The immanence of the pure land in the present world had long been asserted by both Tendai and Shingon schools and was by no means unique to Nichiren’s teaching. Where Nichiren’s position differed was that, for him, the identity of the Sahā world and the Buddha’s land was not only to be realized subjectively in the moment of practice but manifested in actuality: as faith in the Lotus Sūtra spread from one person to another, there would occur an objective, visible transformation of the outer world. This vision is expressed in a letter written from Sado Island in 1273:

When all people throughout the land enter the one Buddha vehicle and the Wonderful Dharma alone flourishes, because the people all chant Namu- myōhō-renge-kyō as one, the wind will not thrash the branches nor the rain fall hard enough to break clods. The age will become like the reigns of [the Chinese sage kings] Yao and Shun. In the present life, inauspicious calamities will be banished, and the people will obtain the art of longevity. When the principle becomes manifest that both persons and dharmas “neither age nor die,” then each of you, behold! There can be no doubt of the sūtra’s promise of “peace and security in the present world.”

(Page 291-292)