The Pure Land for Nichiren was not a world situated at some far place, but a spiritual realm which would be realized on this earth whenever the Lotus Sutra was preached to the people of the Age of the Last Law. Whenever humanity returned to the faith and followed the Buddha’s teaching as found in the Lotus Sūtra, then, Nichiren believed, would come the end of the Age of the Last Law.

Nichiren began his public teaching by calling for the restoration of Tendai Buddhism as the basis for national salvation in the Age of the Last Law. Three times he approached the government and twice he was rebuked and exiled. He saw his mission as staying in the world during the Age of the Last Law in order to transform the world into the true Buddha Land.

At Sado, Nichiren began to make distinctions between the traditional Tendai manner of reading the Lotus Sūtra and his interpretation of the scripture. The traditional Tendai teaching divided the scripture into two parts: the first fourteen chapters were called shakumon (realm of trace) and were thought to reveal the unity of the teaching (one vehicle doctrine), and the second fourteen chapters were called homon, the true teaching.

Nichiren divided the Lotus Sūtra into three sections, which overlapped the traditional Tendai two-part division of the text. According to Nichiren, in Chapters Ten to Twenty-two, the third section, the practice of the bodhisattva was stressed. Nichiren considered Chapter Sixteen, “Revelation of the (Eternal) Life of the Tathāgata” the most important chapter of the text, since the eternity of the Buddha was shown to be clarified and understood through the continual, eternal practice of the bodhisattva, and this eternal life of the Tathāgata could be perceived through the practice of the bodhisattva. In this third section the bodhisattva was seen often as a martyr who must suffer for the sake of the truth. For instance, in Chapter Thirteen, “Exhortation to Hold Firm,” and Chapter Twenty, “The Bodhisattva Never-Despise,” it is stated that bodhisattvas will suffer and die in order to propagate the Lotus Sūtra.

Nichiren argued that Chih-i and Saichō understood the Lotus Sūtra only theoretically and hence only as a provisional teaching, but that he, Nichiren, understood the scripture factually in that he was living the text through his suffering and hardships as predicted in the text itself.

The late twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Japan were periods of almost constant natural disaster. From about 1225 until 1261 Japan was hit with a series of earthquakes, followed by floods and storms, shortages of food, and plagues. During this period not only were there natural calamities taking place, but the new government of the Kamakura Bakufu, which deprived the old regime in Kyoto of real political power, began toward the end of the twelfth century to rule the nation.

Nichiren, conscious that he was living in the Age of the Last Law, came to the conclusion that the Lotus Sutra should be the foundation for secular as well as religious life. Because he saw religion as the foundation of secular life, he felt the people of Japan had been deceived by the other schools of Buddhism as well as by a corrupt and illegal government. The other schools of Buddhism had abandoned the Buddha, and the government had destroyed the Emperor. Thus, in 1260 he wrote the Risshō Ankoku Ron and presented it to Hōjō Tokiyori, the regent in Kamakura. In this essay Nichiren described the sad state of affairs in Japan. …

Nichiren opposed the other schools because he thought they were dividing Buddhism and were destroying the teachings of the Buddha. He believed this would lead to the destruction of both Japan and of Buddhism. In the Risshō Ankoku Ron, Nichiren suggested that the way to stop the calamities and to attain the Pure Land on this earth was for the people to “refrain from making donations to fallen priests and confine their gifts to the good.” And the peace and security of the country would come about only when “the mind of man changes with time and the nature of things according to circumstances. If you wish for the security of the country and desire peace in the present and future, think deeply and stamp out erroneous doctrines.” According to Nichiren, Japan had entered the Age of the Last Law because the gods had abandoned the nation which no longer had faith in the Lotus Sūtra.

Nichiren said that the people had forgotten the Lotus Sūtra or had slandered the Lotus Sutra, so in order for the gods to return to the country and to protect it, the people must turn to the Lotus Sūtra with absolute trust and faith.

He regarded the Age of the Last Law not as the worst and darkest of the three periods but as the best of the three periods since it was the time when the Lotus Sūtra would spread among the people of the world. Nichiren believed that whenever mankind returned to the faith and followed the Buddha’s teaching according to the Lotus Sūtra, the Age of the Last Law would come to an end.