Ri-Butsu or real Buddha

Nichiren regards Shakyamuni Buddha of the Juryo chapter as  Ri-Butsu or real Buddha who is Father, Teacher, and Parent of all other Buddhas. His name is neither Nichiren Daishonin nor is it Myoho renge kyo. The principle of Eternal Buddha is taught second only to Daimoku in Nichiren's writings. The SGI and the Nichiren Shoshu sees fit to change these teachings. 

Nichiren taught that those born in this severe degenerate age called Mappo are unable, through self power alone, to attain the fruit of Buddhood. We need to take refuge in the Law of Namu Myoho renge kyo to which the Eternal Buddha has always been enlightened by chanting it repeatedly and believing in the Original Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni. Our lack of concentration, memory, volition, fortitude and compassion is so attenuated in this age that we can not, by our power alone, attain the same unsurpassed Enlightenment as He.

To attempt to separate The Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni's Enlightenment and teaching from the Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni himself is as futile as attempting to separate carbon from diamond. Namu Myoho renge kyo is the essential element of the Eternal Buddha as carbon is the essential element of diamond. Without Namu Myoho renge kyo there is no Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni. Similarly, just as there would be no proof of the unsurpassed utility and magnificent beauty possible with elemental carbon, there would be no proof of the supreme benefits of Namu Myoho renge kyo without the Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni. Not even Nichiren Daishonin affords such absolute proof. 

Nichiren wrote in the True Object of Worship in the section, The Pure Land of the Eternal Buddha: 

"Now, when the Eternal Buddha was revealed in the essential section of the Lotus Sutra, this world of endurance (Saha-World) became the Eternal Pure Land, indestructible even by the three calamities of conflagration, flooding, and strong winds which are said to destroy the world. It transcends the four periods of cosmic change: the kalpa of construction, continuance, destruction, and emptiness. Sakyamuni Buddha, the Lord-preacher of this pure land, has never died in the past, nor will He be born in the future. He exists forever throughout the past, present, and future. All those who receive His guidance are one with this Eternal Buddha...." 

And in the section, The Form of the True Object of Worship, he writes:

"The object of worship (honzon) at the scene of this transmission of "Namu Myo-ho-ren-ge-kyo" from the Eternal Buddha to his original disciples is: Suspended in the sky above the Eternal Buddha Sakyamuni's Saha-world is a stupa of treasures, in which Buddhas Sakyamuni and Taho sit to the left and right of "Myo-ho-ren-ge-kyo". They are waited on by four bodhisattvas such as Jogyo (Superior Practice) representing the original disciples of the Eternal Buddha called out from underground. Four more bodhisattvas including Manjusri and Maitreya, take lower seats as followers, other great and minor bodhisattvas---those converted by the Buddha in the theoretical section and those who came from other lands---resemble numerous people sitting on the ground and looking up at court nobles.Also lined up on the ground are Buddhas in manifestation (funjin Buddhas) who gathered together from all the worlds in the universe in praise of the Buddha's preaching, representing provisional Buddhas in their respective lands.

The true object of worship (honzon) such as this was not revealed anywhere else by Sakyamuni Buddha during the more than fifty years of His preaching life. Though He spent eight years preaching the Lotus Sutra, the scene was limited to his preaching in the sky above Mt. Sacred Eagle recounted in eight chapters, from the fifteenth to the twenty-second.. During two millenium after the death of Sakyamuni Buddha, the Ages of the True Dharma and the Imitative Dharma, some worshipped Sakyamuni Buddha accompanied by Kasyapa and Ananda as described in the Hinayana sutras; others worshipped Him accompanied by such bodhisattvas as Manjusri and Samantabhadra as he appeared in quasi-Mahayana sutras, the Nirvana Sutra, or the theoretical section of the Lotus Sutra. Many wooden statues and portraits were made of Sakyamuni as He preached Hinayana or quasi-Mahayana sutras but statues and portraits of the Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha revealed in the Duration of Life of the Buddha chapter of the Lotus Sutra were never made. Now in the beginning of the Latter Age of the Decadent Dharma, is it not the time that such statues and portraits are made?"