Great Construction

To Forge a Celebrated Sword

     In ancient days, a celebrated sword was produced by holding a blade in a fire, hammering the blade with a mallet, thrusting the blade into water, and repeating that process. This is what is meant by tempering and forging. The principle behind this process applies also to the lives of human beings. I find this to be indeed interesting.
     In the days following the establishment of the Japan Kannon Church, frequent were the occasions of both praise and slander, being attacked, undergoing trials in boiling water followed by those of being thrust into ice water.
     I am asked by others why the church has to suffer in such ways. I respond to them by citing the example of forging celebrated swords as related above, and the questioners are satisfied.
     To experience such tribulation has since ancient times been something that anyone who attempts a task beyond normal human capability savors without exception, the tempering of the celebrated blade. Speaking in terms of religion, because trials and difficulties are assigned by God to those the greater missions, so rather, the burden should be welcomed.

Divine Writings: Volume on Religion, page 89, March 25, 1954
    translated by cynndd

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The first appearance of “Meitô o Tsukuru” is in the teachings anthology Goshinsho: Shûkyôhen (Divine Writings: Volume on Religion) published March 25, 1954. Although sources were consistently listed at the end of each essay in this anthology, nothing but the date “1949” appears at the end of this particular essay. Inconsistently the source for this essay was given in the index at the back of the anthology as Hikari, gogai (Light Newspaper, extra edition), but this essay is not contained in the only known extra-edition issue of Hikari published in 1949 that is dated May 30, 1949. Citation for previously published translations is given below for reference.

“The Forging of a Perfect Sword,” Foundation of Paradise, 1984, page 382.

“The Forging of a Perfect Sword,” Teachings of Meishu-sama, Volume Three, 2005, page 58.

“The Greater the Mission, the Higher the Hurdles,” Reaching for Faith, 2010, page 80.

“Forging the Blade of Truth,” A Hundred Teachings of Meishusama, no date, page 163.