A Harsh Winter Deep in the Mountains Chapter1
IHAVE received six thousand coins, including one thousand coins from Jirō,1 and one white thick-quilted cotton robe. You offer precious things to the three treasures throughout the four seasons. Not a single one of them will fail to bring you benefit.
In accord with the time, however, benefits differ in degree, being either lesser or greater, shallow or profound. The benefit to be gained from giving food to those who are starving is somewhat greater than that from giving them clothing. The benefit to be gained from giving clothing to those who are freezing is greater than from giving them food. The benefit to be gained from giving a thick-quilted robe in fall or winter is twice as great as that from giving it in spring or summer.
You will surely understand everything through these examples. But concerning this point, regardless of the season, no matter the day or month, I receive from you money, rice, unlined robes, and undergarments, day after day and month after month without pause. It is like King Bimbisāra sending five hundred cartloads filled with offerings day after day to Shakyamuni, the lord of teachings, or King Ashoka donating ten million pieces of gold to Kukkutārāma Monastery. Even if there is the matter of size, your resolve still surpasses that of those men.
———————————-（to be continued to Chapter2)———————————-
Background
Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter on the twenty-ninth day of the eleventh month in 1278 at Minobu to Ikegami Hyōe no Sakan Munenaga, the younger brother of Ikegami Uemon no Tayū Munenaka, in Musashi Province. Hyōe no Sakan had just sent the Daishonin six thousand coins and a thick-quilted robe. The Daishonin praises these, saying that the benefit p.808that accrues from such offerings is either lesser or greater, shallow or profound, depending on the time. And the winter has been so exceptionally harsh, he says, that he would have frozen to death but for the robe. The Daishonin concludes the letter expressing his joy that relations between the Ikegami brothers and their father have improved, and that, moreover, the brothers have won the trust of their lord.
Notes
1. Jirō seems to have been a relative of the Ikegami brothers, though no details about him are known.