To begin with, the strange phenomena in the sky and the natural calamities on the earth startle the eyes and ears of the people and rattle their minds. Śākyamuni Buddha has caused the five or six kinds of omens to occur. Among the six omens, the trembling of the earth indicates that the earth trembled in six different ways. Interpreting the earth trembling in six ways, Grand Master T’ien-t’ai states in his Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 3:

The east is blue in color, and it controls the liver, which in turn controls the eyes. The west is white in color, and it controls the lungs, which in turn control the nose. Therefore, saying that the east was raised and the west was lowered means the rise of the merit of the eyes and the decrease in the worldly passions of the nose. In contrast, saying that the west was raised and the east was lowered means that the merit of the nose appears while the evil passions of the eyes decrease. Likewise, the rise and fall of the south and north and those of the center and the four directions mean either the appearance of merit or the decrease of evil passions in the ears and the tongue and in the mind and body respectively.

Grand Master Miao-lé explains the above in his Annotations on the Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, “As the eyes and nose represent the east and west, the ears and tongue logically represent the south and north. The center is the mind and the four directions represent the body. The body is equipped with the four sense organs (eyes, ears, nose, and tongue) and the mind reacts to them all. Therefore, it is said that the body and mind rise and fall alternately.”

Zuisō Gosho, Writing on Omens, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 6, Followers I, Page 121

Trembling in the six ways represents riding a teeter-totter on which the paired senses – eyes and nose, ears and tongue, mind and body – either gain merit or decrease evil passions. Another of the foundational lessons I find so intriguing.