I HAVE received the string of coins that you sent. Those resolved to seek the way should gather and listen to the contents of this letter.
This month (the tenth month), on the tenth day, we left the village of Echi in Aiko District of the province of Sagami. Along the way we stopped at Kumegawa in the province of Musashi and, after traveling for twelve days, arrived here at the harbor of Teradomari in the province of Echigo. From here we are going to cross the sea to the island province of Sado, but at the moment the winds are not favorable, so I do not know when we will depart.
The hardships along the way were worse than I could have imagined, and indeed more than I can put down in writing. I will leave you to surmise what I endured. But I have been prepared for such difficulties from the outset, so there is no point in starting to complain about them now. I shall accordingly say no more of the matter.
The fourth volume of the Lotus Sutra states, “Since hatred and jealousy toward this sutra abound even when the Thus Come One is in the world, how much more will this be so after his passing?”1 The fifth volume says, “It will face much hostility in the world and be difficult to believe.”2 And the thirty-eighth volume of the Nirvana
Sutra states: “At that time all the nonBuddhists spoke [to King Ajatashatru], saying: ‘O Great King, at present there is a man of incomparable wickedness, a monk called Gautama. . . . All sorts of evil people, hoping to gain profit and alms, have flocked to him and become his followers. These people do not practice goodness, but instead use the power of spells and magic to win over men like Mahakashyapa, Shariputra, and Maudgalyayana.’ ”
This passage from the Nirvana Sutra recounts the evil words that the various non-Buddhists spoke against Shakyamuni Buddha because he refuted the scriptures preached by their original teachers, the two deities3 and the three ascetics.
In the above passages from the Lotus Sutra, however, it is not the Buddha himself who is being looked upon as an enemy. Rather, as T’ien-t’ai explains, it is [the Lotus Sutra that is being opposed by] “the various voice-hearers and cause-awakened ones and the bodhisattvas who seek only the Buddha of recent enlightenment.”4 In other words, persons who show no desire to hear or believe in the Lotus Sutra or who say that it does not match their capacity, though they may not actually slander it in so many words, are all to be regarded as persons of hatred and jealousy.
