[In the parable of the good physician], a father—a physician—cannot convince his children, whose minds have been warped by poison, to take an antidote. So he leaves some medicine for them, disappears, and then sends someone to tell his children that he is dead. Hearing this, a deep longing for the father arises in the hearts of the children, bringing them to take the medicine. As a result they are cured and their eyes opened. Hearing that they had recovered, the father reappears. The children in the parable correspond to lost and wandering beings, and the father corresponds to the Everlasting Original Buddha. The father’s disappearance is comparable to that of the Everlasting Original Buddha, who has a kind of temporary extinction in order to correct the people’s hearts and minds and open their eyes.

The parables of the three carriages in chapter 3, and of the lost son in chapter 4, the simile of the rain and plants in chapter 5, the parables of the magic city in chapter 7, the jewel in the hem in chapter 8, the jewel in the topknot in chapter 14, and this parable of the physician’s sons in chapter 16 are called the seven parables of the Lotus Sutra and have been highly valued from ancient times.