Scholars have called attention to the Shoshin kangaku shō (Encouraging beginners in study), a Muromachi period introductory text written and studied at the Senba dangisho. Under the heading “Oneness of the true and provisional teachings,” it reads:

Right at hand we have the transmissions passed down from virtuous teachers of the past, who have said, “The Lotus Sūtra itself has no essence. It takes as its essence the teachings expounded before it.” Nonetheless, in the present age, the followers of Nichiren profoundly revere only the Lotus and deeply reject the teachings expounded before it. This is a grave error. While the Lotus is indeed to be revered, to slander other sutras in fact destroys the intent of the Lotus. …

Question: In their repudiation of the provisional teachings, we find that the Nichiren followers cite as their proof texts these passages from [the “Skillful Means” chapter] of the Lotus: “Honestly discarding skillful means, I will expound only the unexcelled Way” and “[There is the Dharma of only one vehicle, there are not two or three,] excepting the Buddha’s preaching of skillful means.” How do you respond?

Answer: When one reads the character for “to discard” (sha) in “hon estly discarding skillful means” as “to place” (oku), then it means that the skillful means of the provisional teachings, just as they are, are placed within the Lotus. This being the case, the fact that the “Skillful Means” chapter is placed among the [sūtra’s] twenty-eight chapters expresses the meaning of skillful means being precisely true reality. As for “excepting the Buddha’s preaching of skillful means,” this is interpreted to mean that attachment to these teachings is to be removed, not the dharma-teachings themselves. In other words, one is simply to remove emotional attachment to the [notion of] skillful means expounded before the Lotus as provisional teachings.

The Kantō Tendai of Senba and Hokke positions on this issue can be seen as representing two poles in the interpretation of the notion of kaie, or the “opening and integration” of all other teachings into the one vehicle of the Lotus Sūtra. The Senba side, as represented in the above passage from the Shoshin kangaku shō, took this to mean that since all teachings are encompassed by the one vehicle, to practice other teachings is in effect to practice the Lotus Sūtra. This interpretation is sometimes termed “absolute integration” (or zettai kaie) and has enjoyed a prominent place in the history of Japanese Tendai thought. The Hokke side, on the other hand, maintained that Lotus is, quite simply, superior to all other teachings; when integrated into it, they lose their separate identity. This is the interpretation of “relative integration” (sōtai kaie) that Nichiren had emphasized. The idea that all practices may be understood as aspects of the one vehicle and are thus the practice of the Lotus Sūtra had been well established in Tendai circles since Heian times. The invocation “Namu-Amida-butsu,” for example, was often referred to as the “six-character Lotus Sūtra.” The fact that the scholars of Senba felt compelled to argue this already well established position in such detail suggests that they were being hard pressed by their Hokke counterparts. (Page 307-308)

