The Importance of the Moment of Death Chapter3
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You also say in your letter that at the moment of death he chanted the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra twice. The seventh volume of the Lotus Sutra reads, “After I have passed into extinction, [one] should accept and uphold this sutra. Such a person assuredly and without doubt will attain the Buddha way.”9 There is not a single insignificant matter among all the sacred teachings of the Buddha’s entire lifetime. All are the golden words of Shakyamuni Buddha, who is our father, the great sage, and the lord of teachings; all are the truth; all are true words. They may be categorized as Hinayana or Mahayana, exoteric or esoteric, provisional Mahayana or true Mahayana. When we compare the teachings of the Buddha with the teachings of the two deities10 and three ascetics, Taoists, and other non-Buddhists, these latter are false words and the Buddha’s teachings true words.
But among these true words, there are lies, true words, words of excessive flourishes, and abusive words. Among these, the Lotus Sutra is the truest of true words, and the truest of truths.
Schools such as the True Word, Flower Garland, Three Treatises, Dharma Characteristics, Dharma Analysis Treasury, Establishment of Truth, Precepts, Nembutsu, and Zen are all schools formulated from the lies found amidst the true words. The Lotus school is true words that bear no resemblance to those schools. And not only are the words of the Lotus Sutra true, but when the false words of the sutras of Shakyamuni’s entire lifetime enter the great sea of the Lotus Sutra, compelled by the power of the Lotus Sutra, they become true words. How much more so, then, must this be the case with the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra.
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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.