The ingredients of the Physician’s Cure are the five practices of the Lotus Sutra – to keep, read, recite, copy, and teach this Sutra. All of these are simple enough except they are indeed very difficult.

Enlightenment comes from faith and faith is a function deeper than intellect. Faith is a feeling not an idea.

The Lotus Sutra as the Physician’s Cure can bring us back from spiritual death by revealing the heart of what enlightenment is and what our relationship with the infinite past and infinite future means. This life, this lived experience, is not just this moment, or just a collection of previous moments or just the unfolding of future moments. This life is all of those and our connection with all life in the universe. Intellectually this has no energy; on the spiritual level of the heart it has unlimited energy. This I know; this I have felt. My experiences, though, are beyond the realm of theoretical understanding or sharing. I do this writing and tell these stories in the hope of in some small way sharing my experience.

Prayer is less about the words we utter than about the lives we live. We have a choice in how we live and that choice frequently, if not always, reflects the heart of our prayer, even if our words do not match. We can say all manner of clever phrases, yet it is our actions that speak the loudest.

Whether our words are a formal prayer doesn’t mean they are not indeed a prayer. Our words become the manifestation of what is in our heart and so are indeed a prayer and the beginning of the prayer of action based upon faith. Faith that remains internal is merely ideology and theory. Faith that is manifest in action reveals the true depth of that faith and the true nature of that faith.

To Myoho Renge Kyo, or the Lotus Sutra, we add our devotion as expressed in Namu. Namu activates Myoho Renge Kyo in our lives. The degree to which Namu is present in our lives, in our actions, will determine the degree of the manifestation of Myoho Renge Kyo. This manifestation appears both in our internal self as well as our external self, our environment.

We have the medicine of the Lotus Sutra prescribed by the Buddha. How do we actually take it? It is through devotion, reverence if you will. Namu is what activates or enables us to take the medicine of Myoho Renge Kyo.

Nichiren teaches that as we take Myoho Renge Kyo by mouth as needed we need to manifest this through Namu, our devotion. Namu isn’t in name only. It also must be manifest in action and behavior. As we continue to take Myoho Renge Kyo through Namu, as needed, we begin to see results, the poisons of false teachings and unskillful previous causes begins to be cured. We see results in our lives. This ideally will motivate us to even deeper faith, even more devotion and actions based in devotion and the cycle continues.

It may be that some will refuse the medicine, or that others will stop taking the medicine before being fully cured. It happens in life that way. There is no expiration date on the medicine the Buddha leaves for us. The medicine the Buddha leaves us in the Lotus Sutra is always good and is always available, even if it appears the physician has died and left us. The medicine, and through the medicine the Buddha, is always available for us to take and benefit from.

Oratio Divina is a type of prayer that is in response to the text. For example, after reading a portion of the Lotus Sutra, you might meditate on a personal response to what was read. Rather than merely absorbing the text or even trying to define or describe what has been read and its meaning, the focus becomes directed to how you shall respond in your life to what you read.

This type of study-response activity makes the sutra a tool or guide on which to base future actions. It can be a call to reinterpret your life and environment or your relationship to both. Rather than reading to understand, it is more of a reading to hear. Listen to the text you study and listen to what is going on internally as you listen. What are your first thoughts? Based upon what you heard, what are some actions you might take in your own life?