Below is another example of how Chinese Master Hsuan Hua’s commentary expands the Lotus Sutra. In this case he is commenting on the Parable of the Conjured City. (This has been edited to remove duplication.)
Hsuan Hua Lotus Sutra Commentary, v6, p327-333For example, suppose there is a treacherous, difficult road, five hundred yojanas in length, that runs through a desolate wasteland filled with terrors. Śākyamuni Buddha set up an analogy for the assembly. Why did he teach expedient Dharmas and the principles of the Two Vehicles? One yojana is 80 li [about 25 miles]. Ten yojanas would then be 800 li [about 250 miles], and 100 yojanas would be 8,000 li [about 2,500 miles]. Therefore, a road of 500 yojanas would be 40,000 li [about 12,500 miles] long. This road was extremely dangerous and difficult to travel. Let’s assume there were bandits as well as jackals, wolves, tigers, and panthers. There was no human presence at all along the 500 yojanas. It was very scary to walk down this road.
Suppose a large group of people wish to travel this road to reach a land of treasures. Suppose a large number of people wanted to reach a place where precious treasures were stored, but to get there they had to take a perilous road that was 500 yojanas in length. The 500 yojanas are an analogy for the hardships we need to pass through while cultivating the Buddhadharma and walking the Buddha’s Path. The land of treasures represents the highest realization-Buddhahood. At the midpoint of their journey waits a city, the conjured city of the Two Vehicles.
Among them is a guide of intelligence and penetrating clarity who knows well the passable and impassable parts of the dangerous road. The guide, who is intelligent and wise and knows the way, is a metaphor for the Buddha. He knows how great the dangers are and how to avoid them. He knows which ways are clear and which are blocked.
He will lead the group through this hardship. The guide wants to lead all the people along the difficult path.
Halfway through their journey, the group he is leading grows weary and wishes to turn back. If you do something but quit halfway, that is to “grow weary” and “turn back.” If you cultivate and cultivate but then stop, you have become weary and are retreating halfway. They say to the guide, “We are exhausted and afraid, so we cannot go any farther. Our destination is still far from here. We want to turn back now. We are now extremely tired. We really don’t want to go any farther along this dangerous road. Since there’s still a long way to go, we’d rather turn back. We don’t want to go on.”
Their guide, who possesses many expedients, thinks, “How pitiful they are! How can they renounce the great treasures and turn back?” This guide, who has many expedient Dharma-doors at his disposal, thinks that these living beings are pathetic. How can they abandon their quest for the great treasures of Buddhahood and go back? So thinking, he conjures up a city through skillful means at a point three hundred yojanas along the dangerous road. The five hundred yojanas are a metaphor for the five destinies of rebirth: gods, humans, hungry ghosts, animals, and hell beings. Asuras are not mentioned because they can be found in each one of the five realms. While transmigrating through the five realms, you may be a cow or a horse. If you aren’t a human being, you may be a ghost. You may fall into the hells or ascend to the heavens. Life in the five destinies is extremely dangerous. These people had traveled three hundred yojanas along the road, which was more than half their journey. This represents the fact that they had reached a halfway point in their process of transcending the five realms. At that point in their journey, the Buddha conjured up a city.
And then the guide says to them, “Do not be afraid. Do not turn back! Do not think of retreat. You can stay in this great city and do as you please. You can live here and do what-ever you like.” The conjured city, representing the fruition of the Two Vehicles, was not real. However, the Buddha told them that if they reached the city – that is, if they attained Arhatship – they could do as they pleased, because “having completed their task and cultivated pure conduct to perfection, they would no longer be subject to the cycle of birth and death.”
Then the exhausted group rejoiced greatly over this un-precedented opportunity, saying, “We have now escaped this terrible road and will soon find peace and tranquility.” At that time they were extremely tired and couldn’t walk another step. They represent people who have cultivated for a long time and feel tired from working so hard. Hearing there was a city where they could stop and rest, they were filled with joy. They thought that now they had the chance to live in a fine city, one where they had never been before. The city, a metaphor for the spiritual attainment of Śrāvakas, is called a conjured city. They thought to themselves that they’d escaped that terrible road, a road that included the destinies of gods and humans as well as the lower realms of animals, hell beings, and hungry ghosts; they thought they would soon attain peace and tranquility.
The group then proceeded into the conjured city and believed that they had gained liberation and attained peace and tranquility. At that time all of them entered the conjured city and thought they’d been taken across and had reached the level of the highest tranquility.
At that time the guide, knowing that they had rested and that their fatigue was gone, dissolved the conjured city. When they had rested and restored their energy and had settled down, the Buddha made the conjured city vanish and said, “All of you, come along, let us go! The land of treasures is near. The great city was merely something I conjured up as a place for you to take a rest.” The guide told them that they were not far from the land of treasures. This means that if the Śrāvakas, having attained the fourth stage of Arhatship, were to turn toward the Great Vehicle, they would be close to Buddhahood. The conjured city that they lived in was created by the Buddha so they could take a rest in it. It wasn’t real, so they shouldn’t have mistaken the false for the true.