Translated freely, chapter 17 emphasizes this world—with its land of lapis lazuli smooth and level, its eight roads marked off with Jambunada gold and lined with jeweled trees . . .” Tiantai Zhiyi absolutized this pure land as a world of ever tranquil light. And Nichiren, following the name given to it in the sutra, called it the pure land of Gṛdhrakūṭa, because that was the actual place where Shakyamuni preached.

Chapter 17 teaches the theory of practice that later came to be summarized as the “four forms and five kinds of faith.” The “four forms of faith” are: (1) having even a single moment of faith in and understanding of the sutra, (2) understanding its meaning, (3) being devoted to preaching it to others, and (4) continuing to maintain and develop profound faith and understanding. These were taken to have been taught during Shakyamuni Buddha’s lifetime and thus were called “four forms of faith for the present.” They involve developing a view of life and of the world in which one wholeheartedly accepts that the life of the Buddha is everlasting. In other words, it is to have faith instantly, understand its meaning, widely teach it to others, and in the process deepen one’s own faith.

The “five kinds of faith” include: (1) rejoicing from receiving the Lotus Sutra, (2) reading and reciting it, (3) preaching it, (4) concurrently practicing the six transcendental practices, and (5) intensively following the six transcendental practices. These faith practices benefit those who devotedly put them into actual practice after Shakyamuni is gone, and thus they were called “the five kinds of faith following the extinction of the Buddha.” They involve hearing the Lotus Sutra, rejoicing in and embracing it, reading and reciting it, teaching it to others and having them read it, and, at the same time, practicing the six transcendental practices—generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration, and wisdom. Furthermore, one should be devoted to practice based on the six transcendental practices as the central focus of one’s life.

The chapter emphasizes the idea that the blessings that come from practicing these four forms and five kinds of faith are innumerable and boundless, far superior to building temples or stupas. Fundamental among them are the faith and joy that arise from hearing of the eternal life of the Buddha and the ultimate truth. No discipline or practice can bear fruit without them. In this sense, what is being taught is that these four forms and five kinds of faith are superior to the five transcendental practices (excluding the transcendental practice of wisdom), the most important Mahayana teaching about practice.

Faith is emphasized throughout the Lotus Sutra. The Sanskrit terms used for it are shraddha (faith) and adhimukti (faith and understanding). In addition, prasada (pure faith) is used once or twice. None of these words means the kind of absolute devotion to an absolute person indicated by the term bhakti. They signify entering the Buddha way, reforming oneself, setting one’s resolve, and purifying one’s heart. With this kind of preparation one can devote oneself to the discipline, grow in wisdom, and become awakened.

This conception of faith has consistently underlain Buddhism. There is a place in the first chapter of Nagarjuna’s Great Wisdom Discourse, that says, “Entering the great sea of Buddha-dharma is accomplished with the power of faith and attained by the power of wisdom.” The Lotus Sutra also keeps this basic principle. Chapter 17, for example, while emphasizing a single moment of faith (shraddha) or faith and understanding (adhimukti) says that they go beyond five of the six transcendental practices, but adds “except the perfection of wisdom.” That is, among the six practices for becoming awakened, only the last one, wisdom, or prajña, is put above faith.

When it came to the theory of three Buddha-bodies, Zhiyi gave primary importance to the reward body. Commenting on chapter 16, he claims that “the main theme throughout this chapter is the revelation of the three bodies. But if we take it differently, it is really concerned with the reward body. The real intention is to discuss the merits of the reward body. ” The reward body is a figure of merit attained, in which eternal life is active in the actual world. To truly understand the reward body is to feel the throbbing life of the eternal Buddha in the midst of concrete, actual reality woven from joy and sadness, suffering and pleasure, good and evil.

The Everlasting Buddha is not a Creator but unceasingly engages in bodhisattva practice. Moreover, the sutra teaches that our becoming a buddha is substantially the same as it is for the Everlasting Original Buddha, but is expressed in different terms. For what purpose, then, does the sutra insist upon the idea of Everlasting Original Buddha? We can summarize it in the following three points:

1. It resolves views of the Buddha—in other words, its purpose is to bring together and make coherent the various buddhas. In this regard, we can say that whereas we find the unity of Dharma or truth in chapter 2, we find the unity of Buddha or the personal in chapter 16.
2. It shows that we can see the personal life of the Everlasting Original Buddha wherever there is unified truth—that is, it reveals that the unifying truth of the cosmos is not merely a matter of natural law, but that the eternal body of truth, which affects all life, is personal and dynamically alive.
3. It shows that the dynamism of eternal life can inspire us in the midst of religious practice within this life. This is why chapter 16 teaches that Shakyamuni Buddha is the Everlasting Original Buddha and that he has never ceased doing bodhisattva practice.

