be made of lapis lazuli. Jeweled trees will stand in lines, and the roads will be marked off by ropes of gold. Jeweled flowers will be strewn all over the ground, and the ground will be purified. Many hundreds of thousands of millions of Bodhisattvas and innumerable Sravakas will live in that world. Although Mara and his followers also will live there, they will not do any evil but protect the teachings of the Buddha.

The Lecture on the Lotus Sutra offers one reason why the Buddha’s contemporary disciples face a different future than those who come after.

I can’t stress this enough that we who practice today have been given a promise that fundamentally is greater than any promise given to the contemporary disciples of the Buddha. With this promise by the Buddha those who practice today actually have a stronger more direct connection to the Buddha than those who lived during the lifetime of the Buddha. We will, by the merit of our practice of the Lotus Sutra, be able to be present with Shakyamuni, Many Treasures as well as all the replica Buddhas. For anyone who practices the Lotus Sutra to lament they were not born in the time of the Buddha some 2500 years ago it will be like saying they would rather have a lesser teaching of the Buddha than the fundamental truth of all Buddhas as revealed in the Lotus Sutra.
Lecture on the Lotus Sutra

Day 8 concludes Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith, and closes the second volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Having last month considered why these sravakas did not want to do the bodhisattva practices, we come to the sravakas appreciation of what the Buddha had accomplished.

The rich man knew
That his son was base and mean.
Therefore, he made him nobler
With expedients,
And then gave him
All his treasures.

In the same manner,
You knew that we wished
To hear the Lesser Vehicle.
Therefore, you did a rare thing.
You prepared us with expedients,
And then taught us the great wisdom.

Today we are not what we were then.
We have obtained
What we did not expect
To obtain
Just as the poor son obtained
The innumerable treasures.

World-Honored One!
We have attained enlightenment, perfect fruit.
We have secured pure eyes
With which we can see the Dharma-without-asravas.

We observed the pure precepts of the Buddha
In the long night.
Today we have obtained the effects and rewards
[Of our observance of the precepts].
We performed the brahma practices for long
According to the teachings of the King of the Dharma.
Now we have obtained the great fruit
Of the unsurpassed Dharma-without-asravas.

We are Sravakas in this sense of the word.
We will cause all living beings
To hear the voice telling
Of the enlightenment of the Buddha.

We are Arhats
In the true sense of the word.
All gods and men,
All Maras and Brahmans
In the worlds
Should make offerings to us.

You, the World-Honored One, are the great benefactor.
By doing this rare thing,
You taught and benefited us
Out of your compassion towards us.

The Daily Dharma from Dec. 17, 2016, offers this perspective:

Today we are not what we were then.
We have obtained
What we did not expect
To obtain
Just as the poor son obtained
The innumerable treasures.

Subhūti, Mahā-Kātyāyana, Mahā-Kāśyapa, and Mahā-Maudgalyāyana, all disciples of the Buddha, speak these lines in Chapter Four of the Lotus Sūtra as they explain their story of the wayward son. They compare the father’s treasure house in the story to the Buddha’s enlightenment. Until they had been led by the Buddha’s expedient teachings, they could not even imagine themselves as enlightened, any more than the wayward son in the story could imagine the contents of his father’s treasure house.

Day 7 concludes Chapter 3, A Parable, and begins Chapter 4, Understanding by Faith.

Having last month covered the fate of those who slander this sutra, we conclude the chapter with those who should hear this sutra.

Expound it to clever people
Who have profound wisdom,
Who hear much,
Who remember well,
And who seek
The enlightenment of the Buddha!

Expound it to those who have seen
Many thousands of myriads
Of millions of Buddhas
And planted the roots of good
In their previous existence,
And who are now resolute in mind!

Expound it
To those who make efforts,
Who have compassion towards others,
And who do not spare their lives!

Expound it to those
Who respect others,
Who have no perfidy in them,
Who keep away from ignorant people,
And who live alone
In mountains or valleys!

Sariputra!
Expound it to those
Who keep away
From evil friends,
And who approach
Good friends!

Expound it to the Buddha’s sons
Who keep the precepts
As cleanly and as purely
As they keep gems,
And who seek
The sutra of the Great Vehicle!

Expound it to those
Who are not angry
But upright, gentle,
Compassionate
Towards all others,
And respectful to the Buddhas!

Expound it to the Buddha’s sons
Who expound the Dharma without hindrance
To the great multitude
With their pure minds
By telling them
Various stories of previous lives,
Parables and similes,
And also by giving them various discourses!

Expound it to the bhiksus
Who seek the Dharma in all directions
In order to obtain
The knowledge of all things,
Who join their hands together
Towards the sutra of the Great Vehicle,
Who receive it respectfully,
Who keep it with joy,
And who do not receive
Even a gatha of any other sutra!

Expound it to those
Who seek this sutra
As eagerly as they seek
The sariras of the Buddha!

[Expound it to those]
Who receive [this sutra]
And put it on their heads,
And who do not seek
Any other sutra
Or think of the books of heresy!

(The Buddha said to Sariputra:)
Those who seek the enlightenment of the Buddha
Are as various as previously stated.
A kalpa will not be long enough
To describe the variety of them.
They will be able to understand [this sutra] by faith.
Expound to them
The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma!

The Daily Dharma from April 30, 2015, offers this:

Expound it to clever people
Who have profound wisdom,
Who hear much,
Who remember well,
And who seek
The enlightenment of the Buddha!