Nichiren’s writings of this period also employ Tendai ideas of nonduality and original enlightenment to undermine the categories of Honen’s thought, such as the distinction between “self-power” (jiriki) and “Other-power” (tariki), or between this impure world (edo) and the pure land. For example:

The Lotus Sūtra establishes self-power but is not self-power. Since the “self” encompasses all beings of the ten realms, one’s own person from the outset contains the Buddha realm of both oneself and of all beings. Thus, one does not now become a Buddha for the first time. [The sūtra] also establishes Other-power but is not Other-power. Since the Buddha who is “other” is contained within us ordinary worldlings, this Buddha naturally manifests himself as identical to ourselves.

The originally enlightened Buddha of the perfect teaching abides in this world. If one abandons this land, toward what other land should one aspire? … The practitioner who believes in the Lotus and Nirvāṇa sūtras should not seek another place, for wherever one has faith in this sūtra is precisely the pure land. … For people of our day, who have not yet formed a bond with the Lotus Sūtra, to aspire to the Western Pure Land is to aspire to a land of rubble. (Page 247)