After explaining the reality of all things found in the ten suchnesses, the second chapter introduces this unifying truth of the cosmos. As it is the supreme, absolute truth, it is called the true Dharma or the Wonderful Dharma (saddharma). In other words, as the vehicle that integrates all dharmas and things as the highest way, it is called the one vehicle or the one Buddha-Vehicle. It has also been called the Buddha’s supreme and ultimate teaching (the primordial teaching).

Up to this point, the Buddha had taught various teachings and truths, such as the two or three vehicles, according to the level and capacity of the audience. Now it was time to explain the supreme and absolute truth that would synthesize and unify those various teachings. This is the ultimate purpose of the Buddha. “The tathagatas teach the Dharma for the sake of all living beings only by means of the One Buddha-Vehicle. have no other vehicles—no second or third vehicle.” The buddhas of the past and of the future “through an innumerable variety of skillful means, causal explanations, parables and other kinds of expression, have preached the Dharma for the sake of living beings. These teachings have all been for the sake of the One Buddha-Vehicle.”

In all the buddha-lands in the ten directions
There is only the Dharma of one vehicle,
Not a second or a third.

By using the power of skillful means
They demonstrate various paths.
But they are all really for the sake of the Buddha-Vehicle.

Later, terms such as “skillful means of three vehicles and the truth of one vehicle” came from such passages. Furthermore, the reason chapter 2 was named “Skillful Means” was that the main theme of the chapter is the explication of the “skillful means of three vehicles and the truth of one vehicle.”