The concluding paragraphs of the Selection of the Time, one of Nichiren's Five Major Works

"The fifth volume of the Lotus Sutra says, “This Lotus Sutra is the secret storehouse of the Buddhas, the Thus Come Ones. Among the sutras, it holds the highest place.” In this passage we should note the words “it holds the highest place.” The phrase comprises four characters in the original. If we are to believe this passage, then we must say that the votary of the Lotus Sutra is one who proclaims the Lotus Sutra to stand supreme above all the other sutras.

Let us suppose now that there are many people who are held in great respect by the ruler, and that these people claim that there are sutras superior to the Lotus Sutra, disputing with the votary of the Lotus Sutra on this point. They enjoy the trust and support of the ruler and his ministers, while the votary of the Lotus Sutra is a person of low station and humble learning; therefore, the whole nation joins in heaping abuse on him. If at that time he conducts himself in the manner of Bodhisattva Never Disparaging or the Scholar Bhadraruchi and continues to assert the superiority of the Lotus Sutra, he will almost certainly lose his life. To practice with such resolve in the face of this threat is the most important thing of all.

Now I, Nichiren, am confronting just such a situation. Though I am a humble man, I have proclaimed that the great teachers Kōbō and Jikaku, the Tripitaka masters Shan-wu-wei, Chin-kang-chih, and Pu-k’ung, and others of their kind are potent enemies of the Lotus Sutra, and that, if the words of the sutra are to be trusted, they have without doubt fallen into the hell of incessant suffering. To proclaim such a thing as this is a very grave step. It would be easier to walk naked into a raging fire, easier to take up Mount Sumeru in one’s hands and toss it away, easier to hoist a great stone on one’s back and walk across the ocean, than to do what I have done. To establish the correct teaching in this country of Japan is indeed a difficult thing.

If Shakyamuni Buddha, the lord of teachings, of the pure land of Eagle Peak, Many Treasures Buddha of the World of Treasure Purity, the Buddhas of the ten directions who are Shakyamuni’s emanations, the bodhisattvas as numerous as the dust particles of a thousand worlds who sprang up out of the earth, Brahmā and Shakra, the gods of the sun and moon, and the four heavenly kings do not, conspicuously or inconspicuously, give me their protection and lend me aid, then they will never know a single day or a single hour of peace and safety!"