The Importance of the Moment of Death Chapter1
IN your letter you write that your husband chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo day and night. You say that when the time drew near he chanted twice in a loud voice. And that his complexion was whiter than it had been in life, and that he didn’t lose his looks.
The Lotus Sutra reads, “[This reality consists of] the appearance . . . and their consistency from beginning to end.”1 The Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom reads, “Those with a dark complexion at the moment of death will fall into hell.”2 The Protection Sutra reads, “There are fifteen types of signs that appear at one’s death showing that one will fall into hell. There are eight types of signs showing that one will be reborn in the realm of hungry spirits. There are five types of signs showing that one will be reborn in the realm of animals.” The Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai’s Great Concentration and Insight reads, “The body turning dark represents the darkness of hell.”3
Looking back, I have been studying the Buddha’s teachings since I was a boy. And I found myself thinking, “The life of a human being is fleeting. The exhaled breath never waits for the inhaled one. Even dew before the wind is hardly a sufficient metaphor. It is the way of the world that whether one is wise or foolish, old or young, one never knows what will happen to one from one moment to the next. Therefore I should first of all learn about death, and then about other things.”
So I gathered and considered the sacred teachings of Shakyamuni’s entire lifetime, as well as the writings and commentaries of scholars and teachers. Then I applied them as a bright mirror to the moment of people’s deaths and what followed after death, and found not the slightest discrepancy.
I saw that this person had fallen into hell, or that that person had been reborn in the world of human or heavenly beings. On the other hand, people in society were hiding the truth about the last moments of their teachers or their parents, saying only that they had been reborn in the Pure Land in the west. How pitiful that when their teacher has fallen into the evil paths of existence and is facing numerous unbearable sufferings, the disciples who remain in this world are praising his death, only making his sufferings in hell worse. They may be compared to one who clamps shut the mouth of a person guilty of a serious offense when he is being questioned, or to one who leaves another’s boil unopened so that it festers.
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Background
Nichiren Daishonin wrote this letter on the fourteenth day of the seventh month in 1278 to comfort and encourage the lay nun Myōhō, whose husband had just passed away earlier that month. Myōhō lived at Okamiya in Suruga Province. The Daishonin reiterates her report that her husband chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to the very end of his life, and that after death his complexion was fair and he retained his looks, and he assures her that one’s appearance at the moment of death may be seen as a sign of the state of one’s life after death. That is why, he notes, he began his Buddhist studies in order to learn about death before any other matter. He reassures Myōhō that her husband’s bright appearance signifies that the evil deeds of his past existences have changed into the seeds of Buddhahood. And in conclusion, he encourages her that since she is the wife of such a man, naturally the Lotus Sutra’s teaching of women’s ability to attain Buddhahood will apply to her as well.
Notes
2. This passage is not found in the extant edition of The Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom.
3. T’ien-t’ai quotes this passage as a statement from the Meditation on the Correct Teaching Sutra.