they will have those qualities in the future. It is obscured from worldly vision by the screening effect of tenacious negative mental afflictions within each being. Once these negative mental states have been eliminated, however, the buddhadhātu is said to shine forth unimpededly and can then be consciously "entered into", and therewith deathless Nirvana attained: Icchantikas Despite the fact that the Buddha-nature is innate in all sentient beings, there is a class of people who are excluded from salvation, the Icchantikas, "extremists": The longer versions of the Nirvana Sutra additionally give expression to the new claim (not found in the shorter Chinese and Tibetan versions) that, because of the Buddha-dhatu, absolutely all beings without exception, even icchantikas (the most incorrigible and spiritually base of beings), will eventually attain liberation and become Buddhas. The Nirvana Sutra in Mahayana Schools In the introduction to his translation of the Nirvana Sutra (), Mark Blum speaks of the tremendous importance of this sutra for East-Asian Buddhism: There is one story in the Nirvana Sutra about a blind man feeling an elephant (). The elephant in this tale symbolizes the "Buddha nature". A group of blind men reach touch a different part of the elephant—one feels the tusk and thinks it is a carrot, another mistakes the elephant's belly for an urn, and so on. The king seeks that Shakyamuni illuminate their limited perception (symbolized by blindness in the parable) that permits only partial truths. Nichiren Buddhism In Nichiren Buddhism the Nirvana Sutra, with the Lotus Sutra, make up what Tiantai called the Fifth of the Five Periods of Teaching. The Nirvana Sutra is seen as inferior to the Lotus Sutra however, based on the passage in Nichiren´s writings that reads: Shin Buddhism The Nirvana Sutra is among the most important sources and influences on Shinran's magnum opus, Kyogyoshinsho, which is the foundational text of the Japanese Jōdo Shinshū Pure Land School. Shinran relies on crucial passages from the Nirvana Sutra for the more theoretical elaboration of the meaning of shinjin. The Nirvana Sutra and the Pure Land Sutras are quoted extensively in the Kyogyoshinsho. See also Anunatva-Apurnatva-Nirdesa Ātman (Buddhism) Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen Faith in Buddhism God in Buddhism Kulayarāja Tantra Parinirvana Mahāyāna sūtras Nirvana (Buddhism) Shinjō Itō, founder of the Shinnyo-en school of Buddhism Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra Buddha-nature Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra Notes References Sources (in Japanese) Further reading Blum, Mark (2003). Nirvana Sutra, in: Buswell,