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Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Nichiren is like you and I [constantly complaining]

In addition, this year has been different from any other. If it goes by the name of winter, is it ever anything but cold? If it goes by the name of summer, is it ever anything but hot? Still, though I don’t know how it has been in other provinces, the cold here in Hakiri has been exceptional. When we ask the longtime older residents, the ones who are eighty, ninety, and a hundred all say there has never been a winter as cold as this.

No one visits from ten chō or twenty chō away beyond themountains surrounding my hut in all four directions. Thus I don’t know how things are there, but about one chō away from here, the snow is piled up to a height of ten feet, twenty feet, or five feet even in shallow places.

On the thirtieth day of the intercalary tenth month, it snowed a bit, but it melted right away. This month there was a heavy snowfall that started at the hour of the dragon [7:00–9:00 a.m.] on the eleventh day and continued right up to the fourteenth day. Two or three days later, a light rain fell, the snow froze as hard as diamonds, and it still has not melted. It is unusual for it to be bone-chilling cold both day and night. The sake has frozen over as hard as stone, frozen oil gleams like gold, and when just a bit of water remains in the cooking vessels, it freezesp.807and they shatter. And as it keeps getting colder and colder, and our clothing is thin and food scarce, no one ventures out. Our living quarters are as yet only half finished so there is no keeping out the snow or wind, and we have nothing to lay down as floor covering. There is no one to go out in search of wood so we are unable to build a fire. The skin of those wearing a single old soiled quilted robe is like the skin of those in thehell of the crimson lotus or the hell of the great crimson lotus. Their voices resemble those that emit from the Hahava hell and Ababa hell. Hands and feet freeze, crack, and break open, and there is no end topeople dying. The beards on the laymen look as if they had ornaments dangling from them, while the noses of the priests seem to be strung with bells.

Such an extraordinary event has never occurred before. And not only that, but I have had a bout of diarrhea since the thirtieth day of the twelfth month last year, which failed to improve even in the spring or summer of this year. Fall passed and around the tenth month4 it actually worsened. After that there was a slight improvement, but it is apt to start up again at any moment.

It was just at such a time that the two quilted robes arrived from you two brothers. Even with forty ryō of cotton padding they are as light as an unlined summer robe. The contrast is all the more apparent because until now I have been wearing a robe so thinly padded it seemed to be no more than a single layer of cloth. Try to imagine how this must have been. Without these two robes, I would surely have frozen to death this year.

Moreover, whether from you two brothers, or from Ukon-no-jō, food also keeps arriving. Even when there is hardly anyone here, there are forty people, and when it is a crowd, there are as many as sixty. No matter how much I refuse, they still come to visit. Saying they are the older brother or the younger brother of someone here, they settle down, but out of regard for their feelings in the end I say nothing. Speaking strictly of my own wishes, I had prayed to be tranquil, alone with my acolyte reciting the sutra in my hut. Thus nothing could be as irksome as this state of affairs. And so I have been planning that, once the New Year has arrived, I would escape somewhere. Nothing could be as irksome as this. I will certainly write you again.

But above all, as for you and your brother Uemon no Tayū Sakan, whether it be about your better relations with your father or your winning the trust of your lord, without actually meeting you it is hard to say all that I wish."

4 comments:

  1. Leigh Kennicott Nichiren writes "First one must understand the time…."
    Like · Reply · 1 hr
    Greg Romero
    Greg Romero yes, the time is mappo/latter day of the law. the teacher for the latter day is nichiren, ordained by the eternal buddha ,shakyamuni who appeared in the latter half of the 15th chapter of the lotus sutra. sgi/nst use first , not accurate translations/phony gosho, or put a phony spin on them to suit their own selfish purposes. the practice for the latter age is shakubuku not stupid interfaith. the leader is nichiren, not ikeda senseless which the gakkai usurped long ago. sgi/ikeda spins everything incorrectly and you are part of this. they won't debate the teachings with its bitter enemy the nst because neither can support what they practice and teach with the real teachings. so the tactic is ad hominimn. they won't come to eagle to debate the teachings because they will lose. you have already lost leigh and i feel very sorry for you and anyone you have touched. one or two sentences from a gosho does not make a doctrine. or does it in gakkailand? nichiren teaches - "to be praised by a fool is a disgrace". you and your whole cult are a disgrace. you have become so stupid that you cannot see that the nst and the sgi are two sides of the same coin. you, baldshun the the rest of your slanderers come to eagle peak blog and lets discuss real buddhism. ikeda is an asshole and you know it. the japanese cannot be trusted and you know it. wake up leigh.
    Like · Reply · 10 mins
    Greg Romero
    Greg Romero the fact that the gak has hijacked buddhism is horrific. bad, bad, bad karma.

    ReplyDelete
  2. dirham, does your reply above indicate that if you knew the teachings and had the good fortune to speak about them, your reply would be similar?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think that's a *yes*!!

      Wonderful, Dirham!!

      ~Katie

      Delete