[D]uring the eight years when the Buddha expounded the One Vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sūtra on Mt. Sacred Eagle, all the bodhisattvas reached the stage of Wonderful Enlightenment, attaining the same Perfect Enlightenment of Śākyamuni Buddha and perceiving everything clearly as if they looked all around on the summit of Mt. Sumeru or the sun rose at dawn of a long night. Therefore, it cannot be that they do not intend to spread the Lotus Sūtra or bear the suffering of the practicer of the sūtra even without the word of the Buddha. They have thus made a vow, “We will not spare even our lives; we will treasure only the supreme way;” or “Without sparing our lives, we will disseminate this sūtra throughout the land.”
Kitō Shō, Treatise on Prayers