Daily Gosho - Winter Always Turns to Spring

The well-known Gosho passage which encourages us to 'hang on in there'. Our victory will happen! Due to the simultaneity of cause and effect, we have already created the victory...the effect...in our lives. President Ikeda gives us this wonderful guidance on the subject:


"Practising Nichiren Buddhism means putting down deep roots. Even if buds progress may not appear right away, continue living with strength and fortitude. Even if things at present may not be going the way you hoped, a great tree of happiness will eventually come to grow and blossom in your life without fail. A springtime of complete fulfillment and satisfaction is certain to arrive for those who possess such deeply rooted faith."

So, with the roar of a lion king, let's advance bravely, knowing our victory is a certainty...


"Winter always turns to spring."

(Winter Always Turns to Spring  - The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Vol.1, page 536) http://www.sgilibrary.org/view.php?page=535  Selection Source: Myoji no Gen, Seikyo Shinbun, October 9th, 2012


Background
This letter, written in the fifth month of the first year of Kenji (1275), is one of several that Nichiren Daishonin wrote to the lay nun Myoichi, who lived in Kamakura and was related to Nissho, one of the Daishonin’s six senior priest-disciples. Myoichi was an educated woman who had lost her husband and was struggling with the difficulties of raising her children alone. Nichiren Daishonin wrote to encourage her, explaining that believers of the Lotus Sutra are as if in the midst of winter, but that winter unfailingly turns to spring.
This letter reveals that the lay nun’s husband was a strong believer, since he continued to follow the Daishonin even when his estate was confiscated because of his faith. He died worrying about the Daishonin, who was then in exile, and about his wife, whose constitution was frail, and who would have to support their two children. But the Daishonin assures Myoichi that her husband has received the same benefits as sages such as the boy Snow Mountains and Bodhisattva Medicine King, and that he is protecting his bereaved family. One theory maintains that the lay nun is the same person as a believer named Myoichi-nyo who received the letter The Doctrine of Attaining Buddhahood in One’s Present Form.