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.