QUESTION: How do you know that you are a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra in the beginning of the Latter Age of Degeneration?

ANSWER: The following statements in the Lotus Sūtra attest it to be the truth: “Many people hate this sūtra with jealousy even in the lifetime of the Buddha, not to say after His death” (chapter 10, “The Teacher of the Dharma”). “Ignorant people will speak ill of us (who propagate this sūtra in the Latter Age of Degeneration), abuse us, and threaten us with swords and sticks. … We will be driven out of our monasteries from time to time” (chapter 13, “Encouragement for Upholding This Sūtra”). “Many people in the world will hate this sūtra and few will believe it” (chapter 14, “Peaceful Practices”). “People struck him (a practicer of the Lotus Sūtra) with sticks, pieces of wood, pieces of tile, and stones” (chapter 20, “The Never-Despising Bodhisattva”). “King of devils, his subjects, gods, dragons, yaksa demons, and kumbhāṇḍa demons will take advantage of the time (the first 500-year period in the Latter Age of Degeneration)” (chapter 23, “Previous Life of the Medicine King Bodhisattva”).

In order to see that these words of the Buddha are not false, when we see the faces of all the people in Japan, the king and his subjects, monks and nuns, and laymen and laywomen, reflected upon these clear mirrors of the Lotus Sūtra, there is nobody but I, Nichiren, who fits them perfectly. As for the time, we certainly are at the beginning of the Latter Age of Degeneration. Should there be no Nichiren today, these words of the Buddha would all be proved false.

Kembutsu Mirai-ki, Testimony to the Prediction of the Buddha, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 175