"Therefore T’ien-t’ai in his commentaries rates believers in ascending order as followers of non-Buddhist teachings, Hinayana believers, and those who follow the provisional Mahayana teachings, and stresses that the benefits enjoyed by the lowest group of Lotus Sutra believers are greater than those enjoyed by any of the other groups. The ascetic Agastya poured the Ganges River into one ear and kept it there for twelve years, and the ascetic Jinu drank the great ocean dry in a single day. But these ascetics of the non-Buddhist teachings with their supernatural powers were a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand times inferior to persons at the three stages of worthiness set forth by the Āgama sutras of Hinayana teachings, namely, persons at the stage of ordinary mortals who do not possess even one supernatural power. Likewise, Shāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, and the other Hinayana followers who had acquired the three insights and the six transcendental powers were a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand times inferior to those ordinary persons who practice even one verse or one phrase of the Mahayana sutras such as the Flower Garland Sutra, the Correct and Equal sutras, or the Wisdom sutras, although they have not yet cut off the three categories of illusion and do not possess a single supernatural power. And great bodhisattvas who practice the teachings of the Flower Garland, Correct and Equal, or Wisdom sutras so thoroughly that they have reached the stage of near-perfect enlightenment are a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand times inferior to those ordinary people of this latter age who have formed even a slight bond with the Lotus Sutra, although they have not yet cut off the three categories of illusion and have committed all manner of evil. All this is made clear in the commentaries written by the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai." -- Nichiren
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