This single practice itself may be an expression in concrete form of the very ancient belief that ultimate reality is one and only one –“only One Buddha Vehicle,” as the Lotus Sutra states. The attribute of suiting all people’s capacities similarly finds a doctrinal counterpart in the teaching that all beings are equally endowed with the Buddha nature, which can be traced back to the origins of Mahayana Buddhism and was well established in Heian Buddhism as the doctrine of original enlightenment (hongaku shisō). The attribute of eternal validity echoes the belief, equally old, that the absolute is changeless and imperishable. The idea of one practice including the merits of all practices may have its theoretical foundation in the doctrine that one truth encompasses all truths, a major theme of the Lotus Sutra and a teaching central to the Kegon, Shingon and Tendai doctrinal systems. The concept of attaining Buddhahood “quickly” probably also has connections to belief in the universality of the Buddha nature. The principle of “attaining Buddhahood in one’s present form” is integral to both Tendai and Shingon doctrine, though not until the Kamakura period was it welded to a universally feasible way of practice.

Both Dōgen and Nichiren held that, in the very act of practice, one simultaneously attains, not the stage of non-regression, but buddhahood itself. Nichiren wrote, “ ‘To attain’ [in the phrase “attain Buddhahood”] means ‘to open,’ ” reflecting his belief that Buddhahood is not something one “attains” at all, but is inherent in all sentient and non-sentient beings. At the same time, both he and Dōgen vigorously denied the view of Buddhahood as a final accomplishment rendering further practice unnecessary. Dōgen therefore urged continued exertion in zazen, and Nichiren, in chanting the daimoku, until the last moment of one’s life. In this sense, it can be argued that neither one wholly abandoned the view of enlightenment-as-process; however, both saw this process not as linear progress toward a final goal, but as “practice based on enlightenment.” For these two men, “common mortal” and “Buddha” were not the beginning and end, respectively, of a long journey. Both states, they believed, could coexist in a single individual. Their teachings thus represent a closure of the gulf that in earlier doctrines had gaped so forbiddingly between the ordinary person and ultimate truth.

Thus the supreme state of Buddhahood, previously thought to require aeons of effort to attain, comes in the Kamakura period to be viewed as obtainable “in one’s present form.” All three single practices represent attempts to allow common mortals direct access to the ultimate without the intervening process of systematically eradicating bad karma. This concept of direct attainment may be seen as illuminating yet another aspect of universality: Wherever one undertakes the Buddhist practice, the goal of his striving is immediately at hand.

[A]ll three of the single practices are said to offer direct access to the goal: That is, they enable one to attain enlightenment “quickly.” Here we have an extremely important aspect of the new Buddhism of the Kamakura period. To understand the dramatic conceptual shift that it implies, we must remember that traditional Buddhism views the attaining of enlightenment as an effort spanning a great many lifetimes. Numerous Mahayana texts inform us, for example, that the six paramitas or bodhisattva practices of almsgiving, upholding precepts, forbearance, assiduity, meditation and wisdom are to be perfected one by one, mastery of each requiring a hundred kalpas (one kalpa being generally reckoned a 15,998,000 years). Or, according to another popular explanation, one advances toward full enlightenment through fifty-two successive stages of bodhisattva practice, systematically extirpating illusions and evil karma and acquiring enlightened virtues along the way. Such views regard the attaining of Buddhahood as a linear process with a beginning and an end, commencing with one’s bodhisattva vows and concluding with the achievement of perfect liberation. The concept of attaining Buddhahood in one’s present form, though already present in Indian Mahayana Buddhism, had until this point never gained the same widespread acceptance as the notion of practice spanning countless lifetimes.

In the doctrines of the three new Kamakura schools, this vast length of time is progressively shortened until, in the teachings of Dōgen and Nichiren, it vanishes altogether, and practice and enlightenment become simultaneous.

Nichiren’s mappō thought unites two important but hitherto distinct elements of Kamakura Buddhism: a universally feasible way of practice and belief in the possibility of becoming a Buddha in this world. Honen’s nembutsu could be practiced by anyone regardless of education, ability, and so forth, but his doctrine deferred the attainment of Buddhahood until after rebirth in the Pure Land, and emphasized human limitations rather than their inherent Buddha nature. Dōgen stressed the inherent Buddha nature and held that one attains enlightenment directly in the act of seated meditation, but the practice of zazen as he taught it was not universally accessible, requiring the environment of monastic life, observance of the precepts, and, one assumes, some degree of education. Nichiren’s teaching combined both a universally practicable discipline—the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra—and the doctrine of attaining Buddhahood as a common mortal.

