Commenting on the passages "When I think that... the Buddha prophesied that that person would encounter persecution, I cannot possibly express my joy," and "For anyone born human, what greater joy could there be?" ("The Four Debts of Gratitude", WND-1, pp. 42-43):
This demonstrates his expansive state of life, which enabled him to regardmeeting persecution on account of the Lotus Sutra as a supreme joy.
On the other hand, as for the rulers of the country who had persecuted him on account of the Lotus Sutra despite his complete innocence of breaking any law of society, the Daishonin says: "I have ... encountered a ruler who will enable me to free myself in my present existence from the sufferings of birth and death" (Ibid., p. 44). He goes so far as to express gratitude to the ruler as a person "to whom I owe the most profound debt of gratitude" (Ibid., p. 43) for having made it possible to carry out his practice for attaining buddhahood. He is utterly indomitable, while maintaining a spirit of supreme humanism.
Every time he encountered persecution, the Daishonin became stronger and more formidable. That's because he manifested within himself the "life force of the Thus Come One" to stake his life on his struggle for the Law.®
@original article was published in the September 2022 issue of the Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai monthly study journal. Photos courtesy of Seikyo Press.)
