Nichiren’s interpretation of the entire Lotus Sūtra is grounded in his understanding that the “heart” of the entire sūtra is the wonderful dharma, instantiated in its title, which encapsulates the awakened state that buddhas attain and which opens that buddhahood to all who chant it, however meager their moral virtue or understanding. “To practice only the seven characters Namu Myōhō-renge-kyō might seem narrow,” he said, “but because those characters are the teacher of all buddhas of the past, present, and future; the leader of all the bodhisattvas in the ten directions; and the compass for all sentient beings on the path of attaining buddhahood, that practice is actually profound.”