It may appear contradictory that the age in which Buddhism sinks into utmost depravity and finally disappears is considered to be the same age in which the highest and purest teaching shall be made known to humanity. The principle commonly upheld in Mahāyāna is that teaching and capacity must be parallel or adapted to each other. In other words, a superior hearer needs a superior teaching and an inferior hearer an inferior teaching. Nichiren’s idea was just the opposite. According to him, the more inferior the hearer, the more superior teaching he needs. Or, the severer the sickness, the better must be the medicine. An inferior medicine cannot cure a severe sickness. In the same manner a teaching of low grade cannot bring enlightenment to men who have fallen very low. Men of high standard can turn to advantage even a low teaching, but people in deepest ignorance need the most sublime teaching to vanquish their spiritual darkness.

The most sublime teaching does of course not mean the most difficult teaching, but the most powerful and efficacious teaching. From the point of view of mental comprehensibility it may be quite easy. Nichiren does therefore not contradict himself when he says of the Mappō time and the teaching appropriate to it: “The sickness will be grievous, but the medicine light.” The most sublime teaching is a teaching of mystical essence that establishes a direct and intimate relation between the Buddha and the receiver and helps in bringing about his salvation.