Nichiren speaks of the power of practice to reveal the hidden seeds of past evil karma in terms of two analogies — the forging of iron and the collection of hemp oil. “It is like forging iron, for instance. Unless you hit it and forge it hard, hidden scars will not be seen. They appear only when the iron is hit hard many times on an anvil. Or it is analogous to squeezing hemp seeds. Unless squeezed hard, there is little oil.” (Murano 2000, p. 107) Nichiren states that he would not have faced any resistance if he had remained content to teach the provisional sūtras that others were already teaching. “Ever since l, Nichiren, strongly condemned those who slander the True Dharma in Japan, I have been persecuted. It must be that grave sins in my past lives are revealed through my merits in defending the Dharma in this life.” (Murano 2000, p. 107) From this perspective, to encounter resistance and even persecutions is proof that one’s practice is valid, that it is making a real difference in one’s life and the lives of others. I think it is true that if we challenge ourselves in our Buddhist practice, we will find ourselves coming up against latent forces of ego and the power of unwholesome habit patterns. We may even find ourselves having to stand up to and confront the people around us who are invested in an unwholesome or unjust status quo. Substance abusers, for instance, who try to break their addictions and change their way of living will meet resistance from “friends” and sometimes even family or co-workers when they try to change their habits and accustomed ways of doing things, and needless to say they will also have to confront their own inner demons. On the other hand, sometimes the resistance we meet in others is not because we are cultivating a more liberated, wholesome, and compassionate way of living but because we are acting out in ways that are needlessly provocative, arrogant, belligerent, and/or paranoid and mistaking that for taking a revolutionary or prophetic stance for everyone’s good. We must be very wary of the view that resistance automatically proves we are right or that we are expiating karma. Sometimes it can be proof that we are on the wrong track, that we are hardening our ego instead of realizing selfless compassion, and actually sowing the seeds of conflict rather than harmony due to our belligerent self-righteousness.