The Path to a Million Successes

One of the most renowned Buddhist Sutras throughout the Orient, particularly in China and Japan, is the so-called Lotus Sutra.

In a subtle manner, it introduces fundamental elements of the Mahayana Buddhist School, or the Great Vehicle. This denomination is frequently utilized as a pejorative contrast toward the older Buddhist schools, the Hinayana, that is, the school of the Lesser Vehicle.

But how could anyone have pursued a superior degree if they had not been previously taught many basic and necessary things? This is often forgotten, and precisely this Lotus Sutra undertakes a twofold task.

On one hand, through an exalted, repetitive, and multicolored imagery, it speaks to us of the innumerable qualities of the Buddhas, and of the Bodhisattvas, who dispense their teachings—according to this Sutra—through millions and even billions of years, across infinite distances, in the four directions of space; teachings which are also attended by countless beings from the entire Universe.

And yet, through those verses, at times repetitive, of fabulous descriptions, in almost no part of this lengthy Sutra is what it teaches clearly specified. This Sutra does not possess a list of creeds, practices, or beliefs ordered to be memorized; rather, like a golden thread, it poetically allows the imagination to soar until it situates itself in worlds that have nothing to do with this overwhelming world of our problems.

And that is precisely the First Teaching.