I have received your gift of a light summer
robe.

You are a woman, and your husband has
passed away, leaving you behind. You are
separated from your relatives, and your one
or two daughters are undependable and
provide you with little support. Moreover, you
are a woman who has been hated by others
on account of this teaching. Thus you are like
Bodhisattva Fukyo.

The Buddha's aunt, the nun Mahaprajapati,
was also a woman. Nevertheless, she
attained the state of arhat and gained a name
as a shomon disciple. Thus she entered the
path by which Buddhahood can never be
attained. She transformed her woman's
appearance [and became a nun],
abandoning her status as royal consort, and
honored the exhortations of the Buddha. For
more than forty years, she upheld the five
hundred precepts. By day she waited by the
roadside [begging for alms], and by night she
sat beneath a tree [in meditation], aspiring to
salvation in her life to come. Yet she was
denied the road that leads to Buddhahood,
and her name was bruited about as someone
who would never become a Buddha - a
mortifying thing indeed. Being a woman, she
had, whether with or without cause, been the
subject of unsavory rumors throughout long
kalpas past, which surely caused her shame
and vexation. Loathing her [female] body, she
clad herself in rags and became a nun,
thinking that in this way she had divorced
herself from such sorrows. But on the
contrary, she learned that, having become a
person of the two vehicles, she was never to
attain Buddhahood. How wretched she must
have felt! By means of the Lotus Sutra,
however, she was absolved from the
displeasure of the Buddhas of the three
existences and was able to become a
Buddha called Beheld with Joy by All Sentient
Beings. How happy, how joyful she must
have been! Thus, no matter what might
happen, were it for the sake of the Lotus
Sutra, she would surely never turn away.

Then the Buddha in a loud voice addressed
the four categories of Buddhists at large,
saying, "Who can broadly preach the Lotus
Sutra in this saha world?" When everyone
responded with the thought, "I will, I will!" the
Buddha fully three times admonished that
nuns and laywomen desirous of repaying
their debt to all the Buddhas should
persevere through any difficulty to spread the
Lotus Sutra in this saha world after his
passing. But they did not pay attention, and
vowed instead "to declare this sutra widely in
the lands of the other directions." Thus these
nuns did not clearly understand the Buddha's
intent. How exasperated he must have been!
Thereupon the Buddha turned aside and
instead looked earnestly to the eighty myriad
of millions of nayutas of bodhisattvas.

I had therefore thought that, although women
might tarnish their names and throw away
their lives for the sake of insignificant matters,
they were weak in pursuing the path of
Buddhahood. But now you, born a woman in
the evil world of the latter age, have been
reviled, struck and persecuted by the barbaric
inhabitants of these islands [of Japan], who
are so ignorant of reason, and have endured
it all to propagate the Lotus Sutra. The
Buddha on Eagle Peak surely perceives that
you far surpass that nun [Mahaprajapati]. The
name of that nun [when she attained
Buddhahood], the Buddha Beheld with Joy by
All Sentient Beings, refers to none other; it
belongs to you, Myoho-ama Gozen of the
present time.

A person who becomes a king is reputed to
be one who in both past and present has
observed the ten good precepts. Though the
names of individual rulers change, the lion
throne they sit upon is only one. Likewise, this
name [Beheld with Joy by All Sentient Beings]
is the same for you both.

Even a nun who went against the Buddha's
words received the name Buddha Beheld
with Joy by All Sentient Beings. You have not
deviated from the Buddha's words; you are a
nun who, right here in the saha world, has
lost her good name and been willing to
discard her life [for the sake of the Lotus
Sutra]. The Buddha did not abandon the nun,
his foster mother. Were he to abandon you
because you are no relation to him, he would
be a biased Buddha indeed. But how could
that ever be? Moreover, the sutra states,
"The living beings in it [the threefold world]
are all my children." If we go by this sutra
passage, then you are the Buddha's
daughter, while that other nun was merely his
foster mother. If the Buddha did not abandon
his foster mother, then how could he intend to
abandon his own daughter? Please
understand this thoroughly. Before this letter
becomes too involved, I will stop here.

Nichiren