Even the very fancy carriage that the father gives to the children is, after all, only a carriage, a vehicle. All of our teachings and practices should be understood as devices, as possible ways of helping people. They should never be taken as final truths.

Appropriate means are means, not ends. In this sense they have only instrumental and provisional importance. While it is true that the notion of skillful means is sometimes used to describe something provisional, it is important to recognize that being instrumental and provisional does not mean that such methods are in any sense unimportant. At one point at least, the Dharma Flower Sutra even suggests that it is itself an appropriate means. The context is one in which the Sutra is praising itself and proclaiming its superiority over others (“those who do not hear or believe this sutra suffer a great loss”), but then has those who embrace the Sutra in a future age say:

When I attain the Buddha way,
I will teach this Dharma to them
By skillful means,
That they may dwell within it. (LS 273)