If You Have Time to Brood, You Have Time to Chant

The Gosho teaches that benefits come from chanting daimoku. Nowhere does it say that you can obtain benefits by complaining, even if you do so a million times.

Some of you may be worried because of your mates, children or parents. But so long as you merely complain about them, you will not be able to solve your problem. Instead, resolve to turn your anxiety into an impetus for changing your karma, into a springboard for attaining enlightenment - in other words, into a good influence. Then muster your power of faith and practice, and chant and chant until you have solved your problem. Only your faith in the Gohonzon can enable you to do this.

- Guidance, Why is Faith Necessary Vol I, World Tribune Press

Thoughts - I love how this guidance instructs one to chant instead of simply complain. I remember this one funny guidance a senior gave saying 'instead of opening the bottle in the evening, open your butsudan.'
It then says to 'muster' your power of faith....Meaning, its not going to come out freely from your life like free-flowing salt when you are low. You will have to drag/coax/nudge/cajole it out..like taking out those last drops of that thick tomato ketchup.
Don't you have to do that? When you are low? So hard to open that butsudan no? But if you muster your power of faith at that time and chant for even five minutes at that time, you have won in that moment and changed a part of your karma at that moment.

Don't Forget this Marvelous Gohonzon You Have

Pavlov, the famous psychologist, said that, "Talent can be acquired and nurtured through effort. It is important to make consistent effort at your own pace. If you were not born blessed with talent or ability, you had best create it yourself with correct practice and training." Rather than lamenting over our lack of power and experience, or worrying that something is outside the realm of our capability, we should apply ourselves and challenge the task at hand. We can then develop our capability and product great results.
In volume ten of the novel The Human Revolution, SGI President Daisaku Ikeda writes,

Anyone would think that victory is impossible, and that's probably how you feel right now. But don't forget this marvellous Gohonzon we have. It has the power to transform what you'd normally think impossible into something possible. Those who give up before they try, thinking that it's impossible, don't really know the power of the Mystic Law. Only people who can bring forth the Mystic Law's power can succeed at anything they try.

We have to first of all pray powerfully to be able to carry out the kind of courageous practice that can make the impossible possible. 

- Guidance, Why is Faith Necessary Vol I, World Tribune Press

How to Remain Undefeated

Gosho: Happiness in this World

“Never let life’s hardships disturb you.”

If you have the naïve and unrealistic expectation that your Buddhist practice will magically eliminate all difficulties from your path, then even minor hardships will seem overwhelming. Rather than seeking to avoid difficulties, let’s develop the strength and confidence to overcome them, using each one creatively as an opportunity to grow.

When we first begin our Buddhist practice, we naturally do not have firm faith. When confronted with sickness, impending divorce, unemployment, or other major problems, it is hard for us to imagine that chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo could indeed enable us to resolve such difficulties. But, encouraged by something we may have read in the gosho or by our seniors in faith, or perhaps simply because we have nowhere else to turn, we decide we have nothing to lose by trying. We pray with a new determination to the Gohonzon, and, to our astonishment, a solution emerges. But that solution is only part of the benefit. The other, more profound part is that our faith in the Gohonzon has also increased. 

Over the years, as we challenge and conquer one difficulty after another through our daimoku, our confidence in the Gohonzon in our own Buddha nature and in our ability to triumph over life’s hardships becomes invincible. That confidence itself will be our ‘peace and security in this life,” for it enables us to meet life with perfect freedom and assurance. 

Source: George M Williams, Vice President SGI

Great Misfortune is Always Followed by Great good fortune

How should you deal (or help a member deal) when confronted with serious trouble?

No matter how great the misfortune may appear to be, the question is whether you yourself fully believe this principle of the Mystic Law. You may suspect that since the trouble is so serious, it may not be followed by great good fortune. That is not believing in this principle at all. The passage does not say, “Great misfortune is always followed by great good fortune, but super-great misfortune is not.”

If one of your members (or you yourself) is faced with a serious problem, you must emphasize the above passage and sincerely try to convince him of the Gohonzon’s power. His victory or defeat, so to speak, lies in whether or not he can bring himself to believe in this teaching. If he takes faith in it, then all he has to do is practice exactly as the Daishonin teaches.

