Letter to the Brothers
Background
The two brothers to whom this letter is addressed were the sons of Ikegami Saemon no Tayū Yasumitsu, who held an important post in Kamakura in the government’s Office of Construction and Repairs. The older brother, Munenaka (Ikegami Uemon no Tayū Munenaka; d. 1293), was probably converted to Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism in 1256, and the younger brother, Munenaga (Ikegami Hyōe no Sakan Munenaga; d. 1283), shortly thereafter.
The father, Yasumitsu, was a loyal follower of Ryōkan, chief priest of Gokuraku-ji temple of the True Word Precepts school, and vehemently opposed the beliefs of his two sons for over twenty years. In fact, he went so far as to disown his elder son on two occasions, in 1275 and 1277. Primogeniture, the right of the eldest son to succeed to the wealth and social prestige of the family, was a vitally important aspect of Japanese society. The individual scarcely existed outside a family context, and centuries of intra-family rivalry, feuding, and even murder attested to the importance of being first in line for inheritance. Virtually insurmountable social and economic sanctions existed against disowned persons.
By disowning Munenaka, their father in effect was provoking rivalry between the two sons by tempting Munenaga to trade his beliefs for the right to his father’s estate. The Daishonin sent letters of encouragement to the two brothers and their wives, urging them all to unite and maintain their faith. In 1278 the brothers finally succeeded in converting their father to the Daishonin’s teachings.
When the Daishonin’s health began to fail in 1282, at the urging of his disciples he set out for the hot springs of Hitachi. Sensing that death was imminent, however, he shunned the hot springs in favor of a trip to Munenaka’s residence in Ikegami in what is present-day Tokyo. There, after having taken measures to ensure the perpetuity of his teachings, he passed away on the thirteenth day of the tenth month, 1282.
Letter to the Brothers mentions three ways in which obstacles should be viewed in the light of Buddhism: (1) as an opportunity to use strong faith to purge oneself of bad karma from the past; (2) as an instance of evil friends attempting to obstruct one’s practice; and (3) as an example of the negative function of the devil king of the sixth heaven possessing one’s parents or others in order to destroy one’s faith.
Chapter1(The Lotus Sutra is the heart of Buddhism)
THE Lotus Sutra is the heart of the eighty thousand teachings and the core of the twelve divisions of the scriptures. The Buddhas throughout the three existences attain enlightenment because they take this sutra as their teacher. The Buddhas of the ten directions guide living beings with the teaching of the one vehicle as their eyes.
Entering the sutra repository and examining the complete collection contained therein, I find that two versions exist of the sutras and treatises brought to China between the Yung-p’ing era of the Later Han and the end of the T’ang dynasty.1 There are 5,048 volumes of the older translations2 and 7,399 of the newer translations. Each sutra claims by virtue of its contents to be the highest teaching of all. Comparison reveals, however, that the Lotus Sutra is as superior to all the other sutras as heaven is to the earth. It rises above them like a cloud above the mud on the ground. If other sutras are compared to stars, the Lotus Sutra is like the moon; if they are as bright as torches, bonfires, stars, or the moon, the Lotus Sutra is then as bright as the sun. This is a general comparison.
Notes
1. The Yung-p’ing era began in c.e. 58. The T’ang dynasty ended in c.e. 907.
2. “The older translations” refers to the sutras translated into Chinese primarily by Kumārajīva (344–413) and Paramārtha (499–569), who emphasized conveying the true meaning. “The newer translations” refers to those made by Hsüan-tsang (602–664) and by later translators, who placed greater stress on literal translation.
Chapter2(Explaining the transmigration of life by referring to a period of major world system dust particle kalpas)
More specifically, the Lotus Sutra contains twenty outstanding principles. The two most important are the teachings of major world system dust particle kalpas ago and numberless major world system dust particle kalpas ago. The former is explained in the “Parable of the Phantom City” chapter in the third volume. Suppose someone grinds a major world system into dust. He then takes this dust with him and goes one thousand major world systems toward the east, where he drops one particle. He proceeds another thousand major world systems eastward and drops the second particle. He continues on in this manner, dropping another particle and then another until he has exhausted all the dust particles of the entire major world system. Then he gathers up all the major world systems along the route he has taken, whether they have received a particle or not and reduces them all to dust. He places these dust particles in a row, allowing one entire kalpa to pass for the placement of each. When the first kalpa has passed, he places the second particle, and then the third, until as many kalpas have passed as there are particles of dust. The total length of time represented by the passage of all these kalpas is referred to as a period of major world system dust particle kalpas.
It was this long ago—in the remote past indicated by a span of major world system dust particle kalpas—that the three groups of voice-hearers, including Shāriputra, Mahākāshyapa, Ānanda, and Rāhula, learned the Lotus Sutra from a bodhisattva who was the sixteenth son of the Buddha Great Universal Wisdom Excellence. Deluded by evil influences, however, they eventually abandoned the Lotus Sutra. They fell back into the Flower Garland, Wisdom, Great Collection, or Nirvana Sutra, or further down to the Mahāvairochana, Profound Secrets, or Meditation Sutra, or even backslid to the Hinayana teachings of the Āgama sutras. Continuing this descent, they fell back through the practice of goodness in the human and heavenly worlds and finally into the paths of evil. During this period of major world system dust particle kalpas they were most often born in the hell of incessant suffering. Sometimes they were born in the seven great hells, or less frequently in the more than one hundred hells.3 On very rare occasions they were born into the world of hungry spirits, animals, or asuras, and only after kalpas as many as dust particles were they able to be born again in the human or heavenly world.
Notes
3. In his Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra, T’ien-t’ai delineates 136 kinds of hell—eight great hells, each with sixteen subsidiary hells. The last and worst of the eight great hells is the hell of incessant suffering. The point is that one’s suffering differs in accord with the nature and degree of one’s offense.