Hōnen’s followers maintained one should set aside the Lotus in this lifetime and chant the nenbutsu instead, achieve birth in Amitābha’s pure land, and attain the awakening of the Lotus Sūtra there.

Nichiren fiercely opposed this argument. For him, Hōnen’s focus on human limitations ignored the Buddha’s own distinction between true and provisional teachings. The Lotus was the sūtra of which Śākyamuni himself had said, “For more than forty years I have expounded the dharma in all manner of ways through adeptness in skillful means, but the core truth has still not been revealed,” and, “Having openly set aside skillful means, I will teach only the highest path.”

Precisely because the Lotus Sūtra is profound, Nichiren argued, it can save even the most depraved individuals. He also maintained that the nenbutsu belonged to the lesser category of provisional Mahāyāna and did not represent the Buddha’s final intent. He likened it to the scaffolding erected in building a large stūpa: once the stūpa (the Lotus Sūtra) has been completed, the scaffolding (the nenbutsu) should be dismantled.

Like Hōnen, Nichiren taught a universally accessible mode of practice, grounded in faith and centered on the chanting of a single phrase. But despite these outward similarities, the doctrine and attitude underlying the two practices differ radically. Rather than promising enlightenment after death and in a distant realm, the daimoku as taught by Nichiren offers direct access to a dimension in which the self opens to pervade the universe, and buddhahood is realized “in this body.” In his teaching, mappō is accordingly revalorized as the moment when the “perfectly encompassing path” of immediate enlightenment becomes accessible to all.