Saichō’s proposals led to government recognition of trends already present in Buddhism and thus enabled monks to approach the people even more closely. His efforts to defend the doctrinal basis for the participation of the common people in Buddhism were a crucial part of this change. In his works directed against Tokuitsu and the Hossō School, Saichō argued that all people had the Buddha-nature and could attain Buddhahood. Receiving the Fan wang ordination and adhering to the precepts were religious practices open to anyone. Anyone could receive a Fan wang ordination and anyone who had been correctly ordained could in turn confer the Fan wang precepts on others. The universal scope of the Fan wang precepts was due to the universality of the Buddha-nature.

Saichō envisaged a system in which Tendai monks would be trained for twelve years on Mount Hiei and then go to live in the provinces in order to perform good works, to preach, and to confer Fan wang ordinations. Saichō himself made two such trips: the first to Kyushu and the second to Kōzuke and Shimotsuke. On the second trip he is said to have performed ordinations. In addition, Mount Hiei was to be the center of a matrix of pagodas and temples which were to protect the emperor and the nation from harm. Observance of the Fan wang or Perfect precepts was to be a universal practice which could be used by the entire Japanese population. Thus the nation would be protected through the spread of the Perfect precepts (denkai gokoku).