A rich man's house, now in a terrible state of repair and to which there is only one narrow gate, catches fire with all of his many children playing inside. Though the father compassionately calls to them, urging them to leave the burning house, they are too absorbed in their play to listen to these warnings. He also considers carrying them out by force, but soon realizes that this too will not work. So he tells the children that, if they go quickly, outside the gate they will find goat-drawn carriages, deer-drawn carriages, and ox-drawn carriages that he will give them to play with.
Such rare playthings being just what they always wanted, the children rush outside, to the great joy of the father, and soon ask him for the promised carriages. Instead, because he is rich and has many of them, he decides to give each of the children a much larger and fancier carriage drawn by a great white ox. The children, having received something even better than what they had expected, are overjoyed.
The Buddha then interprets this parable for Shariputra, explaining that he, the Buddha, is much like the father in the parable, attempting to save his children from the fires of birth, old age, disease, death, grief, sorrow, and so on, from which they cannot escape by themselves because they have many attachments. He offers them the three vehicles as a way to get them through the gate, but rewards them in the end with the Great Vehicle—an even better reward than the one promised.
---Gene Reeves, in The Stories of the Lotus Sutra---
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