Three Perspectives of a Fatherly Buddha Image

Three Perspectives of a Fatherly Buddha Image

From Chapter Three of the Lotus Sutra:

I tell you, Shariputra,
I am like this, too,
The honored among many sages,
The father of the worlds.

All living beings
Are my children;
Deeply attached to worldly pleasures,
They have no wise thoughts at all.

In the Three Realms there is no peace;
They are like a burning house.
Filled with many sufferings,
And frightening indeed.
Ever present are the woes
Of birth, old age, sickness, death,
Fires such as these,
Raging without cease.

The Thus Come One has already left
The Three Realms burning house behind.
Quietly I dwell at ease,
In forest and field at peace.
And now it is, that the Three Realms,
Entirely belong to me,
And in them all the living beings
Are children of mine.
But now, this place
Is filled with calamities,
And I am the only one
Able to rescue them.

Notes: The Buddhas see themselves as the loving fathers of all beings;
not in the sense that they fathered them; but that they love them as the best fathers would.