Lesson 20 from A Comprehensive Commentary on the Words of My Perfect Teacher covers the second, third, and part of the remaining circumstantial advantages: the Buddha having taught, and the Dharma still existing.
Even in a bright kalpa, if a Buddha remains in meditation without teaching — as Shakyamuni did for forty-nine days after enlightenment — beings receive no benefit. The lesson illustrates this through the poignant story of the great Indian pandita Smṛtijñāna, who travelled to Tibet to liberate his mother reborn as a frog, but — stranded by language barriers — spent his days as an anonymous shepherd and milking-cushion, his vast realization entirely hidden. Atisha, discovering this later, wept. The lesson then surveys the five thousand-year lifespan of the Buddha's teachings, mapping the sequence of fruit, accomplishment, transmission, and symbols periods, placing us currently in the transmission period with perhaps five hundred years remaining.
It closes with a vivid description of the five degenerations, urging practitioners to recognise that, despite these, the Dharma is still here — and that is the only thing that truly matters.
