[F]ourteen chapters in the essential section can be regarded as one sūtra with three parts: the preface, the main discourse, and the epilogue. The first half of the fifteenth chapter, “Appearance of Bodhisattvas from Underground,” is the prologue. The second half of the fifteenth chapter, the sixteenth chapter, “The Life Span of the Buddha,” and the first half of the following chapter, the “Variety of Merits,” (a chapter and two-halves in all) make up the main discourse. The remainder constitutes the epilogue.

The Lord who preaches here is the Eternal Buddha, not Śākyamuni Buddha who attained Buddhahood for the first time in this world under the bodhi tree in Buddhagayā. Accordingly, what is preached here differs from what was preached previously as clearly as heaven and earth. That is to say, it is revealed here that all living beings in the ten realms as well as the world in which they live manifest themselves to be eternal. It comes close to revealing the truth of the “3,000 existences contained in one thought,” with only an extremely thin bamboo film separating them.

Kanjin Honzon-shō, A Treatise Revealing the Spiritual Contemplation and the Most Verable One, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 151-152