[I]t is said in the Lotus Sūtra, 13th chapter: “We will not spare even our lives; we treasure only the unsurpassed enlightenment.” In the Nirvana Sūtra it is said: “Do not hide the teaching of the Buddha even at the cost of your life.”
If we spare our lives in this life, in which life will we be able to become Buddhas? In which life can we save our parents and masters? Thus, I decided to speak up with the true teaching. As expected, I have been expelled out of my residence, abused, beaten, and hurt. On the 12th of the fifth month in the first year of the Kōchō Era (1261), I fell out of shogunal grace and was exiled to Itō of Izu Province. On the 22nd of the second month of the 3rd year of the same era, I was pardoned.

Thereafter, the more intense my aspiration for Buddhahood became, the more fervently I spoke up. Great difficulties were brought about just as high waves are caused by strong winds. I could imagine through my experiences how terrible it was when Never-Despising Bodhisattva was beaten with sticks and hit by stones and broken tiles were thrown at him. The difficulties experienced by Monk Virtue Consciousness toward the end of Rejoice (Kangi) Buddha’s period seem incomparable to mine. I have no place to live at all in the sixty-six provinces and two islands of Japan even for a day or a moment. Even sages who, like Rāhula in the past, keep the 250 precepts and bear the intolerable and men of wisdom like Pūrṇa abuse me, Nichiren, whenever they see me. Even men as honest as Wei-chêng of ancient China and as wise as Imperial Regent Fujiwara Yoshifusa of Japan treat Nichiren with hostility beyond reason, not to mention ordinary people in this world who hate me just as dogs hate monkeys and hunters chase deer.

Hōon-jō, Essay on Gratitude, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 46.