Editing Nichiren (section)

=== Five Principles ===
Nichiren also taught Five Principles (''gogi'') or five criteria for evaluating Buddhist teachings and establishing the supremacy of the ''Lotus Sutra'' as the highest and best teaching for Japan at his time. The five are:<ref name="Stone2003" />{{rp|252–255}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nakamura |first=Hajime |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sePiBcehtYcC&q=nichiren&pg=PA434 |title=The Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples: India-China-Tibet-Japan |date=1964 |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |isbn=978-0-8248-0078-9 |page=396 |access-date=3 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220601192137/https://books.google.com/books?id=sePiBcehtYcC&q=nichiren&pg=PA434 |archive-date=1 June 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Writings of Nichiren I, SGI 2006, p. 77: Encouragement of a Sick Person |url=http://www.sgilibrary.org/view.php?page=77&m=3&q=the%20five%20guides%20for%20propagation |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921053339/http://www.sgilibrary.org/view.php?page=77&m=3&q=the%20five%20guides%20for%20propagation |archive-date=21 September 2013 |access-date=6 September 2013 |publisher=Sgilibrary.org}}</ref>

* The teaching (''kyō'') - Following the [[Tiantai]] classification system, Nichiren sees the Lotus as part of the last teaching period of the Buddha and as the real true (jitsu) teaching, while all other teachings are provisional (gon). He cites Tiantai masters like [[Zhiyi]], and the ''Lotus sutra'' itself and points to its teachings on the one vehicle and the eternal immanent nature of the Buddha to prove this.
* The innate capacity (''ki'') of the people - Nichiren held that people of the Final Dharma age lack good roots (honmi uzen). Thus, they first need to encounter the ''Lotus Sutra'' to plant these good roots. Nichiren rejects the view of [[Hōnen]] that the Lotus is too profound for beings of the Final Age. Nichiren cites [[Zhanran]] who writes "the more true the teaching, the lower the stage [of the practitioners it can bring to enlightenment]." Thus, Nichiren argues that faith in the ''Lotus'' can save all types of people, even the most ignorant or lowly.
* The time (''ji''), which refers to the Final Dharma age ([[Decline of the Dharma|mappo]]). Nichiren believed that the ''Lotus Sutra'' was the right sutra for the Final Age, and that the [[Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō|daimoku]] was the right teaching for this time, being easy and accessible to all. 
* The land or country (''koku'') - As Stone writes "following earlier Tendai thinkers such as [[Saichō|Saicho]], [[Annen (monk)|Annen]], and [[Genshin]], Nichiren argued that the country of Japan is related exclusively to the ''Lotus Sutra''."
* The sequence of dharma propagation (''kyōhō rufu no zengo''), which means that one should not teach an inferior or provisional teaching in a place where a superior teaching has already been taught.