First of all, when we look at chapter 10, “Teachers of the Dharma,” the emphasis on bodhisattvas as apostles of the Buddha or Tathagata is remarkable. That is, those who receive and disseminate even a single phrase of Dharma after the death of the Buddha are regarded as apostles of the Buddha, commissioned by the Buddha to save all living beings in this world, and extolled as “apostles of the Tathagata.”

The latter part of the chapter promotes entering the Tathagata’s room, wearing the Tathagata’s robe, sitting on the Tathagata’s seat, and preaching Dharma without hesitation. The Tathagata’s room, robe, and seat are said to be compassion, patience, and realization of the emptiness of things. Compassion involves treating others with affection and kindness. Patience means enduring without holding things against others. And realization of the emptiness of things means being freed from attachments and placing oneself within the vast and infinite world. These concisely express the attitude a follower of the bodhisattva way holds toward life. Later these came to be valued as the three ways of propagating the sutra.

For some Small Vehicle Buddhists, compassion is an act of being engaged with this world, while the realization of emptiness is a state that goes beyond it, and so compassion should be discarded in order to realize emptiness. But chapter 10 of the Lotus Sutra teaches the unity of compassion and emptiness.

We can understand from this that realization of emptiness is taken positively as a norm for practice in this world. Here too we can see an example of the positive understanding of emptiness found in Mahayana Buddhism.