I DEEPLY appreciate your sending a letter to this distant place. It is extremely rare to be born as a human being. Not only are you endowed with human form, but you have had the rare fortune to encounter Buddhism. Moreover, out of the Buddha’s many teachings you have encountered the daimoku, or the title, of the Lotus Sutra and become its votary. Truly you are a person who has offered alms to a hundred thousand million Buddhas in his past existences!
Nichiren is the supreme votary of the Lotus Sutra in Japan. In this land only he has lived the twenty-line verse of the “Encouraging Devotion” chapter.1 The eight hundred thousand million nayutas of bodhisattvas pledged with this verse to propagate the Lotus Sutra, but not one of them fulfilled the pledge. The parents who gave life to this extraordinary person, Nichiren, are the most blessed of all people in Japan. It is no doubt because of karmic forces that they became my parents, and I, their child. If Nichiren is the envoy of the Lotus Sutra and the Thus Come One Shakyamuni, then his parents must also share this relationship. They are like King Wonderful Adornment and Lady Pure Virtue with their sons, Pure Storehouse and Pure Eye. Could the two Buddhas Shakyamuni and Many Treasures have been reborn as
Nichiren’s parents? Or if not, could his parents have been among the eight hundred thousand million nayutas of bodhisattvas or the four bodhisattvas led by Bodhisattva Superior Practices? It is beyond comprehension.
Names are important for all things. That is why the Great Teacher T’ient’ai placed “name” first among the five major principles. My giving myself the name Nichiren (Sun Lotus) derives from my own enlightenment regarding the Buddha vehicle. This may sound as though I think I am wise, but there are specific reasons for what I say. The sutra reads, “As the light of the sun and moon can banish all obscurity and gloom, so this person as he advances through the world can wipe out the darkness of living beings.”2 Consider carefully what this passage signifies. “This person as he advances through the world” means that the first five hundred years of the Latter Day of the Law will witness the advent of Bodhisattva Superior Practices, who will illuminate the darkness of ignorance and earthly desires with the light of the five characters of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. In accordance with this passage, Nichiren, as this bodhisattva’s envoy, has urged the people of Japan to accept and uphold the Lotus Sutra. His unremitting efforts never slacken, even here on this mountain.
