The Buddha then addressed all the bhikshus, saying: “These sixteen bodhisattvas take delight in preaching this Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law. Numberless living beings whom each of these bodhisattvas converted, reborn generation after generation, all following these bodhisattvas, heard the Law from them, and all believed and discerned it. For this cause they succeeded in meeting four myriad koṭis of buddhas, world-honored ones, and at the present time have not ceased so to do.”

Some people consider that because this chapter is only the seventh sermon of the Buddha in the Lotus Sutra, and Sakyamuni Buddha has not yet finished preaching the sutra, it is odd that he should have said that the Buddha Universal Surpassing Wisdom and the sixteen bodhisattvas had preached the Lotus Sutra in the past. This mistaken idea comes from their thinking that the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law is just the title of this specific sutra, like the title of a book.

“The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law” actually indicates the following idea: the supremely sacred truth that dwells in the minds of ordinary men living in this corrupt world but untainted by their evils, just as the lotus is untainted by the mud in which it grows, and which leads them to buddhahood. Such a truth is always one; it cannot be divided into two or three. Therefore it is quite natural that Sakyamuni Buddha should have said that the Buddha Universal Surpassing Wisdom and the sixteen bodhisattvas had once preached the Lotus Sutra. The truth has obviously existed from the infinite past, before Sakyamuni Buddha appeared in this world, and the enlightenment realized by a truly enlightened person cannot exist except as the one truth. For this reason, it is no wonder that the Buddha said that some hundred thousand people preached the truth in their previous lives. From such words of the Buddha, we can clearly gather his intention to cause people to understand thoroughly the fact that the truth is one.