We can easily be trapped in a cycle of judgment and intolerance and even prejudice. One of the easiest symptoms that surfaces which we can use to check in with ourselves is how easy do we justify our own correctness, and our own goodness and even use that as a measure of comparison. It’s just a thought.

From this we can see that even though there may be some who only practice on the surface and appear to do so for personal gain or fame, in the end even that is making a significant cause for their future enlightenment. Sometimes we may question why we have to be around someone who is like that. It is especially challenging when we have to work alongside someone who is that way day after day. It can be very discouraging and even frustrating.

We should, however, keep in mind that we have a deep bond or relationship with all the people and circumstances that arise in our lives. It is our challenge to see each of those as opportunities to change things within our own lives. Perhaps we need to learn to be less critical or judgmental. Perhaps we need to learn to look deeper in the lives of others around us so that we can see their Buddha potential even if at the moment they are not manifesting it. And after all, it is only our personal opinion that the other person is not performing up to our standard.

The prediction of Maitreya being the next Buddha is universally accepted, taught, and believed by all Buddhist. There are some exceptions though with some Nichiren groups claiming that Nichiren is the True Buddha and it ends with him. For a Nichiren group to claim that Nichiren is the True Buddha and deny the prediction of Maitreya is a betrayal of what Nichiren believed and what is actually stated in the Lotus Sutra. This is a very important point and needs to be considered carefully. Either you follow Nichiren and his belief in the Lotus Sutra and thereby inherit Nichiren’s mission, or you don’t in which case it isn’t possible to claim to be a disciple of Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra. It defies logic by trying to work it both ways.

Frequently in the Lotus Sutra the Buddha encourages us to remove our doubts and have strong faith. I need to emphasize that this faith is not a blind faith based upon merely taking someone’s word for something. It is critical that each of us base our faith on our practice and our study. Proving the validity of the teachings in the Lotus Sutra is very important to having no doubts.

All of this is based upon the Dharma as taught by the Buddha in the Lotus Sutra. This is our intention to fully embrace and experience with our own lives the truth and actuality of the teaching of the Lotus Sutra for ourselves.

Eventually as our practice matures and we have many experiences in faith overcoming obstacles and making changes at the core of our life, our faith becomes more unshakable and it becomes more difficult to become discouraged. I say more difficult but we should never become complacent, as it is always possible to become sidetracked or discouraged. In fact if we take our faith and practice for granted it is most certain to happen. But indeed, over time our doubts do decrease as we accumulate a variety of experiences in our faith and practice. It is our intention to eventually create the kind of firm foundation of faith and practice of the Dharma that removes all of our doubts.

Ultimately the goal for practitioners of Buddhism is enlightenment, and in the Lotus Sutra we are told that enlightenment is one that is equal to that of all Buddhas. In a sense our goal of enlightenment is also an ever-increasing treasure. As we develop and mature in our practice we are able to see that enlightenment is an ever unfolding and evolving objective. It isn’t that the end point changes, instead it is that we are able to see ever expanding possibilities, we are able to imagine greater growth as we actually begin to grow. When we begin we cannot possibly understand the degree to which our life is capable of expanding.

Beyond having a good intention we hold onto until completion there is the reward, and in this case for us as Buddhists the reward is our improved life condition, the manifestation of enlightenment in our lives and in our environment. It would be a mistake to think treasure in this case is about riches. This does point out though that it is important to understand what the objective is and how to determine if we are successfully accomplishing our objective. In the case of our Buddhist practice, if we mistakenly think becoming rich is the outcome of our practice then we would perhaps become disappointed when riches fail to manifest or when we realize that riches will not make us happy.

It isn’t enough to merely form an intention and it being good is not sufficient either especially if we do not actually carry through with our intention until the end. If we had a good intention to go to work but gave up after leaving the house and merely wandered around all day never actually going to work then we could say that we lacked infinite intention. In our Buddhist practice we must realize that this is a practice of not just this lifetime but for lifetimes to come throughout infinity. So, we as Buddhist really do need to approach our intention of practice, our intention of enlightenment as an infinite intention.

[In Chapter 1, we read of a Buddha called Sun-Moon-Light, who had eight sons.] The names of the sons with intention were as follows: Having-Intention, Good-Intention, Infinite-Intention, Treasure-Intention, Increasing-Intention, Doubts-Removing-Intention, Resounding-Intention, and Dharma-Intention. I don’t know about your mother but when I was young and she would scold me she would call me by all my names to which she would frequently, especially if she was really angry, add the name of the dog and all of my brother’s names. I can imagine the mother of these sons calling out Having-Good-Infinite-Treasure-Increasing-Doubts-Removing-Resounding-Dharma-Intention! When you say it like that though you really get a sense of some basic guidelines being given to us in how we might approach our own personal intentions to the Dharma.

The path to enlightenment is not easy. Along our way there are certainly many things that will appear to complicate our lives. We will certainly face many obstacles, but we should always keep in mind that because of the teachings of the Buddha we have an excellent guide who will show us the way to Buddhahood. Practicing Buddhism is not easy, but it is not impossible to accomplish the ultimate goal of manifesting our inherent Buddha.