When 500 arhats explained the true origin of their bodies in this life they spoke of the Hinayāna doctrine of “the 12 causations” (12 links of cause and effect: spiritual ignorance, blind actions, consciousness, mental functions and matters, six sense organs, contact, perception, desire, attachment, existence, birth, and old age and death). It suggests that they entered the state of “emptiness and tranquility” through spiritual ignorance (cause of all illusions) or blind actions (practices caused by spiritual ignorance). Their arguments centered on the entrance to the Buddha Dharma, not the Dharma itself, hence they did not commit the sin of slandering the Dharma. Regarding the four expedient means in the Collection of Mahāyāna Essentials and the four ways of preaching expounded in the Great Wisdom Discourse, they are the means for interpreting the teachings of the pre-Lotus sūtras by Bodhisattvas Asaṅga and Nāgārjuna, commentators appearing after the passing of the Buddha, who perceived the spirit of all the Buddhist scriptures from the standpoint of the Lotus Sūtra. If we confuse the four expedient means and the four ways of preaching expounded in the sūtra preached for “revealing the truth and merging all the provisional” with those expounded in the sūtra not preached for “revealing the truth and merging all the provisional,” how do we not commit the sin of slandering the Dharma? Those who know these know the teaching.

Ken Hōbō-shō, A Clarificaton of Slandering the True Dharma, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 134.