There is no problem whatsoever which cannot be turned into a springboard for happiness, no poison which cannot be changed into medicine. Even if one fails in business, he will be able to recover as long as he maintains his faith. If often happens, however, that when one fails in business, he also allows himself to fail in faith. This is something about which we must be careful.

Source: Guidelines of faith by Satoru Izumi

Buddhist Concept: Changing Poison into Medicine

UKE January 1995 by Nicko Vince

In a play I saw recently, one of the characters tells how she once found a butterfly struggling to emerge from the cocoon. Pitying the creature, she gently released it from its prison. The butterfly unfurled its wings and fell to the ground. What she hadn’t known was that it is the fight to break free of the cocoon which builds the strength that enables the butterfly to fly.

The same lesson can be applied to people. A man’s business fails and he is left by his wife and children. He blames the economy for the failure of his business and the government for the state of the economy. He blames his wife for not supporting him. He puts his misfortune down to bad luck, or fate, or the displeasure of a deity.

The man goes on to start a new business and a new relationship. Eventually, these too fail. This time he looks harder at himself and realizes some of the mistakes he’s made in business, and the relationships, which caused their failures. However, having resolved to reform his attitude when similar problems arise, he finds himself reacting as he was before. Soon he’s back where he started, cursing his own stupidity and feeling frustrated and angry at his inability to change his life and his habitual attitudes. His attitudes have become his cocoon. Nichiren Daishonin taught us how to reveal the wisdom, courage, compassion and life-force necessary to change the deep-seated attitudes which cause us to repeat suffering in our life. By chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo we can reveal our Buddhahood and make this the dominant state in our life, through consistent daily practice.

What’s more, when looked at from the perspective of our Buddhahood we come to see problems and obstacles as opportunities for growth, growth that will lead us to greater happiness than before. This principle is called ‘turning poison into medicine’

This process is not a matter of putting a brave face on things or simply ignoring our problems, but a vigorous philosophy of challenging problems and using our struggles to strengthen us. For example, fellow workers can react very differently to the news of their redundancy. Some will see it as the end of their working life and fall into despair; others will see it as an opportunity to start again or take early and active retirement. When confronted with problems our usual reaction might be to shrivel up and waste our energies on blaming others, or to start trying to work out a solution. The latter attitude is more positive but still may not lead to the best result. As with the man whose business failed in the example earlier, our solution might have the appearance of action but deal only with the immediate situation. Without acknowledging the underlying causes that created it, we rise simply repeating our mistakes in different form.

However, just as we have made those underlying causes ourselves the answers to our problems also lie within us. Viewed this way problems can be seen as opportunities to deepen our understanding of ourselves and our circumstances, and used as a springboard to greater happiness. Daisaku Ikeda, President of the SGI, has written:

Some may suffer sickness even though they practice to the Gohonzon. Others may be under trying circumstances in business. Still others may go through difficulties for the sake of their activities for kosen-rufu. There are many kinds of difficulties and sufferings in life. However, when you are going through a difficult situation, you are actually in the best position to change your destiny and open a road to great benefit.

As our practice continues, we will inevitably have failures, but as long as we continue to practice correctly, these setbacks can be likened to the valleys encountered by a traveller crossing foot-hills towards a mountain. Although the traveller may occasionally move downwards, the overall journey is upwards.

Through focusing our minds on seeking the Buddhahood within us while we chant, we can reveal the qualities of wisdom, courage and compassion. These in turn will help us come to the solutions to our problems that are best both for us and those around us.

Keeping your mind concentrated on that thought can be a problem in itself! However, by winning that battle you gradually train yourself to win others in daily life. These battles may be small, but just succeeding in completing the minor, irksome tasks of daily life strengthens us for more major challenges. The challenge of sticking to a budget, returning a difficult phone call, or simply keeping our space tidy, can all be conquered and help change our attitudes and direction.

It is in the moment-to-moment living of your life that you turn poison into medicine. As you face each new obstacle and decide to challenge it, you will find new strengths you didn’t suspect you possessed. Strength enough to break free of the tightest of ‘cocoons.’