"I, Nichiren, fearing these admonitions of the Buddha, accordingly accused all those throughout the nation who were deserving of it, and more than once I was condemned to exile or to the death penalty. Believing that my past offenses had now been eradicated and that I was blameless of any fault, I left Kamakura to take up residence in this mountain, and since then seven years have passed.
Let me describe this mountain. In Japan there are seven marches, and it is in the march called the Tokaido, which is made up of fifteen provinces. Within these is the province of Kai, where there are three village districts called Iino, Mimaki, and Hakiri, and it is in the one called Hakiri. It is a remote mountain region that stretches over an area of more than twenty ri in the northwestern part of the district.
The northern part is Mount Minobu, the southern, Mount Takatori, the western, Mount Schichimen, and the eastern, Mount Tenshi. They are like boards set up on all four sides. Around the outside of this area run four rivers, the Fujigawa running north to south, and the Hayakawa running west to east at the rear of the area, and before the area the Hakirigawa, which runs west to east, and its tributary, which has a waterfall and is called the Minobugawa. You might suppose that Eagle Peak had been moved from central India and set down here, or that Mount T'ien-t'ai had been brought from China.
In the midst of these four mountains and four rivers is a flat area no broader than the palm of a hand, and here I have built a little hut to shield me from the rain. I have peeled bark off trees to make my four walls, and wear a robe made of the hides of deer that died a natural death. In spring I break off ferns to nourish my body, and in autumn I gather fruit to keep myself alive. But since the eleventh month of last year the snow has been piling up, and now, when we are into the first month of the new year, it goes on snowing. My hut is seven feet in height, but the snow is piled up to a depth of ten feet. I am surrounded by four walls of ice, and icicles hang down from the eaves like a necklace of jewels adorning my place of religious practice, while inside my hut snow is heaped up in place of rice.
Even in ordinary times people seldom come here, and now, with the snow so deep and the roads blocked, I have no visitors at all. So at the moment I am atoning for the karma that destines me to fall into the eight cold hells and, far from attaining Buddhahood in this present life, I am like the cold-suffering bird. I no longer shave my head, so I look like a quail, and my robe gets so stiff with ice that it resembles the icy wings of the mandarin duck.
To such a place, where friends from former times never come to visit, where I have been abandoned even by my own disciples, you have sent these vessels, which I heap with snow, imagining it to be rice, and from which I drink water, thinking it to be gruel. Please let your thoughts dwell on the effects of your kindness. There is much more I would like to say. (Letter To Akimoto)
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