Notwithstanding the Buddha’s efforts, people failed to realize that the expedients they had been taught were only part of the vast and profound truth attained by their master. Gradually they divided into different schools or sects clustered around a particular teaching which they believed to be the ultimate. During his fifty-year teaching Sakyamuni had employed a wide variety of expedients. His disciples, who scattered far and wide, noticed that they had received different teachings. They began to argue among each other about which teachings and practices were the more correct.

To solve these disputes, Sakyamuni introduced the Lotus Sutra – his ultimate teaching. Its first purpose was to break the attachments his disciples had formed to their own particular ideas. That is, Sakyamuni proclaimed that all he had previously taught were only expedients. They were partial truths, not the whole. They were separate “Vehicles.” Now they must be unified into One Vehicle, the Buddha Vehicle. This concept of the One Vehicle is the central thought of the Lotus Sutra and the chief idea presented in this chapter.