The Lotus Sutra is the central scripture of the T’ien-t’ai school and is deeply rooted in Madhyamaka thinking. As the founder of the Tendai school of thought in Japan Saicho relied heavily on exoteric teachings, or kengyo, and specifically the Lotus Sutra. Saicho’s dream was to incorporate the four traditions—the T’ien-t’ai, Zen, esoteric Buddhism, the bodhisattva precepts, and later the addition of the nembutsu—all in one unifying spirit. That spirit, he claimed, was summed up within the Lotus Sutra. Essentially, Saicho took an element from Buddhism that he could interpret into something that could translate easily to the Japanese, hence the Japanization of Buddhism.

Another example is Ennin's interpretation of the Lotus Sutra. He suggested that Buddhism was encompassed in “one great perfect teaching," and that teaching was the Lotus Sutra. Annen, another Buddhist, further helped this idea out in his Shingonshu kyoji gi where he asserted that not only are all teachings one, but all Buddhas, times and places are one, as well.

In the thirteenth century, Dogen’s reading of the Lotus Sutra represented the Japanese world view of earth, space, and time—an influence from Kamakura Tendai. “The world abides forever,” is a verse from the Lotus Sutra but its Japanese interpretation is tied closely to the four seasons. The poetic motto that resulted from this was, “Bloom and bloom, this is eternity; fall and fall, this is eternity.”

Nichiren also had his own Japanese insight into the Lotus Sutra—merely reading it was like an encounter with Sakyamuni himself, face to face. Another understanding Nichiren had of the Lotus Sutra was, “…even to read one letter is by that very act also to include eighty thousand chambers of letters, and to receive the merits of all the Buddhas.” He derives this notion that ‘one contains all’ from a Mahayana tradition expounded in the Avatamsaka Sutra, and developed by Chinese and Korean Buddhist commentators. For Nichiren, “one thought encompassing three thousand realms,” or ichinen sanzen, was the most important principle of Buddhism, and something he equates with the five characters of the title of the Lotus Sutra—Myoho-renge-kyo.