Tamura [Yoshirō] acknowledges the presence of certain passages strongly suggestive of hongaku thought even in unimpeachable documents from the latter part of Nichiren’s career. Nichiren writes, for example, that “this world is the [Buddha’s] original land; the pure lands of the ten directions are defiled worlds that are its traces, or, “Śākyamuni of wondrous awakening (myōkaku) is our blood and flesh. Are not the merits of his causes (practice) and effects (enlightenment) our bones and marrow? ” However, Tamura says, on close examination such writings, “while maintaining nondual original enlightenment as their basis, in fact emerge from it.” Nichiren’s “Śākyamuni of wondrous awakening” is no mere abstract, all-pervasive Dharma-body but also encompasses the virtues of the reward-body Buddha who has traversed practice and attainment, as well as the concreteness of the manifested body, the historical Buddha who appeared in this world. Nor was Nichiren content merely to assert that this world is the Buddha’s pure land; he attempted actually to realize the pure land in this present world through bodhisattva conduct, by spreading faith in the Lotus Sūtra. As in the case of Dōgen, Nichiren’s emphasis on the concrete (ji) is not the affirmation of the phenomenal world seen in medieval Tendai hongaku thought but an emphasis on action that “restored the dynamic power of practice in the actual world.” Like Dōgen, Nichiren maintained the ontological nonduality of the Buddha and living beings as his basis, but “descended” to confront the relative distinctions of the world. (Page 91)