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

Having last month heard that the Dharma of the Buddhas did not come into Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Buddha’s mind immediately, we see the reaction of the Buddha’s 16 sons when their father became enlightened after 10 small kalpas.

“Bhikṣus! At the end of the period of ten small kalpas, the Dharma of the Buddhas came into the mind of Great-Universal-­Wisdom-Excellence Buddha. Now he attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. Before he left home, he had sixteen sons. The first son was called Accumulated-Wisdom. Each of the sons had various playthings. When the sons heard that their father had attained Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, they gave up the playthings, left home, and came to that Buddha.

“[When they were leaving home,] their mothers saw them off, weeping. Not only the wheel-turning-holy-king, who was their grandfather, but also one hundred ministers and hundreds of thousands of billions of subjects surrounded and followed the princes, wishing to come to the place of enlightenment, to see Great­-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathāgata, to make offerings to that Buddha, respect him, honor him, and praise him.

The Introduction to the Lotus Sūtra offers this:

The story of the sixteen princes is intended to teach that the Bodhisattvas (the princes) must do what Sakyamuni did – save all living beings by teaching the truth. Although the profound wisdom of the Buddha is beyond the reach of Bodhisattvas, they nevertheless share the heart of the Buddha. That heart is a commitment to universal salvation – the act of benefiting others.

In the chapters which follow, we shall see some examples of such acts performed by some of the Bodhisattvas, and the story of the sixteen princes here serves as an introduction to those practices.