the promise of buddhahood:

   One of the great promises of the Lotus Sutra is that all beings will attain

buddhahood. Male, female, animal, grasses, the good and the bad, even

Devadatta.

   When I was a child, I used to love to look at this painting in the Metropolitan

Museum, it's the parinirvana of Shakyamuni Buddha. Here it is:

   I was quite an animal lover and that the painter included animals crying, really

spoke to me. Obviously in Buddhism they were important and that's how I

found Buddhism. When I read the Lotus Sutra I immediately loved it and looked

at this painting with new eyes...."For the sake of the masses of beings by

expedience manifest Nirvana." Shakyamuni looks like he is dying but in reality

"I have ever been preaching the Dharma, teaching and converting numberless

tens of millions of beings." So it's not a sad painting at all, it's a wonderful

reminder that the Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni is always with us, always

compassionatly  teaching us : cats, flowers, stones, humans, gods, nagas with no

discrimination.....