have to travel, do not begrudge the cost of a horse. Make sure that you ride a good horse. Bring along your best men to defend you against a surprise attack, and ride a horse that can easily carry you in your armor.
In the eighth volume of Great Concentration and Insight and in the eighth volume of The Annotations on “Great Concentration and Insight” it says, “The stronger one’s faith, the greater the protection of the gods.” This means that the protection of the gods depends on the strength of one’s faith. The Lotus Sutra is a fine sword, but its might depends on the one who wields it.
Among those who propagate this sutra in the Latter Day of the Law, who compares with Shariputra, Mahakashyapa, Perceiver of the World’s Sounds, Wonderful Sound, Manjushri, and Medicine King? Persons of the two vehicles [such as Shariputra] had destroyed all the illusions of thought and desire, thus freeing themselves from the six paths. Bodhisattvas [such as Perceiver of the World’s Sounds] had eradicated forty-one of the forty-two levels of ignorance and were like the moon on the fourteenth night before it reaches fullness. Nevertheless, Shakyamuni Bud
dha refused to entrust the mission of propagation to any of these people and gave it instead to the Bodhisattvas of the Earth. Thus these bodhisattvas are the ones who had thoroughly forged their resolve.
The mighty warrior General Li Kuang, whose mother had been devoured by a tiger, shot an arrow at the stone he believed was the tiger. The arrow penetrated the stone all the way up to its feathers. But once he realized it was only a stone, he was unable to pierce it again. Later he came to be known as General Stone Tiger. This story applies to you. Though enemies lurk in wait for you, your resolute faith in the Lotus Sutra has forestalled great dangers before they could begin. Realizing this, you must strengthen your faith more than ever. It is impossible to say all I want to in one letter.
With my deep respect,
Nichiren
The twenty-second day of the intercalary tenth month in the first year of Koan (1278), cyclical signtsuchinoe-tora
This letter was written at Minobu in the intercalary tenth month of 1278 to Shijo Nakatsukasa Saburo Saemon, commonly called Shijo Kingo. Kingo was accomplished in both the practice of medicine and the martial arts. For nearly the entire first half of 1278, Nichiren Daishonin had suffered from debilitating and chronic diarrhea. Evidently Kingo had sent the Daishonin various medicines that had helped alleviate his illness.
In the fall of 1277 a virulent epi
demic swept Japan, and Kingo’s lord became violently ill. Despite the lord’s deep-seated antagonism toward the Daishonin’s teachings, he turned to Kingo for help. Lord Ema was most grateful for Kingo’s ministrations and rewarded him with an estate three times larger than the one he already had. Yet the Daishonin warns Kingo to be constantly on guard and to take particularly great care to protect himself from attack while traveling.
