Never Disparage Bodhisattva

We find something very similar in the story of the bodhisattva Never Disparage in chapter 20 of the Lotus Sutra. This was a man, we are told, who went around saying to everyone he met, "I dare not disparage you: you are practicing the bodhisattva way, and you will one day be a Buddha." Note that he does not say that if you practice the bodhisattva way, then you can become a Buddha. He says that what you are doing right now is itself, unbeknownst to you, the bodhisattva way, in keeping with the general point of view of the Lotus Sutra as we've discussed it above. They need not change anything; they can just keep doing as they are doing. And what are they doing? Well, when they hear this, they get quite annoyed: "We don't need these empty predictions of Buddhahood from this no-account monk (who had no great Buddhist achievements himself, we're told), and anyway we are not even trying to become Buddhas." They deride him and beat him. He still says to them: "You will become Buddhas:" The story goes on to tell us that he's richly rewarded for this behavior—learns the Lotus Sutra, in fact—and eventually becomes a Buddha. He is a past life of our present Buddha Sakyamuni. His tormentors, as a result of their deeds, descend to tortures in purgatory. But here's the twist: as a result of this, they again encounter him, telling them the same thing—that is, just the Lotus Sutra itself, which is nothing but the declaration "You are all Bodhisattvas"—as a result of which they all become Buddhas! So indeed they didn't need to change their behavior at all, including rejecting and tormenting him. It led to purgatory, to be sure, but that in turn led to Buddhahood.

---Brook A. Ziporyn, in Emptiness and Omnipresence---