The meaning of a bodily reading of the Lotus Sutra

“It seems to me that on the path to attaining Buddhahood it may invariably be when one has done something like lay down one’s life that one becomes a Buddha. I think that perhaps it is encountering such difficulties as have already been explained in the Sutra - being cursed, vilified, attacked with swords and staves , shards and rubble, and banished again and again— that is reading the Lotus Sutra with one’s life. My faith springs up all the more , and I am confident about my next existence.” -- Banishment to Sado