Gosho Reading (Nichiren Buddhism)

In the fourth month of the ninth year of Bun’ei (1272), Shijō Kingo traveled from Kamakura to Sado Island to visit Nichiren Daishonin. Kingo was a samurai who served the Ema family, a branch of the ruling Hōjō clan. The journey to Sado was a long, arduous one, involving a boat trip across the Sea of Japan, and required that he absent himself from his duties in Kamakura for more than a month. In th...

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter at Minobu to Nanjō Tokimitsu, the steward of Ueno Village in Suruga Province, in the second month of the fourth year of Kenji (1278). The previous year had been a time of turmoil. A serious drought had devastated crops, and the resulting famine brought countless hardships. In addition, an epidemic had swept the area, causing many deaths. At the same time, the t...

This letter was written at Minobu in the eleventh month of the fourth year of Kōan (1281) to the lay nun Ueno, the mother of Nanjō Tokimitsu. The Daishonin was sixty years old when he sent this letter acknowledging the offerings she had made to commemorate the anniversary of the death of her father, the lay priest Matsuno Rokurō Saemon. The lay nun Ueno’s husband was Nanjō Hyōe Shichirō, the stewa...

This letter was written at Minobu in the fifth month of the third year of Kōan (1280). The lay nun Myōichi was a relative of Nisshō, one of Nichiren Daishonin’s six senior disciples, and lived in Kamakura. She was an earnest believer and fairly well educated, but suffered from poor health. Her husband was also a believer, and their fief was confiscated because of their faith. After her husband die...

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter in the second month of 1280 to Niike Saemon-no-jō, an official in the Kamakura shogunate. Niike was from Niike Village in Iwata District of Tōtōmi Province. He and his wife had been converted to the Daishonin’s teachings by Nikkō and had maintained their faith despite government pressure. First, Nichiren Daishonin tells Niike what great fortune it is to have be...

In the third month of 1275, about one year before this letter was written, Nichiren Daishonin warned Shijō Kingo, his loyal samurai follower who was an early convert, that as a practitioner of the Lotus Sutra he must be prepared to meet further difficulties and hardships. In the present work, the Daishonin explains the nature of true happiness. It lies, he says, in chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Su...

In the eighth month of 1260, infuriated by Nichiren Daishonin’s refutation of the Pure Land school in his  On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land , a group of Nembutsu followers attacked his dwelling at Nagoe in Kamakura. The Daishonin narrowly escaped and went to the home of his loyal disciple Toki Jōnin in Shimōsa Province. In the spring of 1261, however, he returned to K...

Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter at Kamakura in the first year of Kōchō (1261), about two weeks before he was exiled to Itō in Izu. Virtually nothing is known about the recipient, Shiiji Shirō, other than that he lived in the province of Suruga and was acquainted with two of the Daishonin’s leading disciples, Shijō Kingo and Toki Jōnin. The title of this letter is drawn from a passage in the “...

This letter was written to Toki Jōnin in the seventh year of Kenchō (1255), two years after Nichiren Daishonin established his teaching of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. At the time of this letter, the Daishonin was thirty-four years old and was living in Kamakura, the seat of the military government. Toki was a staunch follower of the Daishonin who lived in Wakamiya in Shimōsa Province. He received some th...