Gosho Reading (Nichiren Buddhism)

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter in the tenth month of the eighth year of Bun’ei (1271), just before he left for his exile on Sado Island. At that time, he was being held at the mainland residence of Homma Rokurō Saemon, the deputy constable of Sado. The Daishonin wrote the letter to an acquaintance at Seichō-ji temple in Awa Province, possibly a priest named Enjō-bō. Exile to Sado Island was...

Background This is one of the many letters Nichiren Daishonin wrote to Shijō Kingo, his loyal disciple in Kamakura. Because of Kingo’s devotion to the Daishonin’s teachings, he was ordered in 1276 to move from his estate near Kamakura to the distant province of Echigo. The letter is not dated, but it is known to have been written in the third year of Kenji (1277). The concept of the “eight winds”...

This letter, dated the eleventh day of the second month in 1272, was sent by Nichiren Daishonin to Sairen-bō Nichijō, a former Tendai priest who, for reasons that are unclear, was also living in exile on Sado Island. Details about Sairen-bō are scarce, but it is known that he was originally from Kyoto, and that he had studied at Mount Hiei, the seat of the Tendai school, before his exile. He was a...

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter at Minobu in the intercalary third month of the second year of Kenji (1276) to Nanjō Tokimitsu, who lived in Ueno Village, in Suruga Province. Tokimitsu’s father, Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō, had died in 1265, when he was seven years old and his mother was pregnant with his younger brother Shichirō Gorō. The death of his father and, later, of his elder brother forced T...

Written near the end of 1276, this letter was a reply to the lay priest Matsuno Rokurō Saemon. Four in his family received letters from Nichiren Daishonin—he, his wife, son, and daughter-in-law. One of his daughters married Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō and gave birth to Nanjō Tokimitsu, a staunch supporter of the Daishonin and his disciple Nikkō. It is thought that Matsuno was converted to the Daishonin’s...

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter to the lay nun Toki in the third month of the second year of Kenji (1276) and entrusted its delivery to her husband, Toki Jōnin, who was visiting Minobu at the time. Toki’s mother had passed away toward the end of the second month of the year. In the third month, Toki carried her ashes from his home in Wakamiya, Shimōsa Province, to distant Minobu, where a memo...

Nichiren Daishonin sent this letter from Minobu in the seventh month, 1278, to the lay nun Myōhō, who lived in Okamiya Village in Suruga Province. Very little is known about Myōhō. This letter was written in response to a letter she had sent the Daishonin, asking whether one can attain enlightenment by chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo alone. A later letter from the Daishonin to Myōhō tells us that the...

Shijō Kingo visited Nichiren Daishonin on Sado Island in the fourth month of the ninth year of Bun’ei (1272), and the Daishonin entrusted him with this letter for his wife, Nichigen-nyo, who was a devoted follower of the Daishonin’s teachings. Nichigen-nyo was the name given to her by the Daishonin. He also named her two daughters, Tsukimaro and Kyō’ō. First, the Daishonin urges Nichigen-nyo to re...

This letter was written to the wife of Omosu in acknowledgment of offerings Nichiren Daishonin had received from her at the beginning of the year. The precise year of this letter, however, remains unclear. Omosu derived his name from that of the area in which his estate waslocated, Omosu Village in Fuji District of Suruga Province. His full name was Ishikawa Shimbei Yoshisuke. His wife was the eld...

This brief letter was written in the eighth month of the tenth year of Bun’ei (1273) and was addressed to Kyō’ō, Shijō Kingo’s infant daughter. Since Kyō’ō was then only one year old, however, it may be assumed that the letter was meant for Shijō Kingo and his wife, Nichigen-nyo. They had two children, Kyō’ō (Sutra King) and another daughter, Tsukimaro (Full Moon), who was a year older. Both were...

Nichiren Daishonin sent this letter from Mount Minobu to Nanjō Tokimitsu, the steward of Ueno Village in Suruga, in the ninth month, 1281. Nanjō Tokimitsu was then just twenty-two years old. Following the Atsuhara Persecution, in which Nanjō Tokimitsu had played an extremely important role in supporting the believers, government officials had taxed his estate heavily so that he had difficulty main...

This letter was written to a young disciple named Jakunichi-bō Nikke, the son of the lord of Okitsu, Kazusa Province. It is dated the sixteenth day of the ninth month, with no year indicated, though it is believed to be 1279. Early in the Bun’ei era (1264–1275) Jakunichi-bō and his family had become followers of the Daishonin, who was then propagating his teachings in their area. Jakunichi-bō beca...

