SGI-USA Study Curriculum

Learning from the Gosho: The Eternal Teachings of Nichiren Daishonin
by SGI President Ikeda

Lecture 15 - Clear Sake Gosho

If I Don't Protect Them, Who Will?

In Buddhism there is no sentimentality. Buddhism is neither idealism nor formalism. It is a dedicated struggle to help people who are suffering become happy, to fill their hearts with new strength and life force so they can declare, "No matter what, I will survive!"

So Buddhism is an all-out, earnest struggle. There is no place in Buddhist practice for an easygoing or lackadaisical attitude. Having a position in the organization or social standing does not mean one will automatically be able to give others hope. Only by waging a great inner struggle, with the spirit to expend one's very life, can you truly encourage others.

When Nanjo Tokimitsu's younger brother Shichiro Goro suddenly died, Nichiren Daishonin was nearing the end of his own life. Despite his physical infirmity, the Daishonin continued sending Tokimitsu and his mother, Ueno-ama Gozen, letters of encouragement.

What lengths the Daishonin went to for the sake of his followers! In his actions we see his spirit to resolutely protect all who embrace the Mystic Law, his determination for the well-being of all his followers and his firm conviction, "If I don't protect them, who will?" Through his example, it seems to me, the Daishonin teaches the proper attitude for all Buddhist leaders.

The Great Light of Daimoku Illuminates the Three Existences

A certain sutra passage says that children are one's enemies.¹ Perhaps there is reason for this. The bird known as the owl devours its mother, and the beast called hakei² destroys its father. A man called An Lushan³ was killed by his son, Shih Shih-ming [actually, An Ch'ing-hsu], and the warrior Yoshitomo killed his father, Tameyoshi.⁴  Thus the sutra has grounds for saying that children are one's enemies.

Another sutra passage says that children are a treasure. King Myoshogon⁵ was destined, after his life had ended, to fall into the hell called the great citadel of incessant suffering, but he was saved by his son, the crown prince Jozo. Not only was he able to escape the sufferings of that great hell, but he became a Buddha called Sal Tree King. A woman called Shodai-nyo, for the faults of greed and stinginess, was confined in the realm of hungry spirits, but she was saved by her son Maudgalyayana and was freed from that realm.⁶ Thus the sutra 's statement that children are a treasure is in no way false. (The Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 7, pp. 261-62)⁷

Four months had passed since the death of Shichiro Goro, Ueno-ama Gozen's youngest child. Although the New Year had arrived, the mother's sorrow had not yet healed. On Jan. 13, 1281, the Daishonin sent her this letter, the "Clear Sake Gosho."

The New Year is actually the start of spring. At the outset of the letter, the Daishonin, as though echoing the mother's sentiments, writes: "The blossoms that once fell are about to bloom again, and the withered grasses have begun to sprout anew. Why does the late [Shichiro] Goro not return as well?" (MW-7, 261)

The Daishonin then explains that, for a parent, in some cases a child becomes an enemy and in other cases a treasure. He backs up this assertion with examples from the Buddhist sutras and history. Like the sons of King Myoshogon and Shodai-nyo, respectively, there are children who save their parents. The late Lord Goro was undoubtedly such a son, the Daishonin declares.

The Lotus Sutra expounds the oneness and simultaneous enlightenment of parent and child. Children, through faith, can definitely cause their parents to attain Buddhahood. In this scenario, from the parent's perspective, the child is not merely a child but what Buddhism calls a "good friend," someone who leads another to Buddhism. In the same way, the child can also attain Buddhahood through the parent's faith. It all depends on the parent's resolute faith and nothing else. It is important that we have unshakable confidence in this.

We should chant with the determination to definitely lead our children, as well as our parents, to happiness and complete fulfillment. Each daimoku we chant with such determination becomes a brilliant sun illuminating the lives of our children or parents, transcending great distances and even the threshold of life and death.

People wanting to have a child may tend to imagine that if only they could they would be happy. But --- as the Daishonin indicates when he says that a child may become a parent's enemy --- countless people become miserable on account of their children. Happiness or unhappiness in life does not hinge on whether we have children.

For that matter, those who do not have children can love and look after that many more children of the Buddha with the same parental affection they would show their own children. This is most respectworthy.

Also, some agonize because they cannot have children. And they may be deeply hurt by someone even casually needling them about "starting a family." When it comes to such highly personal matters, we should exercise great sensitivity and discretion.

Time and Again We Will Be Reunited

The sutra states, "If there are those who hear the Law, then not a one will fail to attain Buddhahood."⁸ This means that even if one were to point at the earth and miss it, even if the sun and moon should fall to the ground, even if an age should come when the tides cease to ebb and flow, or even if flowers should not turn to fruit in summer, it could never happen that a woman who chants Nam-myoho-renge-kyo would fail to be reunited with her beloved child. Continue your devotion to faith and bring this about quickly! (MW-7, 262-63)

"You will definitely meet your son at Eagle Peak," the Daishonin tells Ueno-ama Gozen. The Daishonin first seeks to give her confidence, saying that her son has certainly attained Buddhahood. Next, he gives her hope, encouraging her that she will definitely meet her son again.

