It is preached in the Lotus Sūtra, “Expedients” chapter, “If there are those who hear the Dharma, not even one will fail to attain Buddhahood.” Although this phrase consists of only ten Chinese characters, it means that reading a line of the Lotus Sūtra has the same merit as reading all the holy teachings that Śākyamuni Buddha preached in his lifetime. Therefore, Grand Master Miao-lê states in his Commentary on the Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra, “In spreading the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra, when we consider the meaning of just one doctrine, we must consider the entire scriptures of the Buddha preached in his lifetime from the beginning to the end.”
The “beginning” here means the Flower Garland Sūtra while the “end” means the Nirvana Sūtra. The Flower Garland Sūtra was preached by four great Bodhisattvas — Hoe, Kudokulin, Kongōban, and Kongozō — upon the request of a bodhisattva called Gedatsugatsu. It was preached in the presence of the Buddha, who had just attained enlightenment. I do not know how many fascicles it consisted of at the time it was housed in India, the Dragon King Palace, or the Tuṣita Heaven, but when it was translated into Chinese and transmitted to Japan, there existed three editions of 60 fascicles, 80 fascicles, and 40 fascicles. Regarding the Nirvana Sūtra, too, we do not know how many fascicles it consisted of in India, the Dragon King Palace, and elsewhere but in Japan there are several editions in 40, 36, 6, and 2 fascicles. Beside these two sūtras, the Āgama sūtras, the sūtras preached in the third of the five periods of the Buddha’s teaching (according to T’ien-t’ai), and the Wisdom Sūtra are said to be more than 5,000 or 7,000 fascicles.
Even if one can’t read or listen to all these voluminous scriptures of Buddhism, if just one character or phrase of the Lotus Sūtra is read, the merit received is equivalent to reading the entire set of sūtras without missing even a single character. For instance, the words for India or Japan consist of merely two Chinese characters each, but included in these two characters are all of the lands, great mountains, plants, people and animals in the five regions of India, 16 major states, 500 medium states, 10,000 minor states and numerous tiny states. Taking another example, a mirror which is as small as one centimeter, two centimeters, three centimeters, four centimeters, or five centimeters square, can reflect people a meter or two meters tall, or a mountain as high as 10, 20, 100, or 1,000 meters. Therefore, as we read a phrase in the, “Expedients” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, it is stated that all those who hear this sūtra will become Buddhas without fail.
Sennichi-ama Gohenji, A Reply to Sennichi-ama, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Volume 7, Followers II, Pages 158-159