In the Ichijō shō and similar texts, “Lotus Sūtra” is taken in its ultimate sense to refer not to a scriptural text, but to the perfectly interpenetrating dharma realm in its totality, and the “five profound principles” are interpreted as attributes of the dharma realm. For example, its “name” is conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya, zokutai), its “essence” is the principle of the true aspect, and so forth. This transmission draws on Saichō’s concept of the “three kinds of Lotus Sūtra” (sanshu Hokke), … which it explains in this fashion: the “fundamental Lotus Sūtra” indicates the primordial origin, prior to the advent and preaching of the Buddha; the various teachings of the Buddha’s lifetime, Hinayāna and Mahāyāna, true and provisional, are the “hidden and secret Lotus Sūtra”; and the Lotus Sūtra that represents the fifth period in the Buddha’s preaching life and integrates all earlier teachings is the “explicitly preached Lotus Sūtra.” Thus all truth, whether prior to words or formally articulated, and of whatever sūtra, is subsumed within “the Lotus Sūtra.” (Page 183)