[In the parable of the good physician], a father—a physician—cannot convince his children, whose minds have been warped by poison, to take an antidote. So he leaves some medicine for them, disappears, and then sends someone to tell his children that he is dead. Hearing this, a deep longing for the father arises in the hearts of the children, bringing them to take the medicine. As a result they are cured and their eyes opened. Hearing that they had recovered, the father reappears. The children in the parable correspond to lost and wandering beings, and the father corresponds to the Everlasting Original Buddha. The father’s disappearance is comparable to that of the Everlasting Original Buddha, who has a kind of temporary extinction in order to correct the people’s hearts and minds and open their eyes.

The parables of the three carriages in chapter 3, and of the lost son in chapter 4, the simile of the rain and plants in chapter 5, the parables of the magic city in chapter 7, the jewel in the hem in chapter 8, the jewel in the topknot in chapter 14, and this parable of the physician’s sons in chapter 16 are called the seven parables of the Lotus Sutra and have been highly valued from ancient times.

[The] Lotus Sutra maintains that the actual and concrete Shakyamuni is in reality a version of the eternal. That is, the eternity of Shakyamuni Buddha that is emphasized is not a truth-body behind him, but the concrete and actual Shakyamuni himself. In other words, the concrete, historical, actual Shakyamuni is the living embodiment of eternal life. His death or extinction, on the other hand, was just an expression of a convenient, temporary device.

The Buddha appears to be invisible in the teaching of chapter 16, in order to open the eyes of those who have narrow ways of thinking about being and nonbeing, and such. This is his so-called extinction. Those who have their eyes open know that the concrete and actual Shakyamuni Buddha exists eternally. This matter is summarized in lines of beautiful poetry in the verses at the end of the chapter. Kumarajiva’s translation of them begins with a phrase that has been lovingly recited from ancient times: “Since I became a buddha . . .”

[T]he actual Shakyamuni is the living form of eternal life and the manifestation of a transhistorical Shakyamuni in history. Accordingly, even if that manifestation disappears, Shakyamuni does not. He exists eternally, beyond ordinary ways of viewing or thinking about being and nonbeing. Those who go beyond such ways of viewing or thinking can grasp this. This is the second meaning of the theory of everlasting Shakyamuni Buddha. In brief, the transhistorical Shakyamuni Buddha and the historical Shakyamuni Buddha are united. …

the Stupa indicates that the worlds of the ten directions are unified into one buddha-land. This, too, is intended to reveal that Shakyamuni Buddha is a unifying Buddha.

Chapter 16 finally completely reveals that Shakyamuni is really the Everlasting Original Buddha. Shakyamuni himself emphasizes this, saying that the everlasting Shakyamuni goes beyond the ways of thinking about and viewing things used by ordinary people, who cling to being and nonbeing. The sutra says:

“The Tathagata has insight into the threefold world as it really is. For him there is no birth or death, neither retreat from nor emergence into the world, no transmigration or extinction, neither being nor nonbeing, neither existence nor nonexistence, neither sameness nor difference, and neither deception nor non-deception. He does not see the threefold world through the eyes of an ordinary person.”

Thus, those who are deluded by inverted or perverse ways of thinking cannot see Shakyamuni:

Perverse living beings fail to see me
Even though I am close.

It is before those who are upright and gentle, and have put attachment to desire behind them, that Shakyamuni appears:

And when the living have become faithful,
Honest and upright and gentle,
Then, together with the assembly of monks
I appear on Holy Eagle Peak.

In other words, those who are free from attachment to such things as being and nonbeing are able to see the Buddha.

[C]hapter 16 is traditionally understood as showing that Shakyamuni is the Everlasting Original Buddha, and from that point of view, is regarded as the core of the second half of the Lotus Sutra. Since it does maintain the eternal life of Shakyamuni, such an interpretation certainly seems reasonable, but it is important to notice how that eternal life is taught.

The inception of the revelation of the everlasting life of Shakyamuni Buddha is in chapter 15, where a question is raised about the countless bodhisattvas who emerged from the earth and were said to have been taught from the remote past by Shakyamuni. Here at its inception, the teaching of the eternity of Shakyamuni Buddha is already related to bodhisattvas.

Thus, since I became Buddha a very long time has passed, a lifetime of innumerable countless eons of constantly living here and never entering extinction. Good sons, from the beginning I have practiced the bodhisattva way, and that life is not yet finished…

In short, unlimited, endless bodhisattva practice is used to demonstrate the eternal life of the Buddha.

In Christianity, where the absolute God of monotheism was affirmed, the relation between reason and faith became a big issue, and arguments developed around three positions—having faith in order to know, knowing in order to have faith, and having faith although it is irrational. In Buddhism, such serious arguments never arose, because the conception of God found in monotheism does not exist in Buddhism. In other words, the Everlasting Buddha of chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra is essentially different from the One God, the supreme deity commonly seen in India, and from the monotheistic deity of Christianity and other religions.