In [Chapters 21 and 22], Śākyamuni Buddha entrusts the teachings of the Lotus Sūtra for propagation in the future. To make clear the momentousness of the occasion, he first displays his awe-inspiring transcendent powers. According to Zhanran, of the ten powers described, the first five — from Śākyamuni and all other buddhas extending their tongues to the heavens of Brahmā to the buddha worlds of the ten directions quaking in six ways — were intended for beings in his lifetime. The remaining supernatural events — from all beings in those worlds beholding the buddhas present on their lion thrones at the Lotus assembly to the worlds of the ten directions becoming pellucid, as though they were one buddha land (284) — were intended for beings of the future.

Though he acknowledged this reading, Nichiren concluded that ultimately the entire display was directed to the future, when the four leaders of the bodhisattvas of the earth would appear in order to spread the five characters Myōhō-renge-kyō. He also assimilated these extraordinary happenings to contemporary portents: “The quaking of the earth in the ‘Introduction’ chapter was limited to a single world system, but in the ‘Transcendent Powers’ chapter the lands of the various buddhas all shook violently, quaking in six different ways. The [earthquakes and other] omens of our own time are just like this. The great omens of the ‘Transcendent Powers’ chapter portend that the essence of the Lotus Sūtra will spread widely after the Buddha’s nirvāṇa, when the two thousand years of the True Dharma and Semblance Dharma ages have passed and the Final Dharma age has begun.”