Nichiren … grounded his concept of the single thought-moment comprising three thousand realms in actuality in the origin teaching or latter fourteen chapters of the Lotus Sūtra. Only the origin teaching, in his view, revealed the mutual inclusion of “original cause” (the nine realms) and “original effect” (the realm of Buddhahood). However, his later followers found it necessary to elaborate, on the basis he had established, the precise relationship that obtained between the dharmas of the origin teaching and of the trace teaching (honjaku ron). No debate over this issue appears in any authenticatable writing by the first generation of Nichiren’s followers, who were chiefly concerned with establishing the superiority of the Lotus Sūtra itself over other teachings. The controversy took shape in the Muromachi period and quickly became crucial to the self-definition of rival Hokke lineages. On this issue, the Hokkeshū divided broadly into two positions. Those who stressed the superiority of the origin teaching over the trace teaching were said to occupy the shōretsu (“superior versus inferior”) position, while those who emphasized the essential unity of the two represented the itchi (“unified”) position. Each comprised a number of variations. 9 Those who upheld the shōretsu position differed among themselves as to how the superiority of the origin teaching should be understood. Some said that its superiority lay in all fourteen chapters of the origin teaching; others held that it resided in the eight chapters that represent the assembly in open space presided over by Śākyamuni and Many Jewels seated side by side in the jeweled stūpa; or in the “Fathoming the Lifespan” chapter alone; or in the “Fathoming the Lifespan” chapter plus the latter part of the preceding “Emerging from the Earth” chapter and the first half of the subsequent “Discrimination of Merits” chapter (“one chapter and two halves”); or in the daimoku alone, and so forth. The itchi position was also variously argued. Some maintained that the origin and trace teachings were essentially one (ittai), arguing, for example, that, while a distinction exists between origin and trace teachings with respect to the capacity of the people for whom they were expounded, they are one in the Buddha’s intent; or that they are essentially one in being subsumed within the daimoku. Others held that the two teachings, while essentially different, were nonetheless inseparable (itchi), for example, in representing the inherent nature of enlightenment and its realization in the act of practice; or that the two are unified when the trace teaching is read in light of understanding of the origin teaching. Since very few scholars upholding the shōretsu position went so far as to reject the trace teaching entirely, and since most itchi proponents acknowledged the doctrinal superiority of the origin teaching, the two positions tended to shade off into one another, rather than remaining in absolute confrontation. On the whole, however, those holding the itchi position tended also to be more accommodating in their dealings with other religious traditions, while those committed to the shōretsu position were frequently uncompromising in upholding the exclusive devotion to the Lotus Sūtra through shakulmku and the rebuking of “slander of the Dharma.” (Page 304-305)

BEN AJARI NISSHŌ (1221-1323), the eldest of the six, was sixty-two at the time of Nichiren’s death. He was based at the Hokkeji, a temple he had established at Hamado in Kamakura, and, together with Daikoku Ajari Nichiro, headed the community of Nichiren’s followers in Kamakura. His lineage became known as the Nisshō or Hama monryū.

DAIKOKU AJARI NICHIRŌ (1245-1320) was based at the Myōhonji, which he had founded, in Hikigayatsu in Kamakura, and also headed the Honmonji in Ikegami. He is additionally regarded as the founder of the Hondoji at Hiraga in Shimösa. His followers were known as the Hikigayatsu or Nichirō monryū. Among his many talented disciples, Higo Ajari Nichizō (1269-1342) was the first monk of the Hokkeshū to preach Nichiren’s doctrine in Kyoto.

MINBU AJARI NIKŌ (1253-1314) was based in Mobara in Kazusa and later became the second chief abbot of Minobu (Nichiren is regarded as the first).

BYAKUREN AJARI NIKKO (1246-1333) was active in Suruga, Kai, and Izu. A disagreement between him and the aforementioned Nikō led in 1289 to the first schism among Nichiren’s followers. Nikkō established himself at Omosu near Fuji, and his line is called the Fuji monryū or Nikko monryū.

IYO AJARI NITCHŌ (1252-1317) was based at Mama and Wakamiya in Shimōsa, where he assisted the efforts of Nichijō (Toki Jōnin), originally a prominent lay supporter of Nichiren who had taken clerical vows after his death. Nitchō was Toki Jōnin’s adopted son. However, for reasons that are not clear, there was a break between the two, and Nitchō left the area around 1292, retiring to Omosu, where he joined Nikko. Nichijō’s line came to be known as the Nakayama lineage, after Nakayama in Shimōsa, where its main temple was located.

RENGE AJARI NICHIJI (1250-?) was based at Matsuno in Suruga. However, in 1295, he embarked on a journey, determined to spread Nichiren’s teaching beyond the confines of Japan, and is said to have traveled north to Hokkaido, crossing over into northern China and Manchuria. It has been argued that he did in fact reach Mongolia, but the evidence is inconclusive. (Page 302)

