This letter, written in the fifth month of the first year of Kenji (1275), is one of several that Nichiren Daishonin wrote to the lay nun Myōichi, who lived in Kamakura and was related to Nisshō, one of the Daishonin’s six senior priest-disciples. Myōichi was an educated woman who had lost her p.537husband and was struggling with the difficulties of raising her children alone. Nichiren Daishonin wrote to encourage her, explaining that believers of the Lotus Sutra are as if in the midst of winter, but that winter unfailingly turns to spring.

This letter reveals that the lay nun’s husband was a strong believer, since he continued to follow the Daishonin even when his estate was confiscated because of his faith. He died worrying about the Daishonin, who was then in exile, and about his wife, whose constitution was frail, and who would have to support their two children. But the Daishonin assures Myōich that her husband has received the same benefits as sages such as the boy Snow Mountains and Bodhisattva Medicine King, and that he is protecting his bereaved family. One theory maintains that the lay nun is the same person as a believer named Myōichi-nyo who received the letter The Doctrine of Attaining Buddhahood in One’s Present Form.

https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/65

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