Acknowledging Various Offerings Chapter1
YOU have sent me various offerings and I have presented them to the Lotus Sutra.
The benefit to be gained from supporting one’s mother or father surpasses that to be gained from supporting all the people in Japan. For killing all the people in Japan one would fall into the seven great hells.1 But one who kills one’s mother or father will fall into the eighth hell, which is known as the hell of incessant suffering.
But the person who kills his parents and sheds the blood of Shakyamuni Buddha will never fall into the hell of incessant suffering for the offense of killing his parents. Rather he will fall into the hell of incessant suffering for the offense of shedding the blood of the Buddha.
Furthermore, one who performs the ten evil acts and the five cardinal sins, and causes all the Buddhas in the ten directions and three existences to bleed, and who becomes an enemy of the Lotus Sutra, will never fall into the Avīchi hell for the offenses of the ten evil acts, the five cardinal sins, or for that of causing the Buddhas of the ten directions to bleed. Only for the great offense of disbelief in the Lotus Sutra will he fall into the hell of incessant suffering.
Again, let us suppose that there are two persons. One daily performs the ten evil acts and five cardinal sins, and monthly slanders the Buddhas of the ten directions. Another never, on any day, commits the ten evil acts or five cardinal sins; nor does he ever, in any month, slander the Buddhas of the ten directions. Although the degree of good and evil between these two is vastly different, both will fall without fail into the hell of incessant suffering should they turn against so much as a single character or a single brushstroke of the Lotus Sutra.
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Background
Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter on the seventh day of the seventh month in 1278 to Nanjō Heishichirō, who is thought to have been a relative of Nanjō Tokimitsu. After thanking Heishichirō for the various offerings he had sent, the Daishonin explains that going against the Lotus Sutra leads to the hell of incessant suffering and that it is actually the eminent priests of the various schools who have turned against the Lotus. But having spoken up about this matter, he has been persecuted as if he were a traitor. The Daishonin praises Heishichirō for sending offerings to such a person in spite of the perilous way to Minobu, and concludes that there is no imagining the greatness of the benefit he will receive as a result.
Note
1. The first seven of the eight great hells, or eight hot hells. See eight hot hells in Glossary.