Reply to the Honorable Kōnichi Chapter4
Thus what karmic bond is responsible for the lay nun Kōnichi believing in the Lotus Sutra? Could it be because your son, the deceased Yashirō, who believed in it, recommended it to you? Since the good fortune gained from this will no doubt bear fruit, it is certain that you will meet and be together with your son in the pure land of Eagle Peak.
A man named Wu-lung4 slandered the Lotus Sutra and fell into hell. But because his son, who was named I-lung, copied the Lotus Sutra as an offering, his father became a Buddha. Also, though King Wonderful Adornment was an evil king, led to the way by his sons Pure Storehouse and Pure Eye, he became the Buddha Sal Tree King.
The reason in each of these instances was that the flesh of the child is the flesh of the mother; and the bones of the mother are the bones of the child. When the pine flourishes, the cypress is overjoyed; when grasses wither, orchids weep.5
Even insentient plants and trees share as one a friend’s joys and sorrows. How much truer must this be of the bond between parent and child? You carried your child in your womb for nine months, then gave birth and devoted years to nourishing him. You thought that in your old age you would be supported by him and then be mourned by him. But what in heaven’s name is to be done about the inconsolable sorrow you feel when instead you must mourn him, about your anguished heart when you wonder what has become of your child?
Out of its love for its child, the pheasant plunged into flames to save it.6 Out of her love for her child, the poor woman drowned in the Ganges River.7 The pheasant is now Bodhisattva Maitreya. The woman who drowned in the Ganges has been reborn as the great heavenly king Brahmā.
How much more will this be so of the present-day Honorable Kōnichi, who out of her great affection for her son became a practitioner of the Lotus Sutra? Without fail both mother and child will go to the pure land of Eagle Peak. At that time, how joyful your meeting will be! How joyful it will be!
Respectfully,
Nichiren
The eighth day of the eighth month
Reply to the Honorable Kōnichi
Notes
4. The story of Wu-lung and his son, I-lung, appears in The Lotus Sutra and Its Traditions, an eighth-century Chinese work. Both were skilled calligraphers. Wu-lung, a believer in Taoism, hated Buddhism, and on his deathbed enjoined his son never to transcribe any Buddhist scriptures, especially the Lotus Sutra. According to this work, Wu-lung fell into hell after his death. Later, at the command of his lord, I-lung, much against his will, transcribed only the sixty-four Chinese characters that constitute the titles of the eight volumes of the Lotus Sutra, having refused to copy the entire sutra. Nonetheless, his father was saved from the agonies of hell.
5. A similar passage is found in the fu, or rhyme-prose, poem entitled “Lamentation on Passing Away” by Lu Chi (261–303) contained in chapter eight of the Wen-hsüan, or Literary Anthology.
6. This anecdote is found in Examples of Aspiration for Awakening, a collection of Buddhist tales compiled by the poet and critic Kamo no Chōmei (d. 1216).
7. This story appears in the Nirvana Sutra. Driven out by the master of an inn, the poor woman, together with her baby, set off to journey to another land. She came to the Ganges River, clasped her child in her arms, and began to cross. Even though the current was very swift and powerful, she firmly held on to her child, but in the end both mother and child were drowned. As a result, the Nirvana Sutra says, this woman was reborn in the Brahma heaven.