Nichiren’s understanding of dharma slander included not only verbal disparagement, as the term suggests, but the mental act of rejection or disbelief. As he declared, “To be born in a country where the Lotus Sūtra has spread and neither to have faith in it nor practice it, is disparaging the dharma.” In other words, one could be guilty of “disparaging the dharma” without malign intent, even without knowledge that one was doing so, simply by following a teacher who had set the Lotus aside in favor of lesser, provisional teachings. Nichiren initially leveled, this charge against Hōnen’s followers but later expanded it to include both Shingon and Tendai adepts who subordinated the Lotus Sūtra to the esoteric teachings; practitioners of Zen, who emphasized its “wordless transmission” over the Buddhist scriptures in general; as well as movements to revitalize precept observance, which based themselves on precepts grounded in provisional teachings.