This letter, written in the fifth month of the first year of Kenji (1275), is one of several that Nichiren Daishonin wrote to the lay nun Myōichi, who lived in Kamakura and was related to Nisshō, one of the Daishonin’s six senior priest-disciples. Myōichi was an educated woman who had lost her p.537husband and was struggling with the difficulties of raising her children alone. Nichiren Daishonin w...

This letter was written on the twenty-fifth day of the first month in 1278. Shijō Kingo, because of his faith in Nichiren Daishonin’s teaching, had long suffered the disfavor of his lord, Ema. In this letter the Daishonin congratulates Kingo on the trust Ema has newly placed in him, and on what appears to be a positive turn of events. Citing a report from a priest who has observed Kingo taking a p...

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter at Minobu in the last month of the fourth year of Kōan (1281) to the lay nun of Kubo, thanking her for the offerings that she had sent him. The lay nun was a widow who lived with her daughter in Kubo in Fuji District of Suruga Province, but little else is known about her. From the contents of the several letters addressed to her, she appears to have been a beli...

Written in the fourth year of Kenji (1278), this letter is also referred to as Before and after Sado because it makes a clear distinction between the teachings the Daishonin expounded before his exile to Sado Island and those during and after his Sado exile. He compares the former to the pre-Lotus Sutra teachings, which Shakyamuni preached as an expedient to lead his disciples to the Lotus Sutra....

This letter was written at Minobu to Nanjō Shichirō Jirō, commonly known as Nanjō Tokimitsu, in the second month, 1282, when Nichiren Daishonin himself was seriously ill. When he was in his teens, Tokimitsu had assumed his deceased father’s duties as steward of the Ueno district, which covered a vast area on one side of Mount Fuji. Particularly during the Atsuhara Persecution, Tokimitsu had made m...

In this reply to Nichinyo, Nichiren Daishonin expresses his gratitude for her offerings to the Gohonzon and explains the significance of the object of devotion. The exact identity of Nichinyo is unclear. She is thought to have been either the wife of Ikegami Munenaka, the older of the Ikegami brothers, or a daughter of the lay priest Matsuno Rokurō Saemon, an earnest believer in Suruga Province. J...

This letter was written at Ichinosawa on Sado Island in the fifth month, 1273, to Gijō-bō, who had been the Daishonin’s senior at Seichō-ji temple in Awa Province. Nearly a month earlier, Nichiren Daishonin had written  The Object of Devotion for Observing the Mind , in which he had explained both the object of devotion in terms of the Law and the correct practice for attaining enlightenment in th...

This letter was written at Minobu in the ninth month of 1277 and addressed to Shijō Nakatsukasa Saburō Saemon-no-jō Yorimoto, commonly known as Shijō Kingo, in Kamakura. Sometime around 1274, Shijō Kingo had begun making efforts to convert his lord, who was named Ema, to the Daishonin’s teachings. Lord Ema, however, did not respond positively. Instead, he reduced the size of Kingo’s landholdings a...

In the first month of the twelfth year of Bun’ei (1275), Nichigen-nyo, the wife of Shijō Kingo, informed Nichiren Daishonin that she had turned p.465thirty-three, an age thought to be unlucky for women, and sent offerings. This letter, dated the twenty-seventh day of the same month, is the Daishonin’s reply. In response to Nichigen-nyo’s apprehensions, he assures her that a woman who embraces the ...

This short letter is one of thirty-seven still extant writings addressed by Nichiren Daishonin to his faithful disciple Shijō Kingo. Kingo was under great pressure from his lord, Ema, and other fellow warriors to renounce his support for the Daishonin. This letter was written to encourage Kingo and to strengthen his resolve. https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/56

This letter is dated the third day of the ninth month, with no year indicated, though it is believed to be 1275, a year and a half after the Daishonin’s return from exile on Sado Island. It is addressed to the lay nun Sennichi, the wife of Abutsu-bō. The letter is a reply to a question the lay nun has asked about the effects of different degrees of slander against the correct teaching. The Daishon...

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month of what is thought to have been 1276. The letter is a reply, it is generally believed, to Toki Jōnin, who had apparently written about a dream in which some danger to the Daishonin and his followers was revealed by the ten demon daughters. After thanking Toki for the offering he had also sent, the Daishonin refers to t...

This is a letter of thanks written by Nichiren Daishonin on the fourth day of the fifth month in 1280. The lay nun Myōshin had sent the Daishonin offerings from her home in Suruga Province for the benefit of her deceased husband. The Daishonin assures her that the word myō of the daimoku she chants will act as an emissary and carry news about her and her children to her late husband. Moreover, he...