If you wish to quickly free yourself from the sufferings of birth and death, then you should observe the five precepts and the two hundred and fifty precepts, deepen your compassion for others, refrain from killing any living thing, and, like the Honorable Ryokan, engage in building roads and bridges. This is the finest of all teachings. Are you prepared to embrace it?” — Nichiren Daishonin, Conversation between a Sage and an Unenlightened Man – The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Vol. 1, page 101