Letter to Shimoyama（1st of 12th paragraph）
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I have also stated that the practice of the Nembutsu will condemn one to the hell of incessant suffering, and that one should not recite the Amida Sutra. But this is not some mere private opinion of my own. This practice of reciting the name of Amida Buddha has its origin in the Amida Sutra and the other sutras that make up the three Pure Land sutras, sutras that were preached during the first forty and more years of the fifty years during which the Thus Come One Shakyamuni preached the Buddhist teachings.
One might suppose that whatever golden words the Buddha spoke must surely represent the truth. Yet in the Immeasurable Meanings Sutra, which serves as an introduction to the Lotus Sutra, preached in the last eight years of his life, the Buddha, in preparation for preaching the Lotus, referred to the various sutras he had preached in the first forty and more years of his preaching life and the number of years that had passed while he was doing so, and stated, “In these more than forty years, I have not yet revealed the truth.” And he further stated, “[As for those living beings who are unable to hear this sutra . . .] they will in the end fail to gain unsurpassed enlightenment.”
Thus with this one pronouncement he negated all the various earlier sutras and the doctrines contained in them. It was like a great flood of water wiping out a small fire, or a great wind shaking down the dew from the masses of plants and trees.
Later, in the first volume of the Lotus Sutra, in the revelation section [that begins with the “Expedient Means” chapter], the Buddha said, “The World-Honored One has long expounded his doctrines and now must reveal the truth.”70 And he also said, “Honestly discarding expedient means, I will preach only the unsurpassed way.”71 It was like a great round moon appearing in the dark night, or the completion of a great pagoda, after which its scaffolding is done away with.
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