"Question: Why do you abandon the expansive or the simplified approach and concentrate only on essentials?
Answer: The Tripitaka Master Hsüan-tsang abandoned the simplified approach and favored expansion. Thus he took the Larger Wisdom Sutra in forty volumes and expanded it into six hundred volumes. The Tripitaka Master Kumārajīva, on the other hand, abandoned the expansive approach and favored simplification. Thus he took Great Perfection of Wisdom in one thousand volumes and reduced it to one hundred volumes.
I, Nichiren, have abandoned both the approach that expands and that which condenses and favor the essence of the matter, which means the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo that were transmitted to Bodhisattva Superior Practices.
When Chiu-fang Yin was appraising horses, he paid no attention to whether they were black or yellow but concentrated only on picking a thoroughbred. When Chih Tao-lin lectured on the sutras, he put aside questions of detail and concentrated on getting at the basic meaning. Shakyamuni Buddha has already entered the treasure tower and is seated side by side with the Buddha Many Treasures, the emanations of the Buddha have gathered from the ten directions, the Bodhisattvas of the Earth have been summoned, and the essence, the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo, has been entrusted to these bodhisattvas so that they may transmit it to the Latter Day of the Law. No one in the present age can doubt this."
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