Buddhist quotes - February

Keeping in line with the general topic of courage, here are two quotes from Letter to the Brothers.

[Y]ou must grit your teeth and never slacken in your faith. Be as fearless as Nichiren when he acted and spoke out before Hei no Saemon-no-jō. Although theirs was not the path to Buddhahood, the sons of Lord Wada and of the governor of Wakasa, as well as the warriors under Masakado and Sadatō, fought to the death to preserve their honor. Death comes to all, even should nothing untoward ever happen. Therefore, you must never be cowardly, or you will become the object of ridicule.

Hei no Saemon-no-jō was a powerful government official who persecuted Nichiren and attempted to have him killed. This resulted in the Tatsunokuchi persecution.

The second quote is about the attitude we should have in front of obstacles.

Whatever trouble occurs, regard it as no more than a dream, and think only of the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren’s teaching was especially difficult to believe at first, but now that my prophecies have been fulfilled, those who slandered without reason have come to repent.

Happy Leap February everyone!

Buddhist quotes - January

After the assemblies mentioned in my latest experience, I wanted to do some more research on the parable of the Jewel in the Robe.
This is what is mentioned in the SGI Library:

parable of the jewel in the robe [衣裏珠の譬] (Jpn eriju-no-tatoe )Also, parable of the gem in the robe or parable of the jewel sewn in the poor man's robe. One of the seven parables in the Lotus Sutra. It is related in the "Five Hundred Disciples" (eighth) chapter by five hundred arhats to demonstrate their understanding of the one vehicle teaching. It tells of an impoverished man who goes to visit a close wealthy friend. Being treated to wine, he becomes drunk and falls asleep. The wealthy friend must go out on business, but before leaving, he sews a priceless jewel into the lining of his sleeping friend's robe. When the poor man awakens, he has no idea that he has been given the jewel. He then sets out on a journey. To provide himself with food and clothing, he searches with all his energy, encountering great hardship. Being always in want, he is content with whatever little he can obtain. Later he happens to meet his old friend, who is shocked at his poverty and shows him the jewel in the robe. The man realizes for the first time that he possesses a priceless jewel and is overjoyed. The five hundred arhats explain that, just as this man was ignorant of the treasure he possessed, so the Buddha's disciples were unaware that the Buddha had caused them to plant the seeds of an unsurpassed aspiration and were instead satisfied with provisional teachings and a small portion of nirvana.[quoted from here]

Shakubuku and obstacles

This is an experience I shared at my area kick-off. It was supposed to exemplify the "Light of Courage".

In this experience I will talk about how I challenged my tendency to focus on outside validation over internal validation through my fight to do shakubuku.

I am a fortune baby, which means I grew up in a Buddhist household with both my parents, my paternal grandparents and other members of my family practising.

My house was full of Buddhist publications, we had at least one meeting a week and according to my dad Nam Myoho Renge Kyo was one of my first words.

I have always struggled with shakubuku. Talking about the practice was never a problem, but I did not feel “qualified” to introduce someone to the practice as I did not experience being shakubukued. Something so simple as: “Do you remember the first time you heard Nam Myoho Renge Kyo?”, which is an experience most people shared, is not a question I can answer.

This caused me a lot of suffering because I felt I was lacking as a disciple of sensei since only one person received Gohonzon after being introduced to the practice by me (my kindergarten teacher when I was three years old, btw), so I naturally chanted quite a bit about it and started taking bolder actions, such as handing out NMRK cards, something that I found really hard before.

Now, let me say a few things about what I came to call my “One Evil”, as in my tendency to attach my self worth onto external confirmation and gratification.

Buddhist quotes - December

Buddhist quotes are back!

Boy I've been terrible at keeping my blog up to date, and an experience soon to be published will probably explain why.

Now, for the December quote, I decided to do something slightly different.

Tell me how you chant and I will tell you who you are.

So, I am a Fukushi, yes? I have spent my life listening to people chanting. I honestly can’t quantify the amount of buddhist meetings I have attended. Let’s try anyway. Between meetings, activities and home visits, I do an average of 2-3 buddhist functions a week. Let’s use 2 to make a very conservative estimate (also to take holidays into account). That is about 100 functions a year. I was born in 1985, so that’s around 3000 functions. Not bad. So I can honestly say I have been to THOUSANDS of buddhist meetings. Fab. 

Many (and by that I mean MANY) of those are lilac activities, a fair amount of which (especially in the past year) have consisted in me chanting at the front of a butsuma for, say, three hours. That gives you plenty of opportunities to observe the different ways people chant. Most of the time, there’s a great person leading and the daimoku flows like a majestic river, or runs like a herd of white horses galloping in the clouds. Marvellous transformation then ensues.

Unfortunately, other times, our life state is not that brilliant and we are distracted by people’s quirky ways of chanting or the things they do as they chant.

CAPTAIN OBVIOUS TO THE RESCUE: please take the following with a pinch of salt. It’s not meant as slander, just as honest fun. If it offends you, don’t read.