It has already been more than twenty years since I began speaking for this sūtra, and my troubles have been increasing day by day, month by month, and year by year. Small troubles are incalculable while severe ones are four in number. Not speaking of two of them, I have already been twice the target of royal persecution, and my life now is in jeopardy. Moreover, my disciples and lay supporters, including those laymen who had just come to hear me speak, were punished severely as though they had been rebels.

It is said in the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle four (chapter 10, “The Teacher of the Dharma”): “This sūtra was the target of much hatred and jealousy even during the lifetime of the Buddha, not to speak of after His death.” It says in the second fascicle (chapter 3, “A Parable”): “Seeing a person who reads, recites, copies, or keeps this sūtra, some will despise and hate him, look at him with jealousy, and harbor enmity against him.” And in the fifth fascicle (chapter 14, “Peaceful Practices”): “Many people in the world will hate it and very few believe in it.” In the thirteenth chapter, “The Encouragement for Upholding This Sūtra”: “Ignorant people will speak ill of him and abuse him;” “In order to speak ill of him and to slander him, they will say to kings, ministers, Brahmans, and influential householders that he has heretical views;” and “He will sometimes be driven out of his monastery.” It is also said in the seventh fascicle (chapter 20, “The Never-Despising Bodhisattva”): “They will strike him with sticks, pieces of wood and tile or stones.” The Nirvana Sūtra states:

“Thereupon numerous non-Buddhists gathered together and went to see King Ajātaśatru of the Magadha kingdom saying, ‘Now, there is a most wicked man, a wanderer, who is Gautama. For the purpose of making a profit, all wicked men in the world are gathering around him and becoming his followers, doing nothing good. With his occult power Gautama converted such men as Kāśyapa, Śāripūtra, and
Maudgalyāyana.’ ”

Explaining the hatred and jealousy against the Lotus Sūtra during the Buddha’s lifetime referred to in the fourth fascicle, T’ien-t’ai said in his Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 8: “Even during the lifetime of the Buddha it was difficult to spread the Lotus Sūtra. How much more so after His death? It is because people do not listen to the True Dharma that it is difficult to teach and guide them.”

Commenting on this, Miao-lê said in his Annotations on the Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 8: “Hatred means slavery to delusions, and evil passions and jealousy mean unwillingness to listen to the Lotus.”

Kaimoku-shō, Open Your Eyes to the Lotus Teaching, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 2, Page 53-54