On Reprimanding Hachiman Chapter2

If at such a time a Buddha should appear in the world and expound the Buddhist teachings as a medicine for the heavenly beings, gods, and humans, such teachings will be like oil added to a lamp or a staff presented to an elderly person. The heavenly gods will once more shine in glory, their strength will return, and they will be as they were in the kalpa of formation.

The Buddhist teachings may be classified into five categories that correspond to the five flavors of fresh milk, cream, curdled milk, butter, and ghee. The living beings who were in the world when Shakyamuni Buddha appeared, though they were no match for those who lived in the kalpa of formation, still enjoyed a considerable measure of good karma. Therefore, whichever of the five flavors of teaching they tasted, their strength and brightness increased. But now, after the Buddha has passed away, the two thousand years of the Former and Middle Days of the Law have gone by, and the Latter Day of the Law has arrived, those earlier heavenly beings, gods, asuras, great dragons, and other beings have grown very old and become feeble in body and weak in mind. And the heavenly beings, asuras, and others who are newly born into the world have only a small store of good karma or are heavenly beings of bad nature. If the fresh milk, cream, curdled milk, and butter of the Hinayana and provisional Mahayana teachings are fed to such beings, it will be like feeding coarse food to an elderly person or a humble meal of wheat to a person of high station.

In our present age the men of learning, failing to understand such matters, simply go along with the practices of the past, offering to the gods throughout the country of Japan recitations from the Āgama, Correct and Equal, Wisdom, Flower Garland, and Mahāvairochana sutras. And as priests in charge of such ceremonies they appoint priests of the Dharma Analysis Treasury, Establishment of Truth, Precepts, Dharma Characteristics, Three Treatises, Flower Garland, Pure Land, and Zen schools. This simply amounts to offering coarsely cooked food to an elderly person or hard, indigestible rice to a baby.