continual propagation to the fiftieth person ［五十展転］ ( gojū-tenden): A principle described in the “Benefits of Responding with Joy” (eighteenth) chapter of the Lotus Sutra. This chapter describes the benefits of rejoicing upon hearing the Lotus Sutra. Suppose, the sutra says, that, after Shakyamuni Buddha’s death, a person were to hear the Lotus Sutra and rejoice, then preach it to a second person, who also rejoices and in turn preaches it to a third, and so on, until a fiftieth person hears the sutra. The benefit this person receives by hearing the sutra and responding with joy, even fifty times removed from the first, would be immeasurable. Shakyamuni states that this benefit is far greater than that gained by a person who gives objects of amusement, gold, silver, other precious gems, carriages, palaces, and the like to all the beings in “four hundred ten thousand million asamkhya worlds,” doing this for eighty years, and goes on to lead these beings to arhatship.