The way in which you and I can develop our buddha-nature is by following the Buddha-way, doing what buddhas have always done, namely, following the way of bodhisattva practice. It is absolutely central to the Lotus Sutra, I think, that Śākyamuni Buddha is, first of all, a bodhisattva. We are told that he has been doing bodhisattva practice, helping and leading others, for innumerable kalpas. Whenever the enormously long life of the Buddha is described, it is not meditation that he has been doing, at least not primarily, but teaching and leading and changing others, thus turning them into bodhisattvas.

Because all the living have various natures, various desires, various activities, various ideas and ways of making distinctions, and because I wanted to lead them to put down roots of goodness, I have used a variety of explanations, parables, and words and preach various teachings. Thus I have never for a moment neglected the Buddha’s work.

Thus it is, since I became Buddha a very long time has passed, a lifetime of unquantifiable asamkhyeya kalpas, of forever existing and never entering extinction. Good children, the lifetime which I have acquired pursuing the bodhisattva-way is not even finished yet, but will be twice the number of kalpas already passed.

But the Buddha and those with the title of bodhisattva are not the only bodhisattvas. Śrāvakas are also bodhisattvas. That is why there are plenty of them in every paradise, or paradiselike Buddha-land described in the Lotus Sutra. Most śrāvakas, of course, don’t know they are bodhisattvas, but they are nonetheless.

What you are practicing
[the Buddha says to the disciple Kāśyapa] Is the bodhisattva-way.
As you gradually practice and learn,
Every one of you should become a buddha.

And, of course, most importantly, you and I are bodhisattvas. No matter how tiny our understanding or merit, no matter how trivial our practice, we are, to some extent, perhaps tiny, already bodhisattvas. And we are called to grow in bodhisattvahood by leading others to realize that potential in themselves.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 384-385