[I]n Nichiren’s thought, enlightenment, or salvation, depends not on multiple factors but on one condition only—faith in the Lotus Sūtra, which is inseparable from the chanting of the daimoku. Anyone who chants the daimoku, man or woman, cleric or lay person, foolish or wise, realizes enlightenment. Correspondingly, there is but one single error or evil that can obstruct this enlightenment: “slander of the Dharma,” or willful disbelief in the sūtra. To discard the Lotus Sūtra, Nichiren writes, “exceeds even the sin of killing one’s parents a thousand or ten thousand times, or of shedding the blood of the Buddhas in the ten directions.” The modality of Nichiren’s doctrine on this point appears at first absolutely either/or: “Disbelief is the cause of the icchantika and of slander of the Dharma, while faith is the cause of wisdom (prajn͂ā) and corresponds to the stage of verbal identity.” So powerful is faith in the Lotus that no worldly evil can ever counteract it and pull the practitioner down into the evil paths. Conversely, slander of the Lotus Sūtra is so great an evil that no accumulation of worldly good deeds can ever offset it or save one who commits it from the Avīci Hell. On a deeper level, however, the dichotomy is dissolved, for even to slander the Lotus Sūtra is to form a connection with it. Thus in Nichiren’s view, even if one’s practice of shakubuku should arouse the enmity of others and cause them to slander the Lotus Sūtra, because it nonetheless allows them to form a “reverse connection” with the sūtra, that is far preferable to their having no connection at all. Once the retribution of their slander is expiated, they will, by virtue of that connection, encounter the sūtra again and attain Buddhahood. (Page 295-296)