Gosho Reading (Nichiren Buddhism)

This letter was written at Minobu in the eleventh month of the second year of Kōan (1279) to young Nanjō Tokimitsu, the steward of Ueno Village in Suruga Province. Tokimitsu embraced the Daishonin’s teaching quite early in life and revered Nikkō as his personal teacher. It is a reply to a report by Tokimitsu about his role in protecting the Daishonin’s followers in the Atsuhara area, who were bein...

This letter was written to Shijō Kingo, a samurai and one of Nichiren Daishonin’s most loyal followers, in the seventh month of the eighth year of Bun’ei (1271). Shijō Kingo had sent various offerings to the Daishonin as a donation for a memorial service to be held for his mother, who had passed away some years before on the twelfth day of the seventh month. The Daishonin wrote Kingo this letter i...

In the tenth month of the second year of Kōan (1279), this letter was written in reply to a letter to Nichiren Daishonin from Shijō Kingo, informing him that Kingo had been ambushed by enemies among his fellow samurai, but had managed to escape unharmed. The Daishonin teaches Kingo that faith must always come first, before any other tactic or strategy, and that faith in the Mystic Law is the ultim...

This letter was written at Minobu to the wife of the late lay priest Matsuno Rokurō Saemon who lived at Matsuno in Ihara District of Suruga Province. Their daughter had married Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō, and gave birth to nine children, among them Nanjō Tokimitsu. The lay priest and his wife are thought to have been converted to the Daishonin’s Buddhism through their relationship with the Nanjō family....

This letter was written on the twentieth day of the third month, 1272, some five months after Nichiren Daishonin had arrived on the island of Sado to begin his exile there. He addressed it to Toki Jōnin, a samurai serving as a leading retainer to Lord Chiba, the constable of Shimōsa Province, to Saburō Saemon (Shijō Kingo) in Kamakura, and to other staunch followers. Nichiren Daishonin had been ba...

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter while he was in exile in Itō on the Izu Peninsula. It was addressed to Kudō Sakon-no-jō Yoshitaka, known also as Kudō Yoshitaka, the lord of Amatsu in Awa Province. Kudō Yoshitaka is said to have converted to Nichiren Daishonin’s teachings around 1256, about the same time Shijō Kingo and Ikegami Munenaka did, a few years after the Daishonin first proclaimed his...

This letter was written to Toki Jōnin, a learned and dedicated disciple who lived in Shimōsa Province. In it Nichiren Daishonin stresses the extreme seriousness of the offense of slander and also the importance of embracing the supreme Buddhist teaching. The letter is dated simply the twenty-third day of the eighth month, and though it is generally thought to have been written in the first year of...

This letter, written at Minobu in 1277, is entitled  The Workings of Brahmā and Shakra ,  because it contains the passage, “The time will certainly come when, by the workings of Brahmā, Shakra, and other gods, the entire Japanese nation will simultaneously take faith in the Lotus Sutra.” In this letter Nichiren Daishonin encourages the nineteen-year-old Nanjō Tokimitsu, who succeeded his father as...

This letter was written at Minobu in 1278 to Shijō Nakatsukasa Saburō Saemon, commonly called Shijō Kingo. Kingo was accomplished in both the practice of medicine and the martial arts. For nearly the entire first half of 1278, Nichiren Daishonin had suffered from debilitating and chronic diarrhea. Evidently Kingo had sent the Daishonin various medicines that had helped alleviate his illness. In th...

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter at Minobu in the seventh month of the third year of Kōan (1280) to the lay nun Sennichi, who lived on Sado Island. Sennichi was the wife of Abutsu-bō Nittoku, who had passed away the year before. Abutsu-bō had originally been a Nembutsu believer, but soon after encountering the Daishonin, together with his wife, became his sincere follower and helped provide hi...

On the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month, 1253, Nichiren Daishonin established the teaching of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo at Seichō-ji temple in his native province of Awa, and later he returned to Kamakura, the seat of the military government, to begin propagation. In examining the records, we find that in those days the era names were changed frequently. The year 1253 was in the Kenchō era. Three y...

On the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month, 1253, Nichiren Daishonin established the teaching of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo at Seichō-ji temple in his native province of Awa, and later he returned to Kamakura, the seat of the military government, to begin propagation. In examining the records, we find that in those days the era names were changed frequently. The year 1253 was in the Kenchō era. Three y...