In Nichiren’s case, the single-practice orientation was connected at least in part with the social composition of his following. He himself was a person of common origins, from a remote part of eastern Japan, without powerful backers, and whose followers were chiefly middle- and lower-ranking samurai – persons on the periphery, if not altogether outside, the “influential parties system” or kenmon taisei. At the same time, Nichiren’s criticisms of leading religious figures and institutions, and of the rulers and officials who were their patrons, resulted in sanctions and suppressions that further marginalized him and his followers and prompted increasing self-definition in opposition to existing religious and political authority. In this process, Nichiren’s assimilation of the new paradigm of enlightenment to an exclusive practice became, in effect, a challenge to the establishment. In his reading of the paradigm, direct access to enlightenment was possible only by the teaching of which he and his disciples were the bearers – a Dharma received directly from Śākyamuni Buddha for the Final Dharma age and alone capable of saving the country from disaster. Thus, in his reading, the locus of authority and legitimacy was made to shift, and it was not the court, nor the bakufu, nor the clerics of the leading shrines and temples, but Nichiren and his disciples who held the center stage of their historical moment. (Page 298-299)

As in much of medieval Tendai thought and various schools of Kamakura Pure Land, Zen, and other traditions, no direct causal connection is drawn in Nichiren’s thought between good deeds or the cultivation of virtue and the realization of enlightenment. … Nichiren did not stress observance of the precepts as necessary to liberation: the merit of keeping precepts is already contained within the daimoku. Moreover, he claimed that one who chants the daimoku cannot be drawn by evil acts into the lower realms of transmigration. Nichiren also participated in the discourse of the “realization of Buddhahood by evil persons” (akunin jōbutsu), usually in teachings to his warrior followers:

Whether or not evil persons (akunin) of the last age attain Buddhahood does not depend on whether their sins are light or heavy but rests solely upon whether or not they have faith in this sūtra. You are a person of a warrior house, an evil man involved day and night in killing. Up until now you have not abandoned the household life [to become a monk], so by what means will you escape the three evil paths? You should consider this well. The heart of the Lotus Sūtra is that [all dharmas] in their present status are precisely the Wonderful [Dharma], without change of original status. Thus, without abandoning sinful karma, one attains the Buddha Way.

This does not mean that Nichiren’s teaching legitimates evildoing, or that his community lacked for moral guidelines. His letters and other writings show that, in making personal decisions or advising his followers, Nichiren drew on a variety of ethical sources. Prominent among these is Confucian social morality, with its emphasis on the virtues of benevolence, righteousness, good faith, loyalty, and filial piety. Other ethical sources for Nichiren were generic Buddhist morality, including the virtues of almsgiving, forbearance, and equanimity; and the emerging warrior ethos, with its emphasis on courage and personal honor. However, such values are not central to Nichiren’s formal doctrine, which does not explicitly articulate a set of ethical principles. Only faith in the Lotus Sūtra and the rebuking of “slander of the Dharma” are specifically enjoined as necessary to salvation.

While [Nichiren’s] single-practice orientation is itself open to criticism for the ease with which it can translate into dogmatic self-assertion, such observations miss the underlying logic of Nichiren’s aim. This appears to have been not to eradicate the spectrum of religious interpretations current in his day, but to undercut their bases in other traditions and assimilate them to the Lotus Sūtra. This is illustrated in the following passage:

Once they enter the great ocean of the Lotus Sūtra, the teachings preached before the Lotus are no longer shunned as provisional. It is the mysterious virtue of the great ocean of the Lotus Sūtra that, once they are encompassed in the single flavor of Namu-myōhō-renge-kyō, there is no longer any reason to refer to the distinct names “nenbutsu, ” “precepts,” “shingon, ” or “Zen.” Thus the commentary states, “When the various rivers enter the sea, they assume the same unitary salty flavor. When the various kinds of wisdom [represented by the provisional teachings] enter the true teaching, they lose their original names.

Nichiren’s teaching is no less exclusivistic for its attempt to be all-encompassing, but it should be understood as one of a number of contemporaneous attempts at subsuming all teachings, virtues, and possibilities within a single formulation. (Page 297)

