TSUCHI-RO GOSHO
Tomorrow, I (Nichiren) will be exiled to Sado Island. In this cold evening, I am thinking of you in the cold dungeon.
My thought is that you have read and practiced the Lotus Sutra with your heart and action, which would save your parents, brothers, sisters, relatives, ancestors, and everyone around you. Other people read the sutra vocally without feeling in their hearts. Even though they might read it with their heart, they do not experience it as the sutra teaches. Compared with them, you are very precious since you are practicing the sutra in your actions, voices, and spirit.
(Background : October 9, 1271, 49 years old, at Echi, Showa Teihon, p.509)
Explanatory note
Nichiren Daishonin believed himself to be the Buddha Sakyamuni’s messenger and conducted his spiritual train. ing in accordance with the teaching of the Lotus Sutra. He put it into practice.
Nichiren said, “We must put into practice the teachings of the Lotus Sutra in all phases of life.” He asserted that it is not true practice if we only understand it with our minds. Instead, he said, we must devote our hearts and souls to the fullest when we read the sutra.
He was a practician of the Lotus Sutra and requested his disciples and believers to be the same.
The above quotation is the opening paragraph of a letter to his disciple Nichiro and who was arrested with Nichiren at the time of the Tatsu-no-kuchi Persecution and who was put into a dungeon. The night before Nichiren’s departure for Sado Island, Nichiren wrote the above letter to him.
Once he is exiled to the island, he might not be able to return to Kamakura. Even in such a circumstance, Nichiren worried about his disciples. We can see his compassion in this letter. He consoled those who were suppressed because of practicing the Lotus Sutra. He praised his disciples who practiced the sutra with their spirit and bodies.
Reflecting on people today, many are ill spiritually. How thoroughly do they understand themselves? How seriously are they seeking the true teaching? Most likely, people try to solve their problems superficially without going to the source. This is just a patchwork. In order to cure sickness of mind and body, we must find spiritual support. We must firmly believe in the Lotus Sutra and devote ourselves to it.
To practice the Lotus Sutra with one’s action, voice, and spirit is to hold it “through three karmas.” We hope to keep our daily lives in accordance with this phrase.
Rev. Ogawa