QUESTION: Hasn’t Grand Master T’ien-t’ai really attained the word of the Wonderful Dharma?

ANSWER: Though Grand Master T’ien-t’ai attained the Wonderful Dharma in mind, he did not propagate it outwardly. He kept the realm of profound enlightenment he attained to himself and outwardly did no more than calling the Wonderful Dharma the threefold contemplation and show the way of practicing the doctrine of “3,000 existences contained in one thought.”

QUESTION: Why did Grand Master T’ien-t’ai not propagate the teaching of the Wonderful Dharma though he attained it?

ANSWER: First, (as Grand Master T’ien-t’ai was in the Age of the Semblance Dharma while the Lotus Sūtra should be spread in the Latter Age of Degeneration,) his days were not appropriate for the essence of the Lotus Sūtra to be revealed; secondly, (since the propagation in the Latter Age of Degeneration was entrusted to such bodhisattvas emerged from underground as Superior Practice Bodhisattva,) he did not take charge of the propagation; thirdly, Grand Master T’ien-t’ai was a disciple of a manifestation Buddha (not of the Original Śākyamuni Buddha).

Risshō Kanjō, A Treatise on Establishing the Right Way of Meditation, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 229