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Beneficial Medicine for All Ills
I have received your gift of two baskets of
leached persimmons and a basket of eggplants. About the lay
priest your husband's illness: in China there were physicians
called Huang Ti and Pien Ch'ueh, and in India there were the
doctors Jisui and Jivaka. These men were each the treasures
of their age and teachers to the physicians of later times.
Yet they could not even begin to compare to the person called
the Buddha, a physician without peer. This Buddha revealed
the medicine of immortality: the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo.
Moreover, he taught that these five characters are "beneficial
medicine for the illnesses of all the people of Jambudvipa."
Your husband is a person of Japan, which is
included within Jambudvipa, and now he suffers from bodily
illness. Yet the sutra passage clearly refers to beneficial
medicine for all ills. In addition, this sutra of the Lotus
is the greatest of all medicines. A wicked ruler called King
Virudhaka killed more than five hundred women of the Buddha's
clan, whereupon the Buddha sent his disciple Ananda to Eagle
Peak to obtain the blue lotus flower. When he touched it to
the bodies of the women, they returned to life and after a
week were reborn in the Trayastrimsha Heaven. Because the
flower called the lotus is endowed with such splendid virtue,
the Buddha likened it to the Mystic Law.
A person's death does not necessarily come
about through illness. In our own times, the people of Iki
and Tsushima, though not suffering from illness, were all
slaughtered by the Mongols in a single stroke. Likewise, illness
does not necessarily result in death. Now, this illness of
your husband's may be due to the Buddha's design, for the
Vimalakirti and Nirvana sutras both speak of sick people attaining
Buddhahood. From illness arises the mind that seeks the Way.
Among all diseases, the five cardinal sins,
the incorrigible disbelief of the icchantika and slander
of the Law are the grave ailments that especially pained the
Buddha. The people of Japan today, without a single exception,
are afflicted with the most serious of all diseases, the grave
illness of major slander. I refer to the followers of the
Zen, Nembutsu and Ritsu sects, and to the Shingon teachers.
Precisely because their ailment is so serious, they neither
recognize it themselves nor are others aware of it. And because
this illness grows worse, warriors from throughout the four
seas will attack at any moment, and the ruler, his ministers
and the common people will all be destroyed. To behold this
with one's very eyes is indeed a painful thing.
In his present life, the lay priest your husband
has not appeared to have had especially strong faith in the
Lotus Sutra. But now that the forces of karma accumulated
in the past have caused him to suffer this long illness, he
seeks the Way day and night without cease. Whatever minor
offenses he may have committed in this lifetime must surely
have already been eradicated, and by virtue of his dedication
to the Lotus Sutra, the great evil of [his past] slander will
also be dispelled. Were he to go right now to Eagle Peak,
he would feel as delighted as if the sun had come out and
illuminated all the ten directions; and he would find himself
rejoicing, wondering how an early death could be so happy
a thing. No matter what might befall him on the road between
this life and the next, he should declare himself to be a
disciple of Nichiren. To give an analogy: though Japan is
a small country, if one should but announce that he is a vassal
of the lord of Sagami, he will command unquestioning awe.
I, Nichiren, am the most recalcitrant priest in Japan, but
with respect to my faith in the Lotus Sutra, I am the foremost
sage in the entire world. My name has reached the pure lands
of the ten directions, and heaven and earth surely know of
it. If your husband declares that he is Nichiren's disciple,
no evil demon can possibly claim ignorance of the name.
I have no words to express my thanks to you
for your sincerity in sending offerings on many occasions.
With my deep respect.
Monkeys rely on trees, and fish depend on
water. You, a woman, rely upon your husband. Being loath to
part from him, you have shaved off your hair and dyed the
sleeves of your robe black. How could the Buddhas of the ten
directions not have pity upon you? Nor could the Lotus Sutra
ever abandon you. Believing this, you must entrust yourself
to it.
Nichiren
The sixteenth day of the eighth month
Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin,
Vol. 5, page 279.
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