Letter to the Lay Priest Domyo --from the Gosho

I HAVE received your request for prayers for your father, and I will offer them before the Buddha. Concerning prayer, there are conspicuous prayer and conspicuous response, conspicuous prayer and inconspicuous response, inconspicuous prayer and inconspicuous response, and inconspicuous prayer and conspicuous response. But the only essential point is that, if you believe in this sutra, all your desires will be fulfilled in both the present and the future. The third volume of the Lotus Sutra states, “Although the devil and the devil’s people will be there, they will all protect the Law of the Buddha.”1 And the seventh volume states, “[If a
person who has an illness is able to hear this sutra, then] his illness will be wiped out and he will know neither old age nor death.”2 You must not doubt these golden words. I deeply appreciate the lay nun Myoichi’s3 visit to this mountain. I have given her a written scroll. You should open it and read it. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

Nichiren

The tenth day of the eighth month in the second year of Kenji (1276), cyclical sign hinoe-ne