The Third Day of the New Year
I received the sixty steamed rice cakes, one container of refined sake, fifty yams, twenty koji oranges1
and one string of dried persimmons that you so kindly sent. I placed these various articles before the Lotus Sutra and presented
them as offerings to the sutra on the third day of spring!2
Just as flowers open up and bear fruit, just as the moon appears and invariably grows full, just as
a lamp becomes brighter when oil is added, and just as plants and trees flourish with rain, so will human beings never fail
to prosper when they make good causes.
Moreover, the sincerity you showed in celebrating the third day of the new year exceeds even the sincerity
you showed in commemorating the first day. The steamed rice cakes are like the full moon. I will write of other matters later.
Nichiren
The eleventh day of the first month in the third year of Koan (1280), Cyclical sign kanoe-tatsu
To Lord Ueno
