Two Buddhas, p177The claim that those who chant the daimoku are Śākyamuni Buddha’s disciples from the remotest past might initially seem at odds with Nichiren’s idea that people in the Final Dharma age have never before received the seed of buddhahood. The apparent contradiction resolves, however, when we recall that for Nichiren and other Buddhist thinkers of the time, the term “remotest past” (kuon) signified not merely an immensely long time ago in linear, historical terms, but also carried the meaning of timelessness, and thus, of the Buddha’s constant presence. The practice and propagation of the Lotus Sūtra in the mappō era is the juncture where the linear time of ordinary experience and the timeless realm of the Buddha intersect. In embracing the daimoku with the “same mind” as Nichiren, one immediately becomes a disciple of the ever-present primordial Śākyamuni Buddha and is encompassed in his enlightened realm.