The Lotus Sutra presents the Buddha not as a merely historical sage confined to a single lifetime, but as an eternal Tathāgata whose enlightenment and life span transcend ordinary measures of time. Especially in the chapter on “The Life Span of the Tathāgata,” the text reveals that the familiar story of birth near Kapilavastu, renunciation, awakening under the Bodhi tree, and final nirvāṇa is an expedient means, a compassionate fiction tailored to beings who cannot yet grasp the reality of an eternal Buddha. In truth, the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment “immeasurable, boundless hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of kalpas” ago, a poetic way of indicating a beginningless past that defies calculation. The vast numerical images—such as grinding worlds into dust and counting eons for each particle—serve to stretch the imagination beyond linear time and point toward a life that cannot be circumscribed by temporal boundaries.

From this perspective, the Buddha’s apparent birth and death are not ultimate events but pedagogical devices. The sutra states that the Tathāgata does not truly pass into extinction; rather, the display of parinirvāṇa is used to inspire diligence, faith, and a sense of urgency in practitioners. While beings, obscured by their own karma, may think the Buddha has vanished, the text insists that he remains ever-present, continually teaching and guiding. This portrayal shifts the focus from a static notion of eternity to an ongoing, dynamic activity: the Buddha’s life is an unceasing work of compassion that neither begins nor ends.

The Lotus Sutra also reinterprets the relationship between the historical Śākyamuni and the cosmic, eternal Buddha. The familiar figure is presented as a “trace” or manifested body, a localized appearance of a far more ancient and fundamental Buddha whose true life is timeless. This eternal Buddha is said to be active not only in this world but throughout countless world-systems, adapting forms and methods according to the needs and capacities of sentient beings. Sometimes this presence is visible as a Buddha or bodhisattva, and sometimes it remains unseen, yet the teaching activity is portrayed as uninterrupted across all realms.

In this way, the sutra portrays Buddhahood as both universal and ever-active. The Buddha’s life is not subject to birth and death in the ordinary sense, but unfolds as a continuous, compassionate engagement with beings across inconceivable spans of time and space. The eternity described is therefore not a remote, static permanence, but an intimate, ceaseless responsiveness: an enlightened life that is always here, always teaching, even when it appears to withdraw from sight.