On the Importance of the “Expedient Means” and “Life Span” Chapters—Chapter4
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However that may be, the sutra known as the Lotus Sutra is good medicine for the various ills of body and mind. Thus it states: “This sutra provides good medicine for the ills of the people of Jambudvīpa. If a person who has an illness is able to hear this sutra, then his illness will be wiped out and he will know neither old age nor death.”6
Again it states: “[Once these living beings have heard the Law], they will enjoy peace and security in their present existence and good circumstances in future existences.”7
And again: “All others who bear you enmity or malice will likewise be wiped out.”8
I am copying out and sending you two chapters in particular, the “Expedient Means” chapter and the “Life Span” chapter, to act as protection for you. I could in fact copy out the whole sutra, but at the moment I am tied up with other affairs, so I am limiting myself to these two chapters. Treat them with the utmost care, the utmost care––never let them be apart from your person. Wrap them up carefully and make them your constant possession.
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Background
This is Nichiren Daishonin’s reply to a letter from his follower Ōta Saemon-no-jō, also known as Ōta Jōmyō, who lived in Shimōsa Province. From the content it is clear that in 1278 Ōta sent offerings with a letter to the Daishonin at Minobu. In the letter, Ōta had reported his recent sufferings, physical and spiritual, and his concern that his present age, fifty-seven, was considered a “dangerous year,” or an “unlucky age,” in Japanese and Chinese tradition. He was the same age as the Daishonin.
The Daishonin responds that various sufferings are unavoidable, but that the Lotus Sutra provides “good medicine” to alleviate the sufferings of body and mind.
Suffering is a result of the karma one created in past existences, the Daishonin explains. He then cites the Buddhist principle of the twelve-linked chain of causation, which defines the links of causation between the previous existence and the present, between the present existence and the future.
He also discusses the yin and yang theory of the five agents, sharing some knowledge of a dangerous year with Ōta based on the so-called precept of adapting to local customs.
The Daishonin tells Ōta that he is copying for him two chapters of the Lotus Sutra. They are the second chapter, “Expedient Means,” and the sixteenth, “Life Span,” the core chapters respectively of the theoretical teaching and the essential teaching. He also addresses errors and falsehoods promulgated by the True Word and Flower Garland schools, which stole the T’ien-t’ai school’s principle of three thousand realms in a single moment of life. This principle, the Daishonin says, is found only in the Lotus Sutra, and it was expounded by Shakyamuni Buddha when he originally attained enlightenment. The Daishonin identifies himself as “a disciple of the Buddha in his true identity,” that is, as a Bodhisattva of the Earth.
In closing, the Daishonin advises Ōta to trust in him concerning “this year of danger that you face,” and see whether the promises of Shakyamuni and all the other Buddhas made in the Lotus Sutra to protect its believers are trustworthy.