I have written out the prose section of the Expedient Means chapter for you. You should recite it together with the verse portion of the Life Span chapter, which I sent you earlier. The characters of this sutra are all without exception living Buddhas of perfect enlightenment. But because we have the eyes of ordinary people, we see them as characters. For instance, hungry spirits* perceive the Ganges River as fire, human beings perceive it as water, and heavenly beings perceive it as amrita.* Though the water is the same, it appears differently according to ones karmic reward from the past. Reply to the Lay Priest Soya - WND-1, 486 *Hungry spirits: Originally, spirits of the dead who were thought to be suffering from hunger as karmic retribution for their greed and selfishness while alive. Their realm was also incorporated into the Ten Worlds as the world of Hunger. *Amrita: Ambrosia, regarded in ancient India as the beverage of the gods. In China it was thought to rain down from heaven when the world became peaceful. Amrita, meaning immortality, is said to remove ones sufferings and confer everlasting life. This letter was written at Minobu to Soya Kyoshin, a believer who lived in Soya Village of Katsushika District in Shimosa Province. Soya Kyoshin converted to the Daishonin’s teachings around 1260 and became one of the leading believers in the area, together with Toki Jonin and Ota Jomyo. Later, he took the tonsure, and the Daishonin gave him the Buddhist name Horen Nichirai.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 22:26:21 +0000
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