On the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month, 1253, Nichiren Daishonin established the teaching of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo at Seichō-ji temple in his native province of Awa, and later he returned to Kamakura, the seat of the military government, to begin propagation. In examining the records, we find that in those days the era names were changed frequently. The year 1253 was in the Kenchō era. Three y...

An introduction to Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism. https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Introduction/3#The%20Life%20of%20Nichiren%20Daishonin:~:text=peacefully%20passed%20away.-,Nichiren%20Daishonin%E2%80%99s%20Buddhism,-Nichiren%20Daishonin%E2%80%99s%20Buddhism

On the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month, 1253, Nichiren Daishonin established the teaching of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo at Seichō-ji temple in his native province of Awa, and later he returned to Kamakura, the seat of the military government, to begin propagation. In examining the records, we find that in those days the era names were changed frequently. The year 1253 was in the Kenchō era. Three y...

A brief biography of Nichiren Daishonin, the Buddha of the Latter Day of The Law. https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Introduction/3#The%20Life%20of%20Nichiren%20Daishonin:~:text=of%20its%20inhabitants.-,The%20Life%20of%20Nichiren%20Daishonin,-Nichiren%20Daishonin%20was

On the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month, 1253, Nichiren Daishonin established the teaching of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo at Seichō-ji temple in his native province of Awa, and later he returned to Kamakura, the seat of the military government, to begin propagation. In examining the records, we find that in those days the era names were changed frequently. The year 1253 was in the Kenchō era. Three y...

This letter was written at Minobu in the eighth month of the first year of Kenji (1275) to the lay nun Myōshin, a believer who lived in Nishiyama in Fuji District of Suruga Province. It explains that the Gohonzon is “the essence of the Lotus Sutra and the eye of all the scriptures.” The Gohonzon, or mandala, embodies the reality of the three thousand realms in a single moment of life implicit in t...

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter to Sairen-bō Nichijō while at Ichinosawa on Sado Island in the fifth month of the tenth year of Bun’ei (1273). For some reason Sairen-bō was also in exile on Sado, where he had been converted by the Daishonin in the second month of 1272. A former Tendai priest, he already knew something about “the true aspect of all phenomena”; it was a fundamental concept in t...

This letter was written to Hyōe no Sakan Munenaga, the younger of the two Ikegami brothers. Though it was originally thought to have been written in the first year of Kenji (1275), it is now apparent that it was written in 1277. Munenaga is thought to have taken faith in the Daishonin’s teaching around 1256, shortly after his elder brother Munenaka. Both were officials in the Kamakura shogunate, a...

This letter was written at Minobu in the eleventh month of the third year of Kōan (1280) in response to a petition from the lay nun Nichigon. She is thought to have been either a relative of the lay priest Takahashi, a central figure among the believers in Fuji District of Suruga Province, or the mother of Nichigen, a priest of Jissō-ji temple in the same province who converted to Nichiren Daishon...

On the ninth day of the tenth month, 1271, on the eve of his departure for Sado Island, Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter to Chikugo-bō Nichirō, who was later to become one of his six senior disciples. Nichirō and his father had converted to the Daishonin’s teachings in 1254, and Nichirō had received the tonsure under the supervision of his uncle Nisshō, also later to become one of the six seni...

Although there are different opinions concerning the date of this letter, it is generally accepted that Nichiren Daishonin wrote it in the third month of the third year of Kōchō (1263), shortly after he had been pardoned and had returned to Kamakura following two years of exile on the Izu Peninsula. The Daishonin was then forty-two years old. As the title indicates, this work discusses the signifi...

Although there are different opinions concerning the date of this letter, it is generally accepted that Nichiren Daishonin wrote it in the third month of the third year of Kōchō (1263), shortly after he had been pardoned and had returned to Kamakura following two years of exile on the Izu Peninsula. The Daishonin was then forty-two years old. As the title indicates, this work discusses the signifi...

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter on the fifth day of the tenth month, 1271, only three weeks after he was nearly executed at Tatsunokuchi. It was sent to three of his leading disciples: Ōta Saemon, a government official, the lay priest Soya Kyōshin, and the Dharma Bridge Kanabara. One of them may have visited the Daishonin while he was being held in detention for exile at the residence of Homm...