Medieval Japanese Tendai thinkers of various teaching lineages shared a loose consensus that the enlightenment of the primordial Śākyamuni Buddha was “hidden in the depths” of the “Lifespan” chapter and could be accessed through the practitioner’s “mind contemplation” or “mind discernment” (J. kanjin). Kanjin in the Tiantai/Tendai tradition was originally a broad term for practice, in contrast to doctrinal study. Though interpretations varied, by Nichiren’s time, kanjin had come to mean the essence of the Tendai Lotus teachings and was often associated specifically with the “Lifespan” chapter. For Nichiren, now in the mappō era, the “mind discernment” that opens the primordial buddha’s awakening to all people is the chanting of Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō. He took the daimoku to be the “good medicine” that the excellent doctor leaves for his children in the “Lifespan” chapter’s narrative. In his reading, this chapter’s revelation of the primordial buddha’s constant presence in this world immediately collapses all temporal and spatial separation between the Buddha and the devotee. “Two thousand years and more have passed since the Buddha entered nirvāṇa,” he wrote. “But for those who embrace the Lotus Sūtra, at each day, each hour, each moment, the Buddha’s voice reaches them, conveying to them the message, ‘I do not die.’ ” Through chanting the daimoku, the timeless realm of the Buddha’s original enlightenment is retrieved in the present moment; ordinary people manifest buddhahood just as they are, and their world becomes the buddha land.