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Life is busy. Yet, we need our daily, spiritual nourishment. Nichiren Buddhists read Gosho but how do you do that while handling life's busy work?
What if you could listen to someone reading the Gosho as you take a long commute to work or, when you are doing the dishes and laundry?
This is what the channel is all about. It is 3 ladies (and guests) reading the Gosho, as it was meant to be. We hope you enjoy it!
Web: nichiren.home.blog
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Podcast: gosho.nichiren.uk
This work is an autobiographical account covering the events of an important period in Nichiren Daishonin’s life—from the time shortly before the Tatsunokuchi Persecution through his two-and-a-half-year exile on Sado Island to his eventual retirement to Mount Minobu. In the course of his struggles over this period of nine years, the Daishonin fulfilled the predictions in the Lotus Sutra concerning its votary and established himself in both word and deed as the Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law.
This letter was written in the second year of Kenji (1276) and addressed to the lay nun Kōnichi, a widow who lived in Awa, the Daishonin’s native province. Her son had earlier converted to the Daishonin’s teachings, and through him she herself became a convert. Some time after her conversion, her son died. But she overcame her deep sorrow and remained a sincere believer in the Daishonin’s Buddhism to the end of her life.
The chronicle of events begins in 1268 when the Mongol empire sent a delegate to Japan to demand that the nation acknowledge fealty to the Mongols. The predictions of foreign invasion made in On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land (https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/2) had started to come true. The Daishonin once more remonstrated with the Kamakura authorities and religious leaders, but they ignored his repeated warnings and instead struck out against him and his followers. At this point the Daishonin urges his disciples never to yield to persecution but to devote their whole lives to propagating the Mystic Law.
His undaunted struggle incurred further wrath from the regime and from the other religious schools and finally led to the Tatsunokuchi Persecution. Later in his work The Opening of the Eyes (https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/30), the Daishonin points to that attempt on his life as the immediate cause for him to reveal himself as the Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law. In the passage that follows, the Daishonin speaks of his life on Sado. He expresses joy in the knowledge that he was the only one who fulfilled the prophecy in the Lotus Sutra concerning the votary who is exiled more than once.
After he returned to Kamakura in 1274, he remonstrated with the regime for yet a third time. When the government again spurned his counsel, he left Kamakura to live in the recesses of Mount Minobu, where this letter was written. Just five months later, the Mongol forces attacked Japan. The cause for this, he states, was the nation’s slander of the Lotus Sutra. In conclusion, the Daishonin expresses appreciation to the lay nun Kōnichi for having sent a letter to him at his lonely retreat on Mount Minobu.
https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/93
20 Aug 2026
059 The Royal Palace
This letter was written in reply to a report from Shijō Kingo that fires had broken out at both Gokuraku-ji temple and the palace of the shogun, the military ruler. Gokuraku-ji, a temple of the True Word Precepts school in Kamakura, burned down in the third month of 1275.
Japan at that time was in a state of upheaval. In the tenth month of 1274, the Mongols launched a massive military attack against the southern part of the country. This contributed to the extreme anxiety of the people. The Mongol threat increased as another envoy from Khubilai Khan arrived in the fourth month of 1275, demanding that Japan swear allegiance to the Mongol empire or face another attack.
Nichiren Daishonin attributes the fires in Kamakura and other calamities to the people’s loss of good fortune, which he says was brought about by their slander of the correct teaching. The title of this letter is taken from the ancient story of Rājagriha (Royal Palace), the capital of the kingdom of Magadha, India. The Daishonin cites this story, which appears in T’ien-t’ai’s Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra, to support his point about the necessity of good fortune.
In a play on words, the Daishonin refers to the chief priest of Gokuraku-ji, Ryōkan-bō (Priest Ryōkan), as Ryōka-bō (Priest Two Fires), to show that the burning of Gokuraku-ji and the shogun’s palace stemmed from Ryōkan’s slander of the Lotus Sutra. The phrase “two fires” has two meanings. It indicates the fire that consumed both Gokuraku-ji and the palace—the centers of religion and government. And it means that Ryōkan’s slander not only has brought about conflagration—one of the seven disasters—in this world, but also will cause him and his followers to fall into “fire,” or the state of hell, in the next.
https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/59
10 Jul 2026
140 The Dragon Gate
This letter was written at Minobu in the eleventh month of the second year of Kōan (1279) to young Nanjō Tokimitsu, the steward of Ueno Village in Suruga Province. Tokimitsu embraced the Daishonin’s teaching quite early in life and revered Nikkō as his personal teacher.
It is a reply to a report by Tokimitsu about his role in protecting the Daishonin’s followers in the Atsuhara area, who were being persecuted by authorities associated with the Kamakura government. Tokimitsu used his influence to protect other believers, sheltering some in his own home and negotiating for the release of others who had been imprisoned. The Daishonin honored him for his courage by calling him “Ueno the Worthy.” In the ninth month of 1279, the government arrested on false charges twenty farmer believers, who all refused to recant their allegiance to the Daishonin, and on the fifteenth of the tenth month three of these farmers were beheaded.
The last paragraph of this letter hints at the anxiety gripping Japan in the wake of epidemics and rumors of war. The Daishonin emphasizes that, since death is inevitable, life should be devoted only to the loftiest ambition—enlightenment.
The Dragon Gate mentioned in this letter appears in Chinese folklore and, though it has not been conclusively identified, is thought to refer to a waterfall or rapids on the middle reaches of the Yellow River.
https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/140
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