hello

Saturday, December 11th, 2010
—- DAILY GOSHO —-
“Therefore, the best way to attain Buddhahood is to encounter a good friend. How far can our own wisdom take us? If we have even enough wisdom to distinguish hot from cold, we should seek out a good friend.

Earlier I received a gift of Buddhist articles, and now I learn that the lay nun has come to visit me on this fine horse that you cherish. This is due to your extraordinary kindness. I know such actions must reflect the wishes of Hyoe no Sakan, but more than that they are due, I am sure, to the thoughtfulness of you, his wife.

Long ago there was a bodhisattva named Learned Youth who bought five lotus blossoms for five hundred coins and for a period of seven days and seven nights presented them as an offering to Bodhisattva Fixed Light. There was a woman named Gopika who had two lotus blossoms, and she gave these as her offering, saying, “While we remain ordinary mortals, I pray that this man and I will be reborn as husband and wife in lifetime after lifetime, existence after existence. And when we become Buddhas, may we both do so at the same time!” She never departed from this vow, and for ninety-one kalpas the two were reborn as husband and wife.

As a matter of fact, Bodhisattva Learned Youth in a later incarnation was Shakyamuni Buddha, and Gopika was his wife, Yashodhara. The ‘Encouraging Devotion’ chapter of the Lotus Sutra states that she will become a Buddha named Endowed with a Thousand Ten Thousand Glowing Marks Thus Come One.

When Prince Siddhartha entered Mount Dandaka, his horse, Kanthaka, was a reincarnation of the deity Shakra. And when Kashyapa Matanga and Chu Fa-lan brought the sacred writings to China, the ten demon daughters transformed themselves into a white horse on which the scriptures were transported. And now this horse of yours has followed the path of the Lotus Sutra. After you live out your lifetime of one hundred and twenty years, this horse will carry you to the pure land of Eagle Peak.

With my deep respect,
Nichiren

Fortune does us neither good nor hurt; she only presents us the matter and the seed, which our soul, more powerful than she, turns and applies as she best pleases; the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition. All external accessions receive taste and colour from the internal constitution, as clothes warm us, not with their heat, but our own, which they are fit to cover and nourish; he who would shield therewith a cold body, would do the same service for the cold, for so snow and ice are preserved.