From the standpoint of life's eternity over past, present and future, when people are separated by death it is as though one has merely gone a short distance away. This could even be likened to someone going to another country, making it impossible to see the person for a while.

Once at a question-and-answer session, a member whose child had died asked second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda whether it was possible to reestablish a parent-child relationship with his dead child in his present life. Mr. Toda replied:

It's impossible to say for certain whether you will meet your dead child again during your lifetime. When I was 23, I lost my daughter, Yasuyo. All night, I held my dead child in my arms. I had not yet taken faith in the Gohonzon. I was beside myself with grief and slept with her in my embrace.

So we were separated, and I am now 58. When she died she was three, so if she were alive now I imagine she would be a full-grown woman.

Have I or have I not met my deceased daughter again? This is a matter of perception through faith. I believe that I have met her. Whether one is reunited with a deceased relative in this life or the next is a matter of faith.

That day my daughter died was the saddest in my life. Throughout the night, I lay sobbing, holding her cold body close to me.

Let me add something else. Never has the world been filled with such sorrow for me as it was then. One day at my office in Meguro, I thought to myself, "What if my wife were to die?" And that brought me to tears. And then my wife, too, died: Later I wondered what I would do if my mother died. I was, of course, very fond of my mother. Pursuing things still further, I shuddered at the thought of my own death.

While in prison during the war, I devoted some time to reading the Lotus Sutra and one day I suddenly understood. I had finally found the answer. It took me more than 20 years to solve the question of death. I had wept all night long over my daughter's death and dreaded my wife's death and the thought that I, too, would die. It's because I was finally able to answer this riddle that I became the president of the Soka Gakkai.⁹

On another occasion, Mr. Toda said: "It is not a given that you will be reunited as parent and child. It sometimes happens that the person is reborn as someone close by, though not in your immediate family."

We are connected by the invisible life-to-life bonds of the Mystic Law. We are the family of the original Buddha. We are eternal comrades.

Transcending life and death, time and again we will be reunited in the garden of our mission and renew our connection with each other. Life is hopeful and death is hopeful, too. Ours is a brilliant journey across eternity!

In any event, death is a certainty. No one can escape it. Therefore, it's not whether our lives are long or short, but whether, while alive, we form a connection with the Mystic Law --- the eternal elixir for all life's ills --- that, in retrospect, determines whether we have led the best possible lives. By virtue of our having formed such a connection, we will again quickly return to the stage of kosen-rufu.

The important thing is that surviving family and friends live with dignity and realize great happiness based on this conviction. Their happiness shows that they have conquered the hindrance of death and eloquently attests to the deceased's attainment of Buddhahood.

2. On My Sickness

The Spirit to Struggle for Others at All Times

From the seventeenth day of the sixth month of the eleventh year of Bun'ei (1274), when I retired here [Mount Minobu], through the eighth day of the twelfth month of this year [1281], I have not ventured away from this mountain. For the past eight years I have become weaker year by year because of emaciating sickness and old age and my mental powers have waned. I have been ill since the spring of this year, and with the passing of autumn and arrival of winter I have grown weaker by the day and each night my symptoms have grown more severe. For more than 10 days now I have hardly been able to eat anything. Meanwhile the snow grows deeper and I am assailed by the cold.

My body is as cold as a stone, and the coldness in my breast is like ice. At such times, I warm up some sake and consume kakko,¹⁰ and it's as though a fire has been kindled in my heart, or like entering a hot bath. Sweat washes my body and the droplets cleanse my feet.

As I was happily thinking about how I might respond to your sincerity, tears welled up in my eyes....

While I, Nichiren, have been refraining from responding to letters from people on account of my illness, I am so saddened by this matter [of Shichiro Goro's death] that I have taken up my brush to write you. I, too, shall not be long in this world. I believe that I will certainly meet Lord Goro. If I should see him before you do, then I will inform him of your grief. (Gosho Zenshu, pp. 1583-84)¹¹

The Daishonin describes his condition without embellishment. He is entirely unaffected; he makes no attempt to make himself appear to others as somehow special. In so doing, he reveals true greatness.

What sense does it make for ordinary people of the Latter Day of the Law to put on airs? What can they possibly stand to gain? We should focus instead on the self, polishing the self and striving to always live with honesty and sincerity, modesty and humility.

Since we are human, we will as a matter of course undergo the four sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death. The important thing is that we withstand the onslaught of these sufferings and overcome them with true nobility.

