[I]n the fourth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, “Faith and Understanding,” there appears the famous parable of the rich man and his poor son. The older rich man represents Shakyamuni Buddha and the poor son represents nihilistic Small Vehicle Buddhists. The story portrays the rich man as running a big business; when he is on his deathbed, even a king and his ministers gather around him. Some think that the fact that the man is very rich is intended as praise for the virtue and authority of Shakyamuni Buddha. But based on the fact that the Lotus Sutra portrays a man of wealth, we can imagine the kind of society to which its composers may have belonged: a society of commercial production. This, however, can be said not only of the group that produced the Lotus Sutra but of Mahayana Buddhists in general.

Small Vehicle Buddhists also had connections with men of property as sponsors or supporters, and maintained the sangha with their aid, but they rejected secular occupations personally, secluding themselves within monasticism. In contrast, Mahayana Buddhists situated themselves within society and probably affirmed the activities of everyday life. we can imagine the development of a commercial economy to have been the background for the rise of Mahayana Buddhism. From about 50 CE the Kushana dynasty, centered in northern India, prospered with the help of trade with Rome and had a money-based economy and commercial production. The Mahayana Buddhist movement developed aggressively during that time.

Thus, Mahayana Buddhism or Mahayana Buddhists were closely related to commercial production, and that relationship appears in the Lotus Sutra. One piece of evidence for this is the way in which the Buddha is described as being like a wealthy man of property in Chapter 4. Furthermore, although there are no direct references to commercial production in the Lotus Sutra, we might think of the words that affirm secular life in Chapter 19 and elsewhere from the same perspective.

The famous parable of the three vehicles and the burning house appears in chapter 3. The burning house represents human life, and the three vehicles— the goat, deer, and ox carts—represent the shravaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva ways. Without realizing that they are in the midst of and being consumed by the fire of life, human beings seek life’s pleasures. In order to save them the Buddha tries to get them to get out of the burning house by offering them things appropriate to their abilities and liking (i.e., the three vehicles, teachings of skillful means). When they go outside, all alike are given great white ox-carts (the One Buddha-Vehicle). The following passage is famous and often recited in Japanese:

The threefold world is not safe,
Just as a burning house
Full of all kinds of suffering
Is much to be feared.

Always there is the suffering of
Birth, old age, disease, and death.
They are like flames
Raging ceaselessly.

The Tathagata is already free
From the burning house of the threefold world.
He lives in tranquil peace,
As in the safety of a forest or field.

Now, this threefold world
Is all my domain,
And the living beings in it
Are all my children.

But now this place
Is filled with all kinds of dreadful troubles,
From which I alone
Can save and protect them.

Nichiren showed with this passage, which he greatly admired, that Shakyamuni Buddha is our lord, teacher, and parent (“the Three Beneficial Virtues”).

[T]he second chapter teaches that the nihilistic followers of the two vehicles, which it criticizes for not being able to become buddhas, are once again awakened to the unifying truth of the one vehicle and are reborn to the possibility of becoming buddhas like everyone else. This teaching, known as “the ability of the two vehicles to lead to becoming a buddha,” became one of the outstanding characteristics of the Lotus Sutra, which generally speaking, places emphasis on the equality of all people and all things under the unifying truth. From chapter 3 on, various parables and narratives tell the story of how, through this unifying truth, followers of the two vehicles can be saved from the abyss of nihilism, how all human beings can be saved from clinging to the world of illusion, and how they are, moreover, guaranteed to become buddhas in the future. Later generations often used these parables as literary material.

Zhiyi emphasizes the idea that a whole universe of three thousand worlds is enveloped within a micro-world of a single experience, and the micro-world of a single experience penetrates the whole universe of three thousand worlds.

First, everything in the universe is divided into ten classes or worlds, from the state of hell to the state of being a buddha. Zhiyi holds that these ten worlds do not exist independently but are interrelated, and he maintains that each of these ten worlds contains ten worlds. In this way, he posits one hundred worlds.

Furthermore, Kumarajiva’s version of chapter 2 of the Lotus Sutra teaches that all things are conditioned by ten categories or factors. One hundred worlds multiplied by these ten factors makes one thousand. Further, if we look at a single thing, we can see that it is constituted by its autonomy (individual existence), the five mental and physical components which constitute it, and by its environment. The one thousand multiplied by these three spheres makes three thousand. In brief, “three thousand” is a skillful way to express the weaving together of the entire cosmos.