As we have seen, the five characters of the daimoku are said to contain all teachings and to encompass all phenomena. They also contain the merit of all the good practices of the Buddhas, such as the six Pāramitās, and the virtues of enlightenment in which they result. However, this is not the only sense in which the daimoku is claimed to be all-inclusive. By the logic of the single-practice position, being by definition the only practice a true devotee should uphold, the daimoku is also said to produce all possible benefits. Nichiren’s teaching assimilates to the daimoku all the goods that religion in medieval Japan was thought to provide. In his various writings, faith in the Lotus is said to offer the realization of Buddhahood in this body, healing and other worldly benefits, protection of the nation, repentance or expiation of sin (sange), and birth after death in a pure land. Similarly, Nichiren’s idea of the Buddha of the Lotus Sūtra encompasses all conceptions of the Buddha that were current in his day. Śākyamuni is “our blood and flesh,” “our bones and marrow.” But at the same time he is ruler of the world, compassionate parent, and wise teacher to all beings. Nichiren’s use of hongaku ideas is also assimilated to this polemic of the all-inclusiveness of the Lotus Sūtra. The Lotus is presented as the only sūtra to reveal that the enlightened state of the Buddha and the nine realms of deluded beings are mutually encompassing and originally inherent; this is what makes the Lotus uniquely true and superior. (Page 296)

[I]n Nichiren’s thought, enlightenment, or salvation, depends not on multiple factors but on one condition only—faith in the Lotus Sūtra, which is inseparable from the chanting of the daimoku. Anyone who chants the daimoku, man or woman, cleric or lay person, foolish or wise, realizes enlightenment. Correspondingly, there is but one single error or evil that can obstruct this enlightenment: “slander of the Dharma,” or willful disbelief in the sūtra. To discard the Lotus Sūtra, Nichiren writes, “exceeds even the sin of killing one’s parents a thousand or ten thousand times, or of shedding the blood of the Buddhas in the ten directions.” The modality of Nichiren’s doctrine on this point appears at first absolutely either/or: “Disbelief is the cause of the icchantika and of slander of the Dharma, while faith is the cause of wisdom (prajn͂ā) and corresponds to the stage of verbal identity.” So powerful is faith in the Lotus that no worldly evil can ever counteract it and pull the practitioner down into the evil paths. Conversely, slander of the Lotus Sūtra is so great an evil that no accumulation of worldly good deeds can ever offset it or save one who commits it from the Avīci Hell. On a deeper level, however, the dichotomy is dissolved, for even to slander the Lotus Sūtra is to form a connection with it. Thus in Nichiren’s view, even if one’s practice of shakubuku should arouse the enmity of others and cause them to slander the Lotus Sūtra, because it nonetheless allows them to form a “reverse connection” with the sūtra, that is far preferable to their having no connection at all. Once the retribution of their slander is expiated, they will, by virtue of that connection, encounter the sūtra again and attain Buddhahood. (Page 295-296)

In Nichiren’s view, enlightenment is realized in the moment of practice. This enlightenment is a timeless state, in which original cause (the nine realms) and original effect (Buddhahood) exist simultaneously and is ever accessible in the act of chanting the daimoku. The practitioner does not progressively expunge defilements or accumulate merit with a view to reaching eventual enlightenment, because all merit is inherent in the daimoku and “naturally transferred” to the person who embraces it. As in other Buddhist teachings of this time that assert direct and full accessibility of salvation or enlightenment in the present moment, Nichiren’s doctrine nevertheless includes a discourse about the importance of continuing one’s practice or further deepening one’s faith. (Page 295)

[The moment of “embracing” the Lotus Sūtra as conceived in Nichiren’s thought] is a moment of intersection between the present time and the timeless realm of enlightenment, in which the Buddha, the practitioner, and the practitioner’s outer world are all identified. It is described as the “three thousand realms in one thought-moment,” which is implicit in the practitioner as the ontological basis of enlightenment, embodied in the daimoku and the object of worship, accessed in the act of faith and chanting, and manifested outwardly in the transformation of the world. This reality is both inherent in and mediated by the five characters myōhō-renge-kyō conferred by the original Śākyamuni Buddha upon the people of the Final Dharma age and is accessible in no other way. This understanding of the Lotus Sūtra as the sole vehicle of realizing Buddhahood underlies Nichiren’s mandate to uphold it “without begrudging bodily life.” It also enabled him and his followers to challenge the authority of established religious institutions and to define themselves as the unique possessors of truth. (Page 294-295)