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.

Victories

A couple of months ago I went to a Lilac inspiration meeting.
That was an experience in itself. Part of it is too private to share it here, and deeply intertwined with TTTH, but the big part was doing my first Bellydance public performance.

I was using my phone for the music and it didn't occur to me to ask anyone to take pictures, so I don't have any memento of the occasion. I redid my improvisation on Comptine d'une autre été and a new one on a string version of Sweet Dreams by a great German band called Eklipse.

It felt awesome to dance in front of other lilacs. Years ago I remember reading on a bellydance blog that to be a good dancer and a good teacher you have to have performance experience. I never really dismissed it, but I only actually understood the importance of it when I did my first performance. Those five minutes made me realise more things about me as a dancer than all the training sessions I've done in six years.

Funnily enough, it looks like my natural style as a dancer seems to be extremely serene and relaxed. Who knew?

Anyhoo, during the inspiration the HQ lilac chief told an experience related to the actual proof campaign. She said that when November came she didn't think she had had a lot of victories, so she decided to sit down, look back into her diary and write down anything she could consider a victory. She had a list of something like 35 victories.

I felt inspired and decided to go back home and immediately write down my list.

The importance of dialogue

This is something I wrote for a Discussion meeting I was supposed to moderate but I ended up not being able to attend. In rereading it, I found it not too shabby, so here it is. (nothing at all to do with the fact that it's already written).

Why is dialogue so important and how do we do it?

This is based on a wonderful article from November AOL, in which Peter Osborn (btw, who is this guy? He must be a bloody genius!) talks about the importance of dialogue.

Sensei stresses the importance of dialogue constantly. Whenever we are stuck or have problems with others, we are always encouraged to “create a dialogue” with them.

Actual Proof campaign

I can't believe how it didn't occur to me to write anything about our Actual Proof campaign.

D'oh!

This campaign started last year, and will finish on the 18th of November.

Quoting from the SGI website:

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (front row, center) with Soka Kyoiku Gakkai members in Fukuoka, Kyushu, 1941

November 18 is the anniversary of the establishment of the Soka Gakkai.
Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, first president of the Soka Gakkai, and his disciple Josei Toda (second president) published the first in a series of writings outlining the system of soka, or value-creating pedagogy, on November 18, 1930, and this date marks the founding of the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai--the Society for Value-Creating Education. The word "soka," which was coined by Toda and Makiguchi, is a combination of Chinese characters meaning "create" and "value."
The group's aim was to reform the Japanese education system in order to foster the unique creative potential of every child, and this endeavor was further strengthened by the philosophy of Nichiren Buddhism which also stresses the vast untapped potential of every individual.

A birthday surprise

***Warning***

Ranty emo-fest alert. If you are not in the mood for that, skip to the Determined Cat picture. That's where the good stuff starts.

I hate birthdays.

Or rather, I hate my birthday. At least I used to, until this year.

My birthday falls in the middle of the Summer. 
This normally meant that:

1. I was never able to just bring a cake to school.
2. Everyone always forgot about my birthday, because everyone was on holiday on that day.
3. Everyone, that is, except me.

My parents being artists, usually they worked more during the school holidays than during the school year. Yep, that means during my birthday too.
Also, in Sicily it is stupidly hot in August, so someone invented the rule that I couldn't have a birthday cake, because it was too hot to eat it.

On the transformation of karma.

I am a fukushi. I am really proud of having been brought up within this Buddhism and to have all these years of experience in faith.

Often the years of experience mean very little. I am now 27. This means that I have chanted my first daimoku more than 26 years ago and I have been doing gongyo regularly for 15 years.

And yet, only a few weeks ago did I really understand (and experience) the principle of transforming your karma through your buddhist practice.

In buddhism, we believe that at some point in the distant past, we have been sitting at a ceremony, called the Ceremony in the Air, with Shakyamuni Buddha and countless other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. In that occasion, we have made the great vow of becoming absolutely happy and teaching others to do the same.

In order to fulfil this vow, we have all chosen, allow me to repeat, we have CHOSEN a certain karma, laden with specific challenges. We have made this choice in order to be able to transform this particular karma and, by doing so, to provide example to others and lead them to the path of happiness.

On sincerity and actual proof.

I have been meaning to talk about the idea of sincerity in Buddhism and the impact sincere prayer has on actual proof, if any.

I have had a few experiences on the topic, some of which I am going to be sharing now.

At various points in my life, I have found that I was at odds with someone. My relationship with a certain person, be it a member of my family, or a member of the SGI, or someone I would work or study with, would be strained or completely broken. I am an incredibly forgiving person, so it was usually the other person who would decide not to have a positive relationship with me, not the other way round. As I will mention in a post on changing karma, that would also often be connected with my “left-out” karma.

Offerings

One of the most interesting aspects of Buddhist life is the altar. I personally find someone’s altar one of the best ways to get to know aspects of a person, as the Buddhist altar generally reflects the character of its owner.

For a period of time, my parents had an altar each, and I would do my gongyo and daimoku in front of whichever of the two was free. Comparing the altars meant comparing my parents.

My dad’s altar was always dusty, the fruit was changed very rarely and often became really old and sometimes even moldy, his candle-holders were old and broken.
My father is not a particularly tidy person himself, doesn’t care about appearance and is happy to use old, even broken things as long as they serve the purpose.

