Letter to Endo Saemon-no-jo
I have recently received an official pardon and am now returning to Kamakura. Can this be the year in which the passage, "By now the original vows that I made have already been fulfilled," comes true for me?
Had it not been for your protection, could I possibly have sustained my life? Could I have survived to be pardoned? All the achievements of my lifetime are solely thanks to you. The Lotus Sutra says, "The young sons of the heavenly deities will wait on and serve him. Swords and staves will not touch him, and poison will have no power to harm him." How reassuring this sutra is!
Such being the case, you must be an envoy sent by the heavenly gods Bonten and Taishaku. I will bestow my seals upon you as a promise that you will be reborn in [the Pure Land of] Eagle Peak. You should take one of them with you to your next existence. [When you arrive] at Eagle Peak, call out, "Nichiren, Nichiren!" and I will come to meet you at that time.
I will write to you again from Kamakura.
Nichiren
The twelfth day of the third month in the eleventh year of Bun'ei (1274), cyclical sign kinoe-inu
I have recently received an official pardon and am now returning to Kamakura. Can this be the year in which the passage, "By now the original vows that I made have already been fulfilled," comes true for me?
Had it not been for your protection, could I possibly have sustained my life? Could I have survived to be pardoned? All the achievements of my lifetime are solely thanks to you. The Lotus Sutra says, "The young sons of the heavenly deities will wait on and serve him. Swords and staves will not touch him, and poison will have no power to harm him." How reassuring this sutra is!
Such being the case, you must be an envoy sent by the heavenly gods Bonten and Taishaku. I will bestow my seals upon you as a promise that you will be reborn in [the Pure Land of] Eagle Peak. You should take one of them with you to your next existence. [When you arrive] at Eagle Peak, call out, "Nichiren, Nichiren!" and I will come to meet you at that time.
I will write to you again from Kamakura.
Nichiren
The twelfth day of the third month in the eleventh year of Bun'ei (1274), cyclical sign kinoe-inu