In contrast, a single occasion of experience can point to the smallest, infinitesimal world. It can express either an entity or a subject, something both temporally and spatially infinitesimal, and not necessarily subjective. Zhiyi insisted on this. His use of terms such as “a single experience” or “one subject” is derived from his respect for the power of engagement with existence. With regard to mutual penetration of three thousand worlds in one occasion of experience:

Also, we do not say that a single subject exists first and then all things afterward, nor do we say that all things exist and then such a subject. … Both before and after are impossible. … If all things emerge from one subject, this is only the warp; if a subject includes all things in a moment, this is only the woof: either is impossible by itself. A single subject is simply all things, and all things are really one subject.

Thus, one should not discuss either the three thousand things or the moment of experience from the point of view of such things as essence and appearance, real and nonreal, whole and part, or in terms of such things as temporally or spatially before and after, primary and secondary, superior and subordinate, or same and different.

The powers of all things in the universe cohere together and are united. The power of one thing, moreover, spreads out and becomes fully present within all things. If we seek the boundary of the largest universe, we will know that it is infinitely expanding. Yet at the same time, if we magnify the smallest particle with a microscope, we will know that it is the infinite, entire universe. Thus the microcosm is the macrocosm, as it is, and vice versa. “A subject is all things, and all things are subjects.” The reality of this kind of world and existence is beyond our limited ability to comprehend such things as being and nonbeing or large and small. In this sense, this is a mysterious world. “Profoundly wonderful and profoundly deep, it is beyond understanding. It is beyond words. That is why it constitutes a mysterious state.”

After explaining the reality of all things found in the ten suchnesses, the second chapter introduces this unifying truth of the cosmos. As it is the supreme, absolute truth, it is called the true Dharma or the Wonderful Dharma (saddharma). In other words, as the vehicle that integrates all dharmas and things as the highest way, it is called the one vehicle or the one Buddha-Vehicle. It has also been called the Buddha’s supreme and ultimate teaching (the primordial teaching).

Up to this point, the Buddha had taught various teachings and truths, such as the two or three vehicles, according to the level and capacity of the audience. Now it was time to explain the supreme and absolute truth that would synthesize and unify those various teachings. This is the ultimate purpose of the Buddha. “The tathagatas teach the Dharma for the sake of all living beings only by means of the One Buddha-Vehicle. have no other vehicles—no second or third vehicle.” The buddhas of the past and of the future “through an innumerable variety of skillful means, causal explanations, parables and other kinds of expression, have preached the Dharma for the sake of living beings. These teachings have all been for the sake of the One Buddha-Vehicle.”

In all the buddha-lands in the ten directions
There is only the Dharma of one vehicle,
Not a second or a third.

By using the power of skillful means
They demonstrate various paths.
But they are all really for the sake of the Buddha-Vehicle.

Later, terms such as “skillful means of three vehicles and the truth of one vehicle” came from such passages. Furthermore, the reason chapter 2 was named “Skillful Means” was that the main theme of the chapter is the explication of the “skillful means of three vehicles and the truth of one vehicle.”

Having finished with Tao-Sheng’s 5th century commentary on the Lotus Sutra, I now return to Yoshiro Tamura’s 20th century Introduction to the Lotus Sutra, which includes a chapter-by-chapter discussion of the sutra.

In chapter 2, “Skillful Means,” the Buddha arises from his meditation to explain first the truth about all things in the cosmos (the ultimate reality of all things). According to Kumarajiva’s translation, everything happens and functions in ten ways, such that everything has characteristics, a nature, an embodiment, powers, actions, causes, conditions, effects, rewards and retributions, and a complete fundamental coherence.

“Characteristics” means an outward aspect. “Nature” means inner character. “Embodiment” means the outward and the inner characters together. “Powers” means potential. “Actions” means actual acts. “Causes” are the direct causes that give rise to and move things. “Conditions” are the indirect causes that facilitate direct causes. “Effects” are the results produced by causes and conditions. “Rewards and retributions” are the facts that issue from the effects. “Complete fundamental coherence” means the coherent interrelationship of all of these.

Since “such a/an” precedes each of these in translation, they have been called the “ten suchnesses.” They have been highly regarded since ancient times as the aspects of existing things and events. The ten suchnesses are the truth that supports and underlies every kind of thing, making them coherent “dharmas.” Or, put the other way around, the concrete truth that supports all kinds of things is the ten suchnesses. It is the reality of all things.

When we understand the categories of the ten suchnesses, we will see that nothing is independent or unchanging (the doctrines that nothing has a permanent self and of emptiness), but everything is interdependent, being related to others as it arises and changes (the doctrines of impermanence and of interdependent origination). The Lotus Sutra finds the unifying truth of the cosmos in the interrelating of all things, all dharmas, under the ten suchnesses. This unifying truth of the cosmos was called “the Wonderful Dharma of One Vehicle.”