A Harsh Winter Deep in the Mountains Chapter3
———————————-（continued from Chapter2)————————————–
Moreover, whether from you two brothers, or from Ukon-no-jō,5 food also keeps arriving. Even when there is hardly anyone here, there are forty people, and when it is a crowd, there are as many as sixty. No matter how much I refuse, they still come to visit. Saying they are the older brother or the younger brother of someone here, they settle down, but out of regard for their feelings in the end I say nothing. Speaking strictly of my own wishes, I had prayed to be tranquil, alone with my acolyte reciting the sutra in my hut. Thus nothing could be as irksome as this state of affairs. And so I have been planning that, once the New Year has arrived, I would escape somewhere. Nothing could be as irksome as this. I will certainly write you again.
But above all, as for you and your brother Uemon no Tayū Sakan, whether it be about your better relations with your father or your winning the trust of your lord, without actually meeting you it is hard to say all that I wish.
With my deep respect,
Nichiren
The twenty-ninth day of the eleventh month
Reply to Hyōe no Sakan
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
5. Ukon-no-jō appears to have been a relative of the Ikegami brothers, though no further details about him are known.