Since Grand Master T’ien-t’ai was among the audience who heard Śākyamuni Buddha expound the Lotus Sūtra on Mt. Sacred Eagle, he propagated the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra, which shows the sole purpose of the Buddha appearing in this world. However, as the time was not right for the spread of the sūtra, he propagated the teaching of the daimoku of the Lotus Sūtra in the name of the Great Concentration and Insight. Since Grand Master T’ien-t’ai was not a disciple of the Eternal Śākyamuni Buddha but of Śākyamuni as a manifestation of the Buddha, he did not propagate what was entrusted directly to such disciples of the Eternal Buddha as Superior Practice Bodhisattva, who had been trained ever since the eternal past. T’ien-t’ai propagated the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra, which directly states the truth by explaining it as the Great Concentration and Insight. In this sense, his teaching can be said to have been expedient rather than the Wonderful Dharma as unvarnished truth. Therefore, those who received the teaching of the Great Concentration and Insight from Grand Master T’ien-t’ai in the Age of the Semblance Dharma are, like those who heard the preaching of the pre-Lotus teaching in the lifetime of Śākyamuni Buddha, “people who received the perfect teaching taking on the expedients (provisional teaching).” People who receive the teaching from the Eternal Śākyamuni Buddha are those who receive the teaching of the Wonderful Dharma revealed in the essential section of the Lotus Sūtra and go their way correctly to enlightenment.

Risshō Kanjō, A Treatise on Establishing the Right Way of Meditation, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 225