I HAVE just received your letter. Considering how disasters have struck one after another in the wake of my exile, would they dare attempt to harass us any further? I feel they will do no more, but people on the brink of ruin are capable of anything. Should some persecution be about to occur, there will certainly be signs. Even if I were to be exiled again, it would bring me a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, million times greater good fortune than if my teachings were to be accepted. The next exile would be my third. Should it happen, the Lotus Sutra could never accuse me of being a negligent votary. I might well become heir to the blessings of Shakyamuni, Many Treasures, and the Buddhas of the ten directions, as well as those of the countless Bodhisattvas of the Earth. How wonderful if that were to come about!
I will follow in the path of the boy Snow Mountains and live as did Bodhisattva Never Disparaging. In comparison to such a life, how wretched and meaningless it would be to fall victim
to an epidemic or simply to die of old age! I would far rather suffer persecution from this country’s ruler for the sake of the Lotus Sutra and thereby free myself from the sufferings of birth and death. Then I could test the vows that the Sun Goddess, Great Bodhisattva Hachiman, the gods of the sun and moon, Shakra, Brahma, and other deities made in the presence of the Buddha. Above all, I will urge them to protect every one of you.
If you continue living as you are now, there can be no doubt that you will be practicing the Lotus Sutra twenty-four hours1 a day. Regard your service to your lord as the practice of the Lotus Sutra. This is what is meant by “No worldly affairs of life or work are ever contrary to the true reality.”2
I hope you will deeply consider the meaning of this passage.
With my deep respect,
Nichiren
The eleventh day of the fourth month
This letter is thought to have been written at Minobu in the fourth month
of the first year of Koan (1278), when Nichiren Daishonin was fifty-seven.
