Apparently, some people think that Buddhist ethics is primarily a matter of what is inside oneself; that it is primarily a matter of consciousness and compassion. But there is hardly a hint of this in the Lotus Sutra. The ideal, in the Lotus Sutra too, is a combination of wisdom or insight, compassion, and practice. The entrance to the Great Sacred Hall at the headquarters of Risshō Kōsei-kai in Tokyo, for example, is dominated by huge pictures of three bodhisattvas: Mañjuśrī, Maitreya, and Samantabhadra, representing wisdom, compassion, and practice, and the three parts of the Lotus Sutra in which these three are thought to be prominent. In the Lotus Sutra itself and in Lotus teaching, the three are interdependent and perhaps in one sense equally important. It can, for example, be said that practice can lead to enhanced wisdom and compassion. But it is clear that the flow has to be primarily the other way, toward practice as a consequence of wisdom and compassion. Thus, in contemporary jargon, the Lotus Sutra is very results-oriented. Of course, it is important that the father of the children in the burning house and the father of the poor son are concerned about their offspring and want to save them, and it is important that they are smart enough to figure out a way to save them, but it is most important that they are successful in saving the children.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 382-383