The Lotus Sutra as Supreme

Nichiren Buddhists affirm the Lotus Sutra as the highest and complete teaching of the Buddha, superseding all others. Following the thirteenth-century Japanese teacher Nichiren, they hold that in the present degenerate age the essence of the sutra is made accessible through devoted chanting of its title in the invocation Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, by which any person can awaken the Buddha-nature within and attain enlightenment in this very life. Devotion focuses on the Gohonzon, a mandala inscribed with the invocation, as the object of reverence.

Nichiren (1222 to 1282) first proclaimed his teaching in 1253 at Seicho-ji temple, and his uncompromising attacks on the other Buddhist schools of Kamakura Japan as inadequate or worse brought him repeated persecution: he was exiled to Izu in 1261, narrowly escaped execution at Tatsunokuchi in 1271, and was then exiled to the remote island of Sado from 1271 to 1274, where he wrote some of his most important treatises. He read Japan's political and natural disasters of the period as confirmation of his warning, set out in his 1260 treatise Rissho Ankoku Ron (On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land), that neglecting the Lotus Sutra in favour of lesser teachings, particularly Pure Land Buddhism's devotion to Amida, would bring national calamity.