W HAT a joy it is for us to have been born in the Latter Day of the Law and to have shared in the propagation of the Lotus Sutra! How pitiful are those who, though born in this time, cannot believe in this sutra!
No one can escape death once born as a human being, so why do you not practice in preparation for the next life? When I observe what people are doing, I realize that, although they profess faith in the Lotus Sutra and clasp its scrolls, they act against the intent of the sutra and are thereby doomed to the evil paths. To illustrate, a person has five internal organs,1 but should even one of them become diseased, it will infect all the others, and eventually the person will die. The Great Teacher Dengyo states that though they praise the Lotus Sutra they destroy its heart.2 He means that, even if people embrace, read, and praise the Lotus Sutra, if they betray its intent, they will be destroying not only Shakyamuni Buddha but all the Buddhas in the ten directions.
Our worldly misdeeds and evil karma may have piled up as high as Mount Sumeru, but when we take faith in this sutra, they will vanish like frost or dew under the sun of the Lotus Sutra. Nevertheless, if one commits even one or two of the fourteen slanders set forth in this sutra, one’s offense will be extremely difficult to expiate. Killing a
single Buddha would be a far greater offense than destroying all the sentient beings in the major world system, and to violate the sutra’s intent would be to commit the sin of taking the lives of all the Buddhas in the ten directions. One who commits any of these fourteen is a slanderer.
Hell is a dreadful dwelling of fire, and the realm of hungry spirits is a pitiful place where, driven by starvation, they devour their own children. The realm of asuras consists of strife, and that of animals is to kill or be killed. The hell of the crimson lotus is so called because the intense cold of this hell makes one double over until one’s back splits open and the bloody flesh emerges like a crimson lotus flower. And the hell of the great crimson lotus is even more horrible. When one falls into such an evil place, the fact that one was a ruler or a general means nothing. Tormented by the wardens of hell, one is no different than a monkey on a string. What use are fame and fortune then? Can one still be arrogant and persist in false beliefs?
Stop and ponder! How rare is the faith that moves one to give alms to the priest who knows the heart of the Lotus Sutra! One will not stray into the evil paths if one does so even once. Still greater are the benefits arising from ten or twenty contributions, or from