The fact that both Nichiren and Hōnen emphasized the efficacy of a single phrase uttered with faith has led many to deduce a false similarity between their teachings. In actuality, they require an altogether different posture on the part of the believer. Faith in Amida as taught by Hōnen and Shinran rests on a thorough conviction of one’s own helplessness and depravity. The absolute emphasis on tariki or “other power” demands this; to the extent that one remains unconvinced of his own moral inadequacy, he cannot fully entrust himself to the power of Amida’s grace. For Nichiren, however, once one embraces the daimoku, the single, inadmissible doubt that will hinder his enlightenment is doubt about his own Buddha nature. Faith in the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra rests on the premise that one possesses the absolute within himself, and to believe this—in the face of one’s obvious shortcomings—Nichiren acknowledged to be difficult.

Nichiren consistently opposed any suggestion that enlightenment or ultimate truth or the Buddha land lies anywhere apart from oneself in the present moment. “There are not two lands, pure or impure in themselves,” he remarked. “The difference lies solely in the good or evil in our minds.” In this way, he saw the individual as fully responsible for his own enlightenment, a view that heavily influenced his position on another of the standard mappō issues—the question of ease versus difficulty of practice.

The daimoku, like the nembutsu, requires neither profound doctrinal understanding nor the institution of monastic life nor even the ability to read. Nichiren himself acknowledged the virtue of its extreme simplicity, which rendered it accessible to all people. However, unlike Hōnen, he rarely argued the authenticity of the daimoku on the basis of its ease of practice. Rather, looking beyond mere mechanical simplicity, he defined the practice of the daimoku as “diffcult.”

Here Nichiren applied to the daimoku the words of the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka, which describes itself as the teaching that is “the hardest to believe, the hardest to understand.” Nichiren analyzed this difficulty in several ways. First. he said, there is doctrinal difficulty; because the daimoku encompasses all truth within itself, it is infinitely profound and therefore “difficult to understand.” Second, he stressed the difficulty of propagation, which in the Final Dharma age invariably entails hardships and misunderstandings. The Lotus Sutra itself enumerates the persecutions that will befall its votaries in the “evil age”—prophecies borne out with almost uncanny accuracy in the lives of Nichiren and his disciples. Third, he warned against the difficulty of sustaining faith, for one’s deluded mind will attempt to thwart him in various ways as he advances in practice. Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, Nichiren emphasized the extreme difficulty of believing in one’s own Buddha nature. He wrote, “To believe that Buddhahood exists within Humanity (ninkai) is the most difficult thing of all.”

What did, in Nichiren’s estimation, make mappō a dark and evil era was stubborn adherence to provisional teachings no longer suited to the time or the people’s capacity. These fragmentary revelations of truth had been able to trigger full awakening in the people of the True and Counterfeit Dharma ages, who had cultivated the requisite capacity through their past practice. However, like medicine standing too long upon the shelf which loses its potency and turns poisonous, by the Final Dharma age, far from leading to enlightenment, these incomplete doctrines served only to compound people’s illusions and evil karma. Convinced of the essential non-duality of the individual and his objective world, Nichiren saw the disasters and upheavals of his age as an outward expression of widespread delusion arising from faith in these inferior teachings. He asserted that if people would instead embrace the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra, awakening to their own Buddha nature, then the present world, just as it is, would become the Buddha land.

In Nichiren’s teaching, the entire process of sowing, maturing and harvesting concludes in the moment of chanting the daimoku, the act by which one “simultaneously makes the cause and receives the effect of Buddhahood.” Or, if enlightenment is viewed as a process, one reaps the harvest of emancipation within this single lifetime. Those born in the True and Counterfeit Dharma ages, Nichiren taught, could attain Buddhahood through traditional disciplines, but these in general demanded practice spanning many cycles of birth and death. On the other hand, those born in the time of mappo cannot attain Buddhahood through such disciplines, but by chanting Namu-myōhōrengekyō-kyō, they can become Buddhas in this very lifetime.

Thus for Nichiren, birth in the Final Dharma age is ultimately a matter for rejoicing. “What joy to have been born in mappō, and to have shared in the propagation [of the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra)!” he exclaims. “To be a common mortal seeking the Way in this Final Dharma age is better than being a mighty ruler during the two thousand years of the True and Counterfeit Dharma ages. Rather than be abbot of the Tendai sect, it is better to be a leper who chants Namu- myōhō-rengekyō-kyō.” And, “I rejoice at whatever good fortune enabled me to be born in the fifth five-hundred years. When one compares the rewards of living in the three different periods, it is clear that mine surpass not only those of Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu but those of T’ien-t’ai (Chih-i) and Dengyō.” Similar expressions of joy and gratitude abound in his writings, contrasting sharply with the gloom of conventional mappō thought. For Nichiren, mappō was defined not in terms of its depravity, but in terms of the relationship between the people and the Dharma. From one perspective, he taught that the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra is the correct practice for people in the Final Dharma age, but more fundamentally, he held the Final Dharma age to be significant because that is the time when the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra—the seed for the direct attainment of Buddhahood—shall spread.