Latter Day. Thus True Aspect of All Phenomena also explains the object of devotion in terms of the Person. This is the second element. Referring to both the Person and the Law, the Daishonin clarifies the fundamental object of devotion for the people of the Latter Day. He brings together the points he expounded in The Opening of the Eyes completed in 1272, which focuses on the second element, and in The Object of Devotion for Observing the Mind, which focuses on the first element.
The latter half of this letter explains to Sairen-bo that those who devote themselves to propagating the correct teaching in the same spirit as the Daishonin are themselves Bodhisattvas of the Earth. The Daishonin predicts that Nam-myoho-renge-kyo will spread widely in the future, and concludes by setting forth the key elements of Buddhist practice in the Latter Day of the Law— namely, faith, practice, and study.
1. The Annotations on “The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra.”
2. The Diamond Scalpel.
3. Ibid.
4. Here the entity of Myoho-renge-kyo is identified as the “true Buddha” and its function as a “provisional Buddha.”
5. Lotus Sutra, chap. 16.
6. The two Buddhas refer to a Buddha in his true, original status (the Dharma body) and a Buddha in the form in which he appears in response to the people’s desires in order to save them (the manifested body). The three Buddhas indicate the three bodies of a Buddha— the Dharma
body, the reward body, and the manifested body.
7. The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra.
8. This statement is attributed to T’ient’ai, but its source has not yet been satisfactorily identified.
9. Lotus Sutra, chap. 23.
10. Ibid., chap. 10.
11. Ibid., chap. 15.
12. A phrase that opens many sutras. The “I” indicates the person who recites what the Buddha taught, so that it may be set down in the form of a sutra.
13. Lotus Sutra, chap. 15.
