The famous parable of the three vehicles and the burning house appears in chapter 3. The burning house represents human life, and the three vehicles— the goat, deer, and ox carts—represent the shravaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva ways. Without realizing that they are in the midst of and being consumed by the fire of life, human beings seek life’s pleasures. In order to save them the Buddha tries to get them to get out of the burning house by offering them things appropriate to their abilities and liking (i.e., the three vehicles, teachings of skillful means). When they go outside, all alike are given great white ox-carts (the One Buddha-Vehicle). The following passage is famous and often recited in Japanese:

The threefold world is not safe,
Just as a burning house
Full of all kinds of suffering
Is much to be feared.

Always there is the suffering of
Birth, old age, disease, and death.
They are like flames
Raging ceaselessly.

The Tathagata is already free
From the burning house of the threefold world.
He lives in tranquil peace,
As in the safety of a forest or field.

Now, this threefold world
Is all my domain,
And the living beings in it
Are all my children.

But now this place
Is filled with all kinds of dreadful troubles,
From which I alone
Can save and protect them.

Nichiren showed with this passage, which he greatly admired, that Shakyamuni Buddha is our lord, teacher, and parent (“the Three Beneficial Virtues”).