Chapter 10: The Teacher of the Law

Addressing the Bodhisattva Medicine King and the eighty thousand assembled bodhisattvas, the Buddha declares that among the countless sutras he has preached, is preaching, and will preach, the Lotus Sutra is the most difficult to believe and the most difficult to understand. It is the king of sutras, the secret storehouse of all Buddhas. Anyone who, after the Buddha's passing, can teach this sutra to even one person, even in private, should be regarded as an envoy of the Tathagata, carrying out the Tathagata's work.

The Buddha describes five practices related to the Lotus Sutra that generate immeasurable merit: accepting and upholding it, reading it, reciting it, explaining it, and copying it. Those who perform any of these practices, even with respect to a single verse or a single phrase, should be honored with the same offerings one would make to the Buddha himself. The Buddha explains that these practitioners have voluntarily relinquished the rewards of their pure karma and chosen to be born in this impure age specifically to propagate the sutra -- a remarkable statement of their compassionate vow.

The Buddha further instructs that after his passing, anyone who wishes to preach the Lotus Sutra should enter the Tathagata's room, put on the Tathagata's robe, and sit in the Tathagata's seat. The room is great compassion for all beings, the robe is gentleness and patience, and the seat is the emptiness of all phenomena. Dwelling in these three, one should preach the sutra to bodhisattvas and all others without ever becoming weary. This threefold instruction has become one of the most cited passages in the entire Buddhist canon.