In the former, Mr. Williams writes:
Thoughts?The other great teaching of the Lotus Sutra concerns the
revelation of the lifespan of the Buddha. The Buddha was
actually enlightened aeons ago, and what is more although he
now manifests the appearance of death he has not really died. He
is really still around helping in myriads of compassionate ways.
The Buddha’s demonstration during his life of seeking
enlightenment, becoming enlightened and dying was also an
example of skill in means in order to give various lessons that
would help others (Saddharmapundarika Sutra, trans. Hurvitz:
239). Conviction that the Buddha is still around is of course
religiously transformative. It opens out the possibility of
reciprocal relationships with the Buddha—petitionary prayer,
visions, devotion, and continuing revelation for example—as well
as the possibility that all the infinite previous Buddhas
throughout the universe also are still around helping sentient
beings. In East Asian Buddhism (influenced by the work in
China of Chih-i (538–97 CE)) it is commonly held that the
Buddha of the Lotus Sutra is actually eternal, but I do not find
this clearly stated in the sutra itself. If a Buddha is eternal then it
is difficult to see how anyone else could become a Buddha, short
of combining the teaching of the Saddharmapundarika with that
of the tathagatagarbha (Buddha-nature) and claiming that we are
actually already fully-enlightened Buddhas if we but knew it.
This is exactly what Chih-i himself did. It seems to me however
there is no evidence that the Lotus Sutra itself accepts a teaching
of the tathagatagarbha, and without it a literal acceptance of the
Buddha as eternal would destroy the very possibility of attaining
Buddhahood and with it the Mahayana path