"The vessel here stands for our bodies and minds. Our minds are a kind of vessel, and our mouths too are vessels, as are our ears. The Lotus Sutra is the Dharma water of the Buddha's wisdom. But when this water is poured into our minds, then we may jar and upset it."

Nichiren uses the practical image of containers to explain how we receive and hold Buddhist wisdom. Just as physical vessels can be overturned, leak, become contaminated, or have their contents mixed with impurities, our minds can reject teachings, lose faith over time, become corrupted by negative influences, or mix the pure teaching with inferior practices. This teaches us to examine the quality and consistency of our faith.

"Or we may be the kind of practitioners of the Lotus Sutra whose mouths are reciting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo one moment, but Namu-Amida-butsu the next. This is like mixing filth with one's rice, or putting sand or pebbles in it."

Nichiren strongly criticizes the common practice of mixing different Buddhist teachings together. He argues that switching between chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo (the title of the Lotus Sutra) and Namu-Amida-butsu (invoking Amida Buddha) corrupts the pure practice, like contaminating good food with garbage. This emphasizes the importance of consistent, focused practice rather than a pick-and-choose approach to spirituality.

"Among all these men, Nichiren alone deserves to be regarded as the foremost. In what sense is he the foremost? He is foremost in being hated by men and women."

With remarkable honesty and even humor, Nichiren acknowledges that his uncompromising stance against popular religious practices has made him the most hated person in Japan. Rather than being discouraged by this, he sees it as proof that he's teaching the correct path. This shows how standing up for truth often brings opposition, but that doesn't mean you should back down from what's right.

"The reason you have not succeeded in attaining Buddhahood from countless distant kalpas in the past down to the present is that when a situation such as this has arisen you have been too fearful to speak out."

Nichiren makes a bold claim that our spiritual progress has been blocked throughout countless lifetimes because we've been too afraid to speak up for correct principles when it mattered. He's saying that courage—especially the courage to defend truth even when it's unpopular—is essential for spiritual growth. Fear of social consequences keeps us spiritually stagnant.

"Taking faith in the Lotus Sutra is even more difficult than this... On Mount T'ien-t'ai there is a place called the Dragon Gate, which is a waterfall a thousand feet in height... If there is one fish in a hundred or a thousand that succeeds in ascending the waterfall, it will become a dragon."

Using the famous legend of fish becoming dragons by swimming up an impossible waterfall, Nichiren illustrates how rare and difficult it is to maintain true faith. Most people give up when faced with the spiritual equivalent of that rushing current—criticism, doubt, hardship, or social pressure. But for those few who persist, the transformation is as dramatic as a fish becoming a dragon.