QUESTION: For whom was the essential section of the Lotus Sūtra expounded?

ANSWER: Two purposes are conceivable in preaching the essential section. First, the reason why Śākyamuni Buddha reveals the eternity of His life in passing in chapter 15 on the “Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground” (Concise Opening the Near and Revealing the Distant) is to enlighten His disciples who have been guided through teachings expounded for forty years or so before the Lotus Sūtra and in the first theoretical section of the Lotus Sūtra. Secondly, one chapter and two half-chapters from the last part of the “Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground” chapter in which Maitreya raised a question, requesting the Buddha to preach for people after His extinction, through chapter 16 on “The Life Span of the Buddha” to the first half of chapter 17, the “Variety of Merits are exactly for clearly expounding the eternity of the Buddha (Expanded Opening the Near and Revealing the Distant). This is solely for the sake of people after the death of the Buddha.

Hokke Shuyō Shō, Treatise on the Essence of the Lotus Sūtra, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 210-211