Tendai Buddhism approaches the diversity of Mahayana traditions through a vision of unity grounded in the Lotus Sutra and the insight that all beings already possess Buddha‑nature. Rather than treating different schools as competing claims to truth, it understands them as varied expressions of a single Buddha‑vehicle, distinguished as provisional or perfect, exoteric or esoteric, yet ultimately non‑contradictory. Doctrines such as the threefold truth and ichinen sanzen (three thousand realms in a single thought‑moment) provide a philosophical basis for this synthesis: every moment of mind, and every form of practice, potentially contains the entirety of reality and Buddhahood. Within such a framework, devotional recitation, seated meditation, and esoteric ritual are not rival paths but different angles of approach to the same depth of awakening. This perspective allows Tendai to gather multiple currents of Mahayana into one broad river without erasing their distinct flavors.

Pure Land practice is taken up as a fully legitimate path within this inclusive system. Recitation of Amitābha’s name and aspiration for rebirth in the Pure Land are honored as powerful skillful means, especially suited to beings in difficult times, yet they are interpreted through the lens of the Lotus Sutra’s universal Buddhahood. Nembutsu can function both as devotional reliance on Amida’s vow and as a contemplative discipline that reveals the purity of one’s own mind. In this way, Pure Land faith is neither rejected nor isolated as a separate sectarian way, but folded into a larger vision in which all such practices ultimately point back to the same inherent enlightenment.

Meditative traditions associated with Zen are likewise integrated rather than set apart. Tendai’s own system of śamatha‑vipaśyanā, known as shikan (“stopping and seeing”), already embodies a sophisticated approach to calming the mind and directly realizing emptiness and the threefold truth. Methods resembling later Zen—quiet sitting, nonconceptual awareness, and even sudden insight rhetoric—are accepted as valid techniques within this broader contemplative curriculum. Both gradual cultivation and sudden awakening are treated as appropriate skillful means for different dispositions, without elevating meditation alone as the exclusive royal road to liberation. Thus what later emerges as distinct Zen currents in Japan first appears within a Tendai milieu that holds study, ritual, and devotion alongside meditative inquiry.

Esoteric, Vajrayāna‑style practices are also drawn into this comprehensive vision. Mantras, mudrās, mandalas, initiations, and elaborate rituals—often traced to Chinese esoteric lineages—are cultivated on an equal footing with scriptural study and more “open” teachings. These tantric methods are understood as particularly potent ways of enacting the same Buddha‑nature and universal Buddhahood proclaimed in the Lotus Sutra, promising realization of Buddhahood in this very body in harmony with doctrines such as ichinen sanzen. Within Tendai institutions, it is common for the same monastic community to include scholars, contemplatives, ritual specialists, and Pure Land devotees, all practicing under the canopy of a single, Lotus‑centered Dharma. The result is a tradition that does not simply tolerate plurality, but consciously interprets it as the natural outflow of one boundless, all‑embracing path.