I had a fun epiphany this morning while doing Gonyo. No, not the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi, but a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience. Is there a Buddhist term for epiphany?

Anyway, this revelation involved the Seven Happy Gods on my altar. I discussed the addition of these gods to my practice back in July during my 21-Day Staycation Retreat Encouraged by Universal Sage. Read about it here. What is important to this story is the encouragement Rev. Kenjo Igarashi gave me before he performed an eye-opening for the gods.

“He cautioned, I would need to make them part of my practice. He said the figurines had been eye-opened before but the effect had withered. Basically they had starved to death.”

So, ever since I’ve added the Seven Happy Gods to my daily practice. Each morning and evening I devote a portion of my Daimoku to each god, reciting the god’s name and which virtue the god represents and chanting three Daimoku.

When I first placed the gods on my altar I had them in this order:

I chose this order because that was how they appeared on the cover of their box.

I bring this up because the order plays an important part in all of this.

This order changed in November of last year. I saw water cups with symbols for Daikoku and Kishimojin available at Gasshodo.com. I figured adding these would be another way of involving the gods in my practice.

When I got the cups it necessitated rearranging things.
I moved Kishimojin to the left and Daikoku to the right since that is how they appear on the altar of the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church. I chose Bishamon to be the first god because he appears in the upper-left corner of the Gohonzon. It was only after I had finished arranging that I realized this must have been the order they were designed to follow. The central god, Jurōjin, is the only one in yellow attire. The two gods with orange hats are on the ends. Next are gods with green clothing and on either side of Jurōjin are gods in matching color clothing. (Is this coral or pink?)

Now, finally, we can get to the epiphany. Thanks for hanging in there.

With seven gods I’ve given each one a day of the week and in the morning I recite some details about that day’s god before offering my morning prayer to the Sanjubanshin, the 30 Guardians of the Lotus Sutra.

But seven is also the number of characters in the Daimoku. And when I considered each character and each god’s attribute, I discovered I had the essential arrangement.

Namu — Dignity and Honesty

With dignified and honest reverence, I devote myself.

Wonderful — Joy

Joyfully realizing how wonderful this all is.

Dharma — Wisdom

Realizing the wisdom of the Dharma

Lotus — Longevity

Longevity, the key of the Lotus Sutra: the Eternal, every-present nature of Śākyamuni Buddha

Flower — Happiness

Happiness flowering daily

Sutra — Fortune

Boundless Fortune flowing from this sutra.

Namu Myō Hō Ren Ge Kyō

Dignity, Honesty, Joy, Wisdom, Longevity, Happiness and Fortune