No Safety in the Threefold World
I have received the various articles you sent me. Concerned about my life in the mountains, you had
your messenger plow through the snow to call on me. Your sincerity has no doubt been recognized by the Lotus Sutra and the
ten demon daughters.
The Nirvana Sutra states, "Human life runs its course more swiftly than a mountain stream; the person
here today will not likely be here tomorrow." The Maya Sutra reads, "Imagine, for instance, a flock of sheep being driven
by a chandala to the slaughterhouse. Human life is exactly the same; step by step one approaches the place of death." The
Lotus Sutra states, "There is no safety in the threefold world; it is like a burning house, replete with a multitude of sufferings,
truly to be feared,..."
In these passages from the sutras, our compassionate father, the World-Honored One of Great Enlightenment,
admonishes the ordinary persons of the latter age, warning them, his ignorant children. Nevertheless, they do not awaken for
even one instant; nor do they conceive a desire to attain the way for even a single moment. In order to decorate their bodies,
which, if abandoned in the fields, would be stripped naked overnight, they spend their time striving to pile up articles of
clothing.
When their lives come to an end, within three days their bodies will turn into water that washes away,
into dust that mixes with the earth, and into smoke that rises up into the sky, leaving no trace behind. Nevertheless, they
seek to nurture these bodies and to amass great wealth.
This principle has been known since ancient times, but today the situation is pitiable. The country
of Japan has been visited by continuous famine for the last several years, and supplies of food and clothing are exhausted.
The domestic animals have all been consumed, and persons who eat human flesh are appearing. They tear flesh from the bodies
of the dead, children and the sick, mix it with fish or deer meat, and sell it. People purchase this mixture and eat it. Thus,
this country has unwittingly become an abode of wicked demons.
Moreover, from the spring of last year through the middle of the second month of this year, epidemics
have spread throughout the country. In five families out of ten, in fifty households out of a hundred, all the members have
died from disease. Others have escaped illness but are suffering from great spiritual distress, and thus are in even greater
agony than those who are ill. Even the people who managed to survive have lost the children who used to follow them as closely
as shadows, or the spouses from whom they had been as inseparable as a pair of eyes, or the parents upon whom they had relied
as they would upon heaven and earth. For them, what meaning does life hold? How could sensible people not abhor this world?
The Buddha taught that there is no safety in the threefold world, but the current state of affairs seems excessively tragic.
Although I myself am only an ordinary person, I informed the ruler that the Buddha had left behind teachings
predicting such a situation. However, he did not heed my admonitions, but rather began to persecute me even more harshly,
so there was nothing further I could do. This country has already become a slanderer of the Law and, by turning into an enemy
of the Lotus Sutra, it has also made itself an enemy of the Buddhas and the gods of the three existences and the ten directions.
Please consider deeply. No matter what grave crimes I Nichiren, have been charged with, I am a votary
of the Lotus Sutra. No matter what grave crimes a person who chants Namu Amida Butsu may be guilty of, it cannot be denied
that he is a follower of the Nembutsu. Because I chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with my own mouth, I have been reviled, struck.
exiled and had my life threatened. However, in spite of all this, I have continued to exhort others to do likewise. Am I not
then a votary of the Lotus Sutra?
In the Lotus Sutra, it is stipulated that those who bear a grudge against its votary are destined to
fall into the Avichi hell. The fourth volume states that the offense of harboring malice toward a votary of the Lotus Sutra
in the latter age is graver than that of reviling the Buddha for an entire medium kalpa The seventh volume teaches that people
who disparage the votary will suffer in the Avichi hell for a thousand kalpas. The fifth volume states that after the Buddha’s
death, when the Latter Day of the Law arrives, a votary of the Lotus Sutra will certainly appear, and that at that time, in
that country, an immeasurably great multitude of monks who either uphold or violate the precepts will gather and denounce
the votary to the ruler of the country, causing him to be banished and ruined.
These passages from the sutra all coincide precisely with what has happened to me. I am therefore convinced
that I will attain Buddhahood in the future. I will speak in more detail when we meet.
Nichiren
The thirteenth day of the second month in the fourth year of Kenji (1278), cyclical sign tsuchinoe-tora
Reply to Lord Matsuno
