four-phrase essence of the Lotus Sutra ［四句の要法］ ( shiku-no-yōbō): Also, essence of the Lotus Sutra in four phrases. The teaching transferred by Shakyamuni Buddha to Bodhisattva Superior Practices and the other Bodhisattvas of the Earth in the “Supernatural Powers” (twenty-first) chapter of the Lotus Sutra. The chapter conveys these words of the Buddha: “The supernatural powers of the Buddhas, as you have seen, are immeasurable, boundless, inconceivable. If in the process of entrusting this sutra to others I were to employ these supernatural powers for immeasurable, boundless hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, millions of asamkhya kalpas to describe the benefits of the sutra, I could never finish doing so. To put it briefly, [1] all the doctrines possessed by the Thus Come One, [2] all the freely exercised supernatural powers of the Thus Come One, [3] the storehouse of all the secret essentials of the Thus Come One, [4] all the most profound matters of the Thus Come One—all these are proclaimed, revealed, and clearly expounded in this sutra.” Concerning the last sentence, T’ien-t’ai (538–597), in The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra, defined the four-phrase description it contains as an essential summary of the Lotus Sutra, and Nichiren (1222–1282) interpreted the same passage as indicating Nam-myoho-renge-kyo of the Three Great Secret Laws. In The Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings, Nichiren identified the teaching, or the “four-phrase essence of the Lotus Sutra” entrusted to Bodhisattva Superior Practices for its propagation in the Latter Day of the Law, as “the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo.”