matter may have been, every single steward and Nembutsu believer worthy of the name kept strict watch on my hut day and night, determined to prevent anyone from communicating with me. Never in any lifetime will I forget how in those circumstances you, with Abutsu-bo carrying a wooden container of food on his back, came in the night again and again to bring me aid. It was just as if my deceased mother had suddenly been reborn in the province of Sado!
Once in China there was a man known as the governor of P’ei.10 Because there were signs indicating that he would become the ruler, the First Emperor of the Ch’in dynasty decreed that unparalleled rewards would be bestowed upon anyone who would kill him. The governor thought it would be too dangerous to try to conceal himself in the country villages, and so he entered the mountains, where he remained hidden for seven days, and then for another seven. At that time, he believed that his life was as good as lost. But the governor had a wife of the Lü family who went searching for him in the mountains and from time to time would bring him food to keep him alive.
Being the governor’s wife, she could not help but feel compassion for him. But in your case, had you not been concerned about the life to come, would you have shown me such devotion?? And that is also the reason why you have remained steadfast throughout, even when you were driven from your land, fined, and had your house taken from you. In the Lotus Sutra, it is said that one who in the past has made offerings to a hundred thousand million Buddhas will, when reborn in a later existence, be unshakable in faith.11 You, then, must be a woman who has made offerings to a hundred thousand million Buddhas.
In addition, it is easy to sustain our
concern for someone who is before our very eyes, but quite a different thing when that person is far away, even though in our heart we may not forget him. Nevertheless, in the five years, from the eleventh year of the Bun’ei era (1274) to this year, the first year of the Koan era, that have already passed since I came to live here in the mountains, you have sent your husband from the province of Sado to visit me three times. How great is your sincerity! It is firmer than the great earth, deeper than the great sea!
When he was Prince Sattva in a previous existence, the Thus Come One Shakyamuni gained merit by feeding his body to a starving tigress, and when he was King Shibi, he gained merit by giving his flesh to a hawk in exchange for the life of a dove. And he declared in the presence of Many Treasures and the Buddhas of the ten directions that he would transfer this merit to those who believe in the Lotus Sutra as you do in the Latter Day of the Law.
You say in your letter that the eleventh day of the eighth month of this year marks the thirteenth anniversary of your father’s passing. You also note that you are enclosing an offering of one thousand coins. It is extremely kind of you to do so. Fortunately, I happen to have a copy of the Lotus Sutra in ten volumes12 that I would like to send you. When you think longingly of me, have Gakujo-bo13 read it and please listen to it. And in a future existence, you may use this copy of the sutra as a token of proof with which to search me out.
In view of the epidemics that raged the year before last, last year, and this year, I was so concerned about how all of you were faring that I prayed earnestly to the Lotus Sutra, but still I felt uneasy. Then, on the twentyseventh day of the seventh month, at the hour of the monkey (3:00–5:00 P.M.), Abutsu-bo appeared. I asked him first
