It is easy to focus our attention on the immediate challenges we face and easy to lose sight of the goal of our practice. We may sometimes fail to consider that a different road, one with fewer troubles, would not provide us the fertile ground upon which to accomplish the changes we need to make in our own lives.

It isn’t possible to live a life without some problem or obstacle arising. The challenge in our lives is to see the arising of each problem as an opportunity to change something in our lives that caused the problem.

Buddhism is by its very nature a state of constant effort. If you are standing still, you are falling behind. Buddhism requires constant effort, daily and moment-by-moment effort to make the changes in our lives through practice so that we can attain enlightenment.

Previous to teaching the Lotus Sutra the Buddha taught expedients to lead people to the ultimate teaching of the Lotus Sutra. In many ways it was as if he were leading the blind to the train station so they could then find the way to the true complete teachings contained in the Lotus Sutra. But we need to remember that the train station is not the destination, the expedients are not the sum of the Buddha’s teachings.