Several years before this letter was written, the Daishonin wrote with an air of calm detachment to Abutsu-bo of Sado Island: "I was born and since I have already reached an age of nearly 60 years, there is no doubt that I have also experienced old age. Sickness and death are all that remain" (Gosho Zenshu, p. 1317). What a lofty state of life! It is as though he is calmly looking down on the dark clouds of sickness and death from blue skies high above.

The Daishonin wrote this letter to Ueno-ama Gozen in December 1281 --- just 10 months before his death --- in response to an offering of food and medicine she had sent in the knowledge that he was physically weakened and not eating. The offering included unpolished rice, clear sake and medicinal herbs for use as stomach medicine.

He describes his physical condition in detail. This suggests just how grateful the Daishonin must have been for Ueno-ama Gozen's sincerity. He may have taken her gesture of concern as an indication that she had recovered from her grief at her son's death and regained the leeway to respond to others' needs.

More than a year had passed since Shichiro Goro had died. Time, it is said, is an excellent physician that eventually cures all ills. Even so, a void in the heart cannot easily be filled.

The Daishonin again touches on Shichiro Goro's passing, sharing Ueno-ama Gozen's sorrow. He concludes the letter by telling her in effect, "If I should die before you do, then I will meet the late Lord Goro and tell him of your sorrow."

When he wrote this letter, the Daishonin had grown so weak and emaciated that he didn't even feel like taking up his writing brush. He does so in this case not simply to express his gratitude for the offerings, but as an indication of how highly he treasures Ueno-ama Gozen's feelings. He doubtless wanted to write her even if it meant pushing himself unreasonably.

The Buddha continually prays for people's happiness. The verse section of the "Life Span of the Thus Come One" (16th) chapter of the Lotus Sutra contains these lines:

At all times I think to myself:

How can I cause living beings to gain entry into the unsurpassed way and quickly acquire the body of a Buddha? (LS 16, 232)

This prayer of the Buddha concludes the "Life Span" chapter. The Buddha, 24 hours a day, day after day and month after month, is constantly concerned about the others' well-being. Continually and unswervingly, he sends people encouragement. This is the world of Buddhahood.

We who have embraced the Gohonzon should struggle to thoroughly protect all the people in our communities and organizations --- to help them become happy, stand up and receive benefit. We should do so with the spirit of this passage, "At all times I think to myself...." Everything depends on leaders having such a sense of responsibility.

Leaders must always have the sensitivity and compassion to lend a hand where help is needed. They must also give guidance that is both warmhearted and reasonable. The Daishonin's encouragement is a model for all Buddhists and for all leaders in society.

Embraced by his mother's strong faith, Nanjo Tokimitsu overcame a severe illness and went on to live to 74. In Buddhism, everything has meaning. It may be that Shichiro Goro "bequeathed" his own life span to Tokimitsu.

Carrying on the flame of his father and younger brother, Tokimitsu dedicated his life to kosen-rufu in keeping with the vow he made during his youth. And his magnificent life also attests to the victory of his mother and Shichiro Goro.

(This concludes President Ikeda's lectures on the letters sent to Ueno-ama Gozen.)

Notes:

1. A paraphrase of the Shinjikan Sutra, vol. 3. The passage mentioned in the next paragraph which says that children are a treasure, is taken from the same text.
2. Hakei: a legendary beast resembling a tiger, said to eat its father.
3. An Lu-shan (705-757): a military officer in China during the T'ang dynasty.
4. Tameyoshi and Yoshitomo: warrior leaders of the Minamoto clan who in 1156 fought on opposing sides in a conflict involving the imperial family.
5. Myoshogon: Wonderful Adornment, a king who appears in the "Former Affairs of King Wonderful Adornment" (27th) chapter of the Lotus Sutra.
6. This story is described in the Urabon Sutra (see MW-7, 167). Maudgalyayana is also known as Mahamaudgalyayana.
7."Ueno-ama Gozen Gohenji" (Gosho Zenshu, pp. 1575-76), written in January 1281 when the Daishonin was 60. He wrote this letter in response to an offering of various items from Ueno-ama Gozen, the mother of Nanjo Tokimitsu and Shichiro Goro. At the beginning of the letter he lists her various offerings; the first item mentioned is clear sake (Japanese rice wine), hence the title.
8. Lotus Sutra, the "Expedient Means" (2nd) chapter.
9. Josei Toda, Toda Josei Zenshu (Collected Writings of Josei Toda) (Tokyo: Seikyo Shimbunsha, 1982), vol. 2, pp. 174-75.
10. Kakko: A medical herb, tamalapatra (sandalwood) fragrance.
11. "Ueno Dono Haha Gozen Gohenji" (Gosho Zenshu, pp. 1583-84), written in December 1281 when the Daishonin was 60.

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