Numerous bodhisattvas as many as the number of dust-particles of the great earth worked their way up to the highest stage of bodhisattva practice, next only to the Buddha. They had eliminated incalculable number of evil passions except the last one, the fundamental ignorance. They had hoped to encounter the Buddha so that this huge rock of fundamental ignorance would crushed by Him, but the Lord Buddha Śākyamuni preached only the method of practicing the teaching, not the doctrine attained by practicing it during the first 40 years or so. As the merit of Perfect Enlightenment was not revealed in those years, it saddens me to report that none of those numerous bodhisattvas was able to ascend to the stage of Wonderful Enlightenment (myōgaku).

However, during 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, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Page 65