The Workings of Brahmā and Shakra

Chapter1(Instruction by Citing Historical Precedents of Wise Men）

Main Text

I RECEIVED on the fourteenth day of the fifth month the horseload of taros that you took the trouble to send me. Considering the labor involved in producing them, taros today are as precious as jewels or medicine. I will comply with the request you made in your letter.

Once there was a man named Yin Chi-fu. He had an only son, whose name was Po-ch’i. The father was wise, and so was the son. One would have thought that no one would try to estrange them, but Po-ch’i’s stepmother frequently slandered him to her husband. However, Chi-fu would not listen to her. Undaunted, she continued for several years to contrive a variety of plots against her stepson. In one such scheme, she put a bee into her bosom, rushed to Po-ch’i, and had him remove the insect, making sure as she did so that her husband would observe the scene. In an attempt to have her stepson killed, she then accused him of making advances to her.

Lecture

On May 14, 1277, Nanjō Tokimitsu sent a horse-load of yam heads as an offering to Nichiren Daishonin at Minobu. Along with this offering, he submitted a letter reporting that several individuals had been pressuring him with various opinions in an attempt to make him abandon his faith.

This letter is the Daishonin’s reply, in which he expresses his appreciation for the offering and encourages Tokimitsu to maintain a faith that never yields to adversity.

In this writing, the Daishonin explains that those who practice the Lotus Sutra in the period after the Buddha’s passing are destined to encounter hardships even more severe than the “nine great ordeals” faced by Shakyamuni Buddha. He points out that even the Great Teachers T’ien-t’ai and Dengyō did not meet such trials, yet he himself is now facing the very persecutions described in the Lotus Sutra one after another. He provides detailed guidance on how to deal with these challenges, instructing his disciples that although various people will emerge to interfere with or persecute them for their faith, they must never give in and backslide.

The original manuscript of this letter is preserved at Taiseki-ji temple.

In this section, the Daishonin begins by thanking Tokimitsu for the offering and acknowledging the contents of his letter. He then proceeds to recount the story of Yin Jifu.

Yin Chi-fu, who was highly renowned as a wise man during the Zhou dynasty in China, was deceived by the machinations of his second wife. Consequently, he turned against his beloved son, Po-ch’i, and eventually drove him to suicide. By sharing this story, the Daishonin illustrates how even a wise person can easily be misled by the schemes of the wicked. He admonishes that the obstacles arising in the realm of Buddhism are far more intense, and thus one must approach them with a firm resolve and a prepared mind, never allowing oneself to be swayed by such influences.