In chapter 21, the bodhisattvas, centering around Superior Practice Bodhisattva, are given the mission to propagate the Dharma (the “special entrustment”), and in chapter 22 this is extended to all the bodhisattvas (the general entrustment”). Those so entrusted make vows to dedicate themselves to following the Buddha’s orders and to working to embody the truth. “We will respectfully do all that the World-Honored One has commanded. Please, World-Honored One, do not worry about that.” A very similar vow can be seen in chapter 13.

When the Buddha’s entrustment orders were completed, the stage of the drama returned from the air to Mt. Gṛdhrakūṭa on the ground, and those who received the mission distributed themselves around the Sahā world. The main story line of the Lotus Sutra ends here. The remaining six chapters are supplemental, yet the merits and efficacy of faith are emphasized and taught in various distinct ways in them. Thus, these chapters came to be highly regarded among the people.

In chapter 22, the Dharma is entrusted to all others. Thus, the entrustment in chapter 21 was later called a “special entrustment,” because it was directed only toward the bodhisattvas, such as Superior Practice Bodhisattva, who had welled up from the earth. The entrustment of chapter 22 was called the “general entrustment,” because it is directed to all others. Those who are entrusted with the Dharma swear to fulfill the mission of the Buddha.

Thus, the entrustment of the Buddha’s mission to bodhisattvas is completed and the Stupa of Abundant Treasures Buddha, which had been suspended in the air, returned to where it originally came from, the assembled embodiment buddhas of Shakyamuni returned to their respective lands, and the bodhisattvas returned to this actual Sahā world—generally a reiteration of the significance of being born into this world. This is how the curtain falls on the second group of chapters.

The special entrustment, general entrustment, and the like signify the transmission of the Buddha’s mission to those who put truth into actual practice, thereby propagating it in society. Such assurance symbolizes the paragon of Mahayana Buddhism and has a deep relationship with the Mahayana bodhisattvas.

In this context, we should think again about the location of the “Entrustment” chapter. This chapter is about entrusting the Dharma or the mission to others. It is placed last in all versions, except for the extant Sanskrit texts and Kumarajiva’s translation. In Kumarajiva’s translation it is located after chapter 21, “Divine Powers of the Tathagata.” After examining the content and title of the chapter, I think this location is proper, as the chapter brings a long story and the second group of chapters to a conclusion.

[T]he latter half of chapter 21 consists of verses [that] have long been popularly and lovingly recited. The chapter closes with these words:

After the extinction of the Tathagata,
Anyone who knows the sutras preached by the Buddha,
Their causes and conditions and proper order,
Will teach them truthfully in accord with their true meaning.

Just as the light of the sun and the moon
Can dispel darkness,
Such a person, working in the world,
Can dispel the gloom of living beings,

Leading innumerable bodhisattvas
Finally to dwell in the one vehicle.
Therefore, one who has wisdom,
Hearing of the blessings to be gained,

After my extinction
Should embrace this sutra.
Such a person will be determined to follow,
Without doubts, the Buddha way.

From these verses Nichiren became aware of what it means to be born in the latter days, and of his own mission. And though his heart was crushed by suffering, he enthusiastically took up his mission once again. At that time, he developed his so-called “Five Categories of Teaching”—five things that have to be taken into account for disseminating the Dharma: the teaching, the hearers, the age, the country, and the sequence of propagation.

In chapter 21 we find the paradigm of bodhisattva practice and the expectation of the final entrustment of the mission to embody the truth to them. First, Shakyamuni Buddha reveals the ten kinds of divine power and praises the greatness of the truth of the Lotus Sutra. He tells bodhisattva Superior Practice and the other bodhisattvas:

The divine powers of buddhas, as you have seen, are innumerable, unlimited, inconceivable. Even if for the sake of entrusting this sutra to others I were to use these divine powers to declare its blessings for innumerable, unlimited hundreds of thousands of billions of countless eons, I would be unable to exhaust them. In brief, all the teachings of the Tathagata, all the unhindered, divine powers of the Tathagata, the hidden core of the whole storehouse of the Tathagata, and all the profound matters of the Tathagata, are proclaimed, demonstrated, revealed, and preached in this sutra. Therefore, after the extinction of the Tathagata, you should all wholeheartedly embrace, read and recite, explain and copy, and practice it as you have been taught.

Further, it teaches that wherever you are, if you revere the teachings of the sutra and practice them, the Buddha will manifest in a state of absolute and supreme happiness. That is:

In any land, wherever anyone accepts and embraces, reads and recites, explains and copies, and practices it as taught, or wherever a volume of the sutra is kept, whether in a garden, or a woods, or under a tree, or in a monk’s cell, or a layman’s house, or a palace, or in a mountain valley or an open field, in all these places you should put up a tower and make offerings. Why? You should understand that all such places are places of the Way. They are where the buddhas attain supreme awakening; they are where the buddhas turn the Dharma wheel; they are where the buddhas reach complete nirvana.

The tower in this quotation is not a Stupa in which remains are kept, but a caitya in which sutras are kept, signifying the reverent keeping of the teachings of the sutra. And the last Chinese word in the quotation, bān nièpán, is a phonetic translation of pari-nivriti, which, like pari-nirvāṇa, signifies the world of complete awakening or the state of supreme bliss.

When Dogen became seriously ill, he walked around in his room reciting these words. He wrote them on a pillar, and finally named his monastery room the “Lotus Sutra Hermitage.” When one walks through life vigorously, fully in accord with one’s abilities, even if its ends are not yet complete, if a great, awakened letting-go arises, one can be satisfied. Dogen came to such a realization through the words of this chapter.