I’ve decided to mark an interesting conjunction of numbers today. First, today marks the start of my 70th cycle through the Threefold Lotus Sutra. Well, actually yesterday was the start but today my “Day 1” post will be 500yojanas.org/day-1-70. That counter at the end of the URL is automatically added each time I post my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra.

That’s interesting by itself, but this December also happens to be the month I turned 70. It’s that conjunction I’m marking.

I can remember a day back in the 1980s when I decided to figure how old I’d be in 2000. The answer turned out to be 48 until December, when I would turn 49. That sure seemed old at the time. But now that I’m 70, I’m not sure what old should feel like. My health is good. (Picturing me knocking on my wooden head). I certainly don’t have the same ability to lift heavy objects that I once had and I’d rather pay someone to dig up my yard and install sprinklers, but old?

The 70 times through the Lotus Sutra is more interesting. I was inspired to start the practice by Ryusho Jeffus. Ryusho writes in his Physician’s Good Medicine: “Perhaps our challenge today is to hear the stories again from a more modern perspective. This is an invitation to make the sutra your own, to possess it in your life and use it to tell your own story.” When I mentioned to him my intention to make reading the sutra a part of my daily practice, he encouraged me to note what stood out each day.

I started my morning practice of reciting the sutra in shindoku on March 6, 2015. It wasn’t until July that I received my copy of Senchu Murano’s translation of the Lotus Sutra and started reading in English in the evening what I had recited in shindoku in the morning. For the first couple of times I tried taking notes but that was too distracting. On Sept. 14, 2015, I introduced my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra practice in a blog post.

When I think of having read the Lotus Sutra 70 times, I always remind myself of the time I told Rev. Igarashi at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church of my new practice. He was quite impressed. He mentioned that he performs his personal practice three times a day. At each time he recites one entire fascicle. Three fascicles a day means he completes the entire eight fascicles every two and two-thirds days. I remember him mentioning that Chapter 3 was way too long. Breaking it up across three days makes it much more manageable. Dividing the entire Threefold Lotus Sutra into 34 days makes reading a breeze.

Having read the sutra 70 times in this manner is really unremarkable just as living 70 years isn’t much of an accomplishment by itself. But I believe my practice has been immensely beneficial to me and, by extension, my family.