Wednesday, November 6th, 2025
-- DAILY GOSHO --
"Strengthen your faith day by day and month after month. Should you slacken in your resolve even a bit, devils will take advantage."
(On Persecutions Befalling
Selection Source: Kyo no Hosshin,
Thursday, November 7th, 2025
--- DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT ---
"Throughout the long history of humankind, the nature of life and death has been the question of greatest concern for all philosophies and religions, East and West. Buddhism, too, was born from an intense spiritual struggle to overcome the sufferings of birth, aging, sickness, and death, as symbolised by the account of Shakyamuni's four meetings.*
"Nichiren Daishonin, from an early age, deeply pondered the meaning of life and death.
He wrote:
"'I have been studying the Buddha's teachings since I was a boy. And I found myself thinking, "The life of a human being is fleeting. . . . It is the way of the world that whether one is wise or foolish, old or young, one never knows what will happen to one from one moment to the next. Therefore I should first of all learn about death, and then about other things." (WND-2, 759)'
"Mr. Toda also often said that faith's true purpose is for the time of our death. And he declared: 'The final question Buddhism must settle is death, and the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin provides the most fundamental answer to that question.'**
"How do we understand death? That question is inseparable from how we should live our lives. By squarely facing death and recognising life's eternal nature, we can lead more deeply fulfilling and grounded lives. This is the ultimate aim of religion."
The 102nd installment of President Ikeda's study lecture series "The Buddhism of the Sun, Illuminating the World" was carried in the October 2023 issue of The Daibyakurenge. This is the 12th of a multipart lecture on key passages from The Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings and focuses on the "Life Span of the Thus Come One" chapter of the Lotus Sutra. The following is the English translation, published as SGI Newsletter, No. 11566, June 13th, 2024.
* Four meetings: The four encounters Shakyamuni had as the prince Siddartha that awakened him to the sufferings of birth, aging, sickness, and death. One day on a pleasure outing, he emerged from the palace through the east gate and saw someone withered with age. On another occasion, he emerged from the southern gate and saw a sick person. A third time, going out from the western gate, he saw a corpse. Finally, going out through the northern gate, he encountered a religious ascetic.
-- KYO NO GOSHO --
TSUKIZUKI HIBINI TSUYORI TAMAE SUKOSHIMO TAYUMU KOKORO ARABA MA TAYORI O UBESHI
New Gosho Zenshu page 1620
Gosho Zenshu page 1190
And the Japanese kanji for
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