Day 2 completes Chapter 1, Introductory
What everyone is seeing (Day 1) is what Mañjuśrī explains to Maitreya he saw many times in previous lives while serving various Buddhas:
I think that this Buddha also is emitting this ray of light, and showing this good omen, wishing to cause all living beings to hear and understand the most difficult teaching in the world to believe.
The Introductory chapter continues to foreshadow what Śākyamuni will teach. Using the example of Sun-Moon-Light Buddha, Mañjuśrī explains:
He expounded the right teachings. His expounding of the right teachings was good at the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end. The meanings of those teachings were profound. The words were skilful, pure, unpolluted, perfect, clean, and suitable for the explanation of brahma practices. To those who were seeking Śrāvakahood, he expounded the teaching of the four truths, a teaching suitable for them, saved them from birth, old age, disease, and death, and caused them to attain Nirvāṇa. To those who were seeking Pratyekabuddhahood, he expounded the teaching of the twelve causes, a teaching suitable for them. To Bodhisattvas, he expounded the teaching of the six pāramitās, a teaching suitable for them, and caused them to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, that is, to obtain the knowledge of the equality and differences of all things.
A succession of 20,000 Buddhas named Sun-Moon-Light continued doing this until the last Sun-Moon-Light Buddha. Just as Śākyamuni does at the beginning of the Lotus Sutra, the last Sun-Moon-Light Buddha preaches the “Innumerable Teachings” and entered into the samādhi.
At that time there was a Bodhisattva called Wonderful-Light. He had eight hundred disciples. Sun-Moon-Light Buddha emerged from his samādhi, and expounded the sūtra of the Great Vehicle to Wonderful-Light Bodhisattva and others without rising from his seat for sixty small kalpas. It was called the ‘Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, the Dharma for Bodhisattvas, the Dharma Upheld by the Buddhas.’ The hearers in the congregation also sat in the same place for sixty small kalpas, and their bodies and minds were motionless. They thought that they had heard the Buddha expounding the Dharma for only a mealtime. None of them felt tired in body or mind.
In an interesting sidelight, we learn that Maitreya, who will be the next Buddha in this Saha World at some distant future date, was once a Bodhisattva called Fame Seeking:
He was attached to gain. He read and recited many sūtras, but did not understand them. He forgot many parts of those sūtras. Therefore, he was called Fame-Seeking. But he [later] planted the roots of good, and became able to see many hundreds of thousands of billions of Buddhas. He made offerings to them, respected them, honored them, and praised them.
And in gāthās:
There was a lazy man
Among the disciples
Of Wonderful-Light, the Teacher of the Dharma.
[The lazy man] was attached to fame and gain.
Always seeking fame and gain,
He often visited noble families.
He did not understand what he had recited,
Gave it up, and forgot it.
Because of this,
He was called Fame-Seeking.
But he [later] did many good karmas,
And became able to see innumerable Buddhas.
He made offerings to them,
Followed them, practiced the Great Way,
And performed the six pāramitās.
Now he sees the Lion-Like One of the Śākyas.
He will become a Buddha
In his future life.
He will be called Maitreya.
He will save innumerable living beings.
The lazy man who lived after the extinction
Of [Sun-Moon-] Light Buddha was
No one but you. Wonderful-Light, the Teacher of the Dharma, was I.
