The Tree of Mutual Love Chapter3
You have been born as a woman in countless existences since the far distant past, but it is this husband who was your last good friend in the sahā world.
Scattered blossoms
and fallen fruit
bloom and form again.
Why must the deceased one
never return?
Last year you grieved
this year is also hard
day after day, month after month.
For your heart
is ever heavy.
I have chanted the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra on his behalf.
Nichiren
The second day of the eleventh month
Reply to the lay nun Myōshin
Background
Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter on the second day of the eleventh month in 1279 (another view suggests 1276) at Minobu to the lay nun Myōshin. He expresses his gratitude for the food for priests’ meals she has sent to mark the anniversary of her husband’s passing. Sympathizing with her feelings of loss, the Daishonin recounts several popular tales from ancient times of exemplary love between husband and wife. He then refers to her deceased husband as her last good influence in the sahā world because it was he who led her to her faith in the Lotus Sutra. He closes with two short poems he has written acknowledging her grief.
Notes
1. One account regards “a man of Ch’en” as Ch’u Te-yen, an official of the Ch’en dynasty (557–589) of China.
2. One account regards “a woman in Sung” as the wife of Han P’ing, an official of Sung, a state in China that was destroyed in 286 b.c.e.
3. Shika refers to Shikanoshima, an island at the mouth of Hakata Bay in southern Japan, and to Shikanoumi Shrine on that island.
4. A woman who is said to have lived at Matsura in Hizen Province in Japan in the sixth century.