In medieval Tendai thought, the nonduality of the ordinary worldling and the Buddha forms the focus of argument; the particular form of practice one adopts is less important. In the new movements, this “nondual” standpoint is assimilated to claims for the sole validity of a particular form of faith or practice, which itself becomes the polemical touchstone, as the exclusive validity of the Lotus Sūtra does in the case of Nichiren. But this shift in focus is neither a rejection nor a fundamental transformation of the hongaku stance: Acceptance or denial of original enlightenment thought was not the fault line along which the “old”/”new” divide occurred. Far more important to the emergence of the new movements were such factors as their success in forming new institutions or kyōdan (including, as Matsuo Kenji has noted, the adoption of ordination procedures independent of the state-sponsored kaidan); their grounding in social and economic bases different from those of the Tendai temple-shrine complexes of the capital; and the particular ideological orientation inherent in their commitment to single practice, which served to define them over and against other Buddhists. (Page 361-362)