[T]he Buddha’s final admonitions, and Nichiren’s four admonitions describe the responsibility and the empowerment of authentic Buddhist practice. We do not seek or require external saviors, or special initiations, or gurus, or external rules. Instead we are empowered by the Dharma itself to find within our lives the Buddha’s merits and awakening. This is also a great responsibility as well because it also means that we will have no one to blame but ourselves if we do not look within and live in accord with our true nature as awakened beings. Fortunately, through the practice of Odaimoku we have a simple yet powerful way of reminding ourselves to look to the Wonderful Dharma itself, the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sūtra that assures us that not only are we all buddhas-in-the-making, but we are in fact buddhas actualizing buddhahood. Looking nowhere but to our own awakening for awakening is the true meaning of the Buddha’s final admonitions and the four admonitions of Nichiren. Here is the continuity between the Buddha’s passing, Nichiren’s taking up the banner of the Buddha’s teaching in the Latter Age, and our own reception of the banner of Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō here and now.