法華遊意 1.322

1.322

若《法花》顯教菩薩、顯化二乘者，則《法花》是顯了之教，始終應無覆相之說。若爾，〈化城品〉明三千墨點猶為十六王子沙彌之位，〈壽量品〉明五百萬億阿僧祇世界末為微塵，成佛已來復過是數，則壽量之佛是顯了之言，十六王子便是覆相之說，何得一部皆顯了耶？

If the Lotus Sūtra explicitly instructs bodhisattvas and explicitly transforms persons of the two vehicles, then the Lotus Sūtra is an explicit teaching and should be free of concealed expressions from beginning to end. If so, the 'Chapter on the Conjured City' explains that three thousand ink-drop [kalpas] ago he was still in the station of a novice among the sixteen princes, while the 'Chapter on the Duration of Life' explains that five hundred billion asaṃkhyeya worlds are ground to dust, and the time since he achieved buddhahood surpasses even this number; then the Buddha of the [Chapter on the] Duration of Life is an explicit statement, and the sixteen princes is a concealed statement. How could the entire text be explicit?