Day 31 covers Chapter 27, King Wonderful-Adornment as the Previous Life of a Bodhisattva.
Last month, I focused on the outcome of the effort of two sons who, at the invitation of their mother, convinced their father, a king, to hear the Buddha.
This month I’d like to focus on the role of the children. I find it interesting that this is not the first place in the Lotus Sutra where children are called on to demonstrate their “merits, virtues and wisdom” for the benefit of their elders. The 8-year-old dragon girl is the other example.
Having been inspired by his children to take faith, abdicating his throne, and “acting according to the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma constantly and strenuously for eighty-four thousand years,” the king:
practiced the samadhi for the adornment of all pure merits. Then he went up to the sky seven times as high as the tala-tree, and said to that Buddha, ‘World-Honored One! These two sons of mine did the work of the Buddha. They converted me from wrong views by displaying wonders. They caused me to dwell peacefully in your teachings. They caused me to see you. These two sons of mine are my teachers. They appeared in my family in order to benefit me. They inspired the roots of good which I had planted in my previous existence.’
Thereupon Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha said to King Wonderful-Adornment, ‘So it is, so it is. It is just as you say. The good men or women who plant the roots of good will obtain teachers in their successive lives. The teachers will do the work of the Buddha, show the Way [to them], teach them, benefit them, cause them to rejoice, and cause them to enter into the Way to Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. Great King, know this! A teacher is a great cause [of your enlightenment] because he leads you, and causes you to see a Buddha and aspire for Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. Great King! Do you see these two sons of yours, or not? They made offerings to six trillion and five hundred thousand billion Buddhas, that is, as many Buddhas as there are sands in the River Ganges, in their previous existence. They attended on those Buddhas respectfully. They kept the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma under those Buddhas, and caused the people of wrong views to have right views out of their compassion towards them.’