Maintaining Faith and Discernment

[After abandoning a servile spirit,] the second mental attitude that we learn from chapter 4 is to maintain both faith and discernment toward the Lotus Sutra. Without both, we cannot fly surely to the Buddha’s arms. We are liable to deviate from the right course, either to a wrong one or to a blind alley in human life. If this should happen to us, we need to read the Lotus Sutra over again. In that way we can be sure of finding the way to return our lives to the right course, because the Lotus Sutra includes teachings that are applicable to people in all situations; we can come to our senses by beginning with any portion of the sutra. This is how we can escape from blind alleys in human life.

Buddhism for Today, p71