My mother’s altar was always clean and sparkly, every object was chosen with care and the disposition was changed often. However, only the bell had been bought in a Buddhist shop, everything else was intended for another use but she liked to use it for her altar. Her fruit was always fresh and the incense holder emptied often. It was beautiful, as everything my mother touches.
My mother, obviously, is a very tidy person who likes surrounding herself with beautiful objects, is very creative and gives new life to old things by re-vamping them and using them in unexpected ways.

SGI's Daily practice

And yet more awesome stuff from SGI-USA.

This is a short video that explains very clearly our daily practice of Nichiren Buddhism.



Have fun and Happy chanting!

A Buddhist Half term

I know readers of this blog are just dying to know how I spent my half term holiday.
I know, I know, but fear not, the end to your anguished questioning in the small hours of the night has come to an end, I am going to present you with the highly profound and dramatically interesting account of how a Nichiren Buddhist teacher spends her half term.

Now, allow me to give you a bit of much needed (and clearly yearned after) background.

Top... reasons to practise this Buddhism

I was making my cup of coffee the other morning, getting ready to chant, and obviously found a way around it. I'd like to present you with a few (mostly tongue in-cheek) reasons why to practise Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism. Ready?

   

More on buddhist daily practice. AKA the power of transformative daimoku

I went to do my first homevisit the other day. I had a very interesting chat with the young woman I went to support, which made me think of writing another post about our daily practice.

This time, I wanted to focus on the more practical side of it, i.e. the amount of time one spends on Buddhist activities and what exactly correct practice consists of.

I will use an anecdote as a starting point.
The other day at Discussion meeting, my Men's leader said that years ago a senior leader gave him the following advice:

You should try every day to chant for twenty minutes, study for twenty minutes and make three people happy.

This already gives us the three major tenets of correct practice: chanting, study and shakubuku.

Buddhahood-tinted spectacles

Not all my experiences have to be about deep, life changing stuff.

Nichiren Buddhism is real life, and real life is about little things as well as big and profound things.

Sure, with this Buddhism a chinwag with some girlfriends ends up being about transmigration and how to escape the endless cycle of birth and death, but it's not all philosophy.

So, let's talk about this little thing that happened to me today.

Sokas and Lilacs

I have recently gone through quite a dry spell in my blogging. In Italian we call it "blocco dello scrittore", or writer's block. 

Then the other day an anonymous made the following comment:

I'm interested in how the Lilac role that the women plays differs from the Soka role that the men play. I'd love to hear more about this if you'd consider writing something.

An old experience, for now

I have been really slacking on my blogging. Amazingly enough, there are a few people who are reading this, and I am really sorry I have let you down.

I have an experience simmering, springing from my recent HQ course, but I haven't got the head to write it up yet, and maybe, who knows, it's not complete after all.

So for now, I will share the first experience I have written in my whole (and admittedly quite long) Buddhist life.

It was originally told at a magical meeting on a boathouse, in honour of the European guests coming to London for the 50th anniversary of SGI in Europe.

It was my first time writing down an experience, and I decided to amend it slightly and share it on my blog.

Leaders and meetings

I wanted to spend a little time talking about the structure of the SGI.

Let’s say you have a friend who shakubu-ed you and you went to a couple of meetings. At some point someone will ask you for your email address and you will start receiving a “schedule” of the “district”, full of different types of meetings.

Being a fukushi, I’ve never really had that experience. I grew up in a house where meetings happened every other day and I sort of learnt all the lingo by osmosis.

I have to admit that when I moved to the UK at the beginning I was confused by the differences.

So I’m going to talk about the structure and organisation of divisions, meetings and leaders, but please bear in mind that everything that follows is only valid for the UK. Having witnessed a vastly different situation in Italy, I can just assume there will be differences in other countries as well.

Etiquette at Buddhist meetings

I will now discuss a topic that’s very close to my heart: etiquette at Buddhist meetings.

As you know if you’ve read my profile or any post of my blog, I grew up in a Buddhist household. Both my parents are buddhist and at least until I was 16, my house was regularly offered for Buddhist meetings. Since the age of 12, I also actively took part in meetings myself. 

I was a very vivacious child and I still remember with some embarrassment episodes in which people (not necessarily my parents) told me off for disrupting a meeting. Sure, it wasn’t pleasant, but growing up I started to appreciate the importance of good manners in general, not just at meetings.

I haven’t got the faintest clue how many meetings I’ve been to in my life, I just know it’s a massive number, in different cities and different countries. I gathered a collection of memories and dos and don’ts that I think might prove useful for people who attend meetings and, possibly, also for people who are thinking about offering their house. 

... there's an app for that.

So, I am an Apple freak. I have a MacBook, two iPods (although I gave one to my mum) and an iPhone. Haven't gone as far as an iPad yet because I can't in all honesty justify buying it. I will probably find a way around it sooner or later.

Wonder of wonders, there is actually a daimoku app available on the UK App Store.

I did a lot of troubleshooting and experiments with it, so that I could write a detailed review of it. This meant that I actually ended up doing a lot more daimoku than my daily target. What can I say? It's a hard job but someone's gotta do it.