 This use and understanding of the mandala was another distinction of Shingon Buddhism differentiating it in Kūkai’s mind as esoteric from exoteric Buddhism. The mandala proves to be “a metaphor for a new envisioning of reality, self, and world” (Gardiner 2008, 44), a vehicle for the transformation of vision, whereby one envisions the world as a mandala. Kūkai’s contention was that exoteric teachings move the practitioner towards the central summit of the mandala, step-by-step from its own specific vantage point without taking a comprehensive view of the whole. Esoteric teachings on the other hand take the entirety of the cosmic mandala into one comprehensive view, allowing for the practitioner to leap, as it were, into the center to realize non-duality with the hosshin.