Day 6 continues Chapter 3, A Parable

Having last month considered why the father gave all of the children the large bullock carts, we move to the gathas description of the burning manor house.

I will tell you a parable.
A rich man had a manor house.
It was old, rotten,
Broken and ruined.
The house was about to collapse.
The lower parts of the pillars were rotten;
The beams and ridge-poles, tilting and slanted;
The foundation and steps, broken;
The fences and walls, corrupt;
The plaster of the walls, peeling;
The rush thatched on the roof, falling;
The rafters and eaves, slipping out of each other;
The hedges around the house, bent;
And refuse and debris, scattered all over.

In this house lived
Five hundred people.
Kites, owls, crested eagles,
Eagles, crows,
Magpies, doves, pigeons,
Lizards, snakes, vipers, scorpions,
Millipedes, wall lizards, centipedes,
Weasels, badgers, mice, rats,
And poisonous vermin
Were moving about.
Maggots and other vermin
Assembled on the excretions
Scattered all over
In the house.

Foxes, wolves, and small foxes
Were crawling on corpses,
Biting them, chewing them,
And dismembering them.

Many dogs were scrambling for their prey.
Weak and nervous from hunger,
They were seeking food here and there.
They were fighting with each other,
Snapping at each other,
And barking at each other.
The house was
So dreadful, so extraordinary.

Mountain spirits, water spirits,
Yaksas and other demons
Lived here and there.
They fed on people and poisonous vermin.

Wild birds and beasts
Hatched their eggs,
Suckled or bred.
They protected their offspring.
Yaksas scrambled for their young,
Took them, and ate them.
Having eaten to their hearts’ content,
They became more violent.
They fought with each other.
Their shrieks were dreadful.

The demons called kumbhandas
Crouched on the ground
Or jumped a foot or two above the ground.
They walked to and fro
And played at their will.
They seized dogs by the legs,
Or hit them
Until they lost their voices,
And held their feet against their necks.
They enjoyed seeing them frightened.

Some demons,
Tall, large,
Naked, black, and thin,
Lived in the house.
They were crying for food
With loud and evil voices.

The necks of some demons
Were as slender as needles.
The heads of some demons
Were like that of a cow.
They ate people or dogs.
Their hair was disheveled
Like mugworts.
They were cruel and dangerous.
Always hungry and thirsty,
They were running about, shrieking.

Yaksas, hungry spirits,
And wild birds and beasts
Were unbearably hungry.
They were looking out of the windows
In all directions for food.
The house was so dangerous, so dreadful.

Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1, offers this perspective:

The quest for material gain, fueled by craving leads to suffering, or as the Buddha says: “You will be burned by them.” In the case of the Parable of the Burning house the children inside were so busy engrossed in their games, in their play, in their pursuit of happiness that they failed to notice the house was on fire and they were in great danger. If we approach our Buddhist practice as a way to gain benefit and not as a way to become enlightened then we will continue the cycles of suffering, of getting burned. Instead we should approach Buddhism as a way to become enlightened.
Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1

Day 5 begins Chapter 3, A Parable

Having last month returned to the start of the chapter, we continue with Sariputra’s realization that the deception he experienced was his own.

I have never felt like this before. Why is that? We [Sravakas and the Bodhisattvas] heard this Dharma before. [At that time] we saw that the Bodhisattvas were assured of their future Buddhahood, but not that we were. We deeply regretted that we were not given the immeasurable insight of the Tathagata.

World-Honored One! I sat alone under a tree or walked about mountains and forests, thinking, ‘We [and the Bodhisattvas] entered the same world of the Dharma. Why does the Tathagata save us only by the teachings of the Lesser Vehicle?’

Now I understand that the fault was on our side, not on yours, because if we had waited for your expounding of the Way to Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, we would have been saved by the Great Vehicle. When we heard your first teaching, we did not know that that teaching was an expedient one expounded according to our capacities. Therefore, we believed and received that teaching at once, thought it over, and attained the enlightenment [to be attained by that teaching].

World-Honored One! I reproached myself day and night [after I saw that the Bodhisattvas were assured of their future Buddhahood]. Now I have heard from you the Dharma that I had never heard before. I have removed all my doubts. I am now calm and peaceful in body and mind. Today I have realized that I am your son, that I was born from your mouth, that I was born in [the world of] the Dharma, and that I have obtained the Dharma of the Buddha.

Calm and peaceful in body and mind. There is a reason Sariputra is considered foremost in wisdom.

Day 4 finishes Chapter 2, Expedients, and completes the first volume of the Sutra of the Lotus flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Having last month covered the Buddha’s vow, we continue with why expedients were necessary.

Seeing people of no wisdom, I thought:

‘If I teach them only the Way to Buddhahood,
They will be distracted.
They will doubt my teaching, and not receive it.
I know that they did not plant
The roots of good in their previous existence.
They are deeply attached to the five desires.
They suffer because of stupidity and cravings.
Because they have many desires,
They will fall into the three evil regions,
Or go from one to another of the six regions
Only to undergo many sufferings.
Through their consecutive previous existences,
Their small embryos have continued to grow up
To become men of few virtues and merits.
They are now troubled by many sufferings.
They are in the thick forests of wrong views.
They say “Things exist,”
Or “Things do not exist.”
They are attached to sixty-two wrong views.
They are deeply attached to unreal things.
They hold them firmly, and do not give them up.
They are arrogant, self-conceited,
Liable to flatter others, and insincere.
They have never heard of the name of a Buddha
Or of his right teachings
For thousands of billions of kalpas.
It is difficult to save them.’

Therefore, Sariputra!
I expounded an expedient teaching
In order to eliminate their sufferings.
That was the teaching of Nirvana.
The Nirvana which I expounded to them
Was not true extinction.

All things are from the outset
In the state of tranquil extinction.

The Daily Dharma from Nov. 1, 2015, offers this:

The Buddha provides this explanation to his disciple Śāriputra in Chapter Two of the Lotus Sūtra. In this part of the story, the Buddha has announced that everything he had taught up until then, including the teachings of suffering and Nirvāṇa, were merely preparation for his highest teaching: the realization of the same enlightenment he reached. With the teaching of Nirvāṇa, the Buddha helps us take responsibility for our own situation rather than relying on an external force to make us happy. One problem with Nirvāṇa is that we can believe that it is something we do not have now. When we extinguish the fires of our delusion, we see the world with the Buddha’s eyes. We see the world for what it is, right here and right now.

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