Through faith and study, as we cultivate our Buddhist practice, we strive for understanding, insight, wisdom, respect for all life, compassion, humility, vigour, courage, confidence, strength, joy, patience, tranquillity, security and satisfaction, along with the power to truly help others. These are just some of the qualities we strive to gain and manifest through our sincere daily practice and study of Buddhism.
Odaimoku: The Significance Of Chanting Namu Myoho Renge KyoQuotes
Learning How to Use the Knowledge of Buddhism in Our Lives
Learning the facts of wisdom of life is as important as learning the facts of life. It is not enough to know what words mean; it is important to know how to use the words. It isn’t sufficient to learn numbers but to learn how to employ the numbers. It is true in everything. We learn the facts, but we need to learn how to use those facts in skillful ways, in productive ways, in ways that enhance not only our lives but also the lives of others.
In Buddhism it helps to learn as much as we can. In that way we are better prepared, as the Sutra says, to answer questions skillfully, to answer not only the questions of others but our own questions as well. Yet, perhaps as important if not possible more so is the requirement that we learn how to use the knowledge of Buddhism in our lives in both practical and useful ways. In other words, to bring the wisdom of the Buddha into existence in our life.
Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1Penance
Metanoia from the Greek simply means to change one’s mind. It also means a spiritual conversion. While penance is associated with it in its more Christian interpretation, that would not be the case and not possible from a purely Buddhist perspective. In our individual lives we have made causes that we regret. If we are to seek forgiveness, it must come from the person impacted by those causes, and not some deity or force outside ourselves. We may even have cause to regret actions we have made against the environment, but again it is there that we should make efforts of repair. Learning to understand how our causes affect not only ourselves but others is part of taking the good medicine and making meaning.
Physician's Good MedicineThe Holy See of the Catholic Church of Buddhism
As we have had repeated occasion to note, Nichiren associated every step of his life with some feature of the Scripture, and especially regarded his life in Sado as the chief part, the climax, of his life. Now the last stage was to be inaugurated, and dedicated to the consummation of his mission and to the perpetuation of his religion, just as the last twelve chapters of the Scripture made up the consummation of the Truth. He had proclaimed the Sacred Title at the outset of his ministry; he had furnished the object of worship and spiritual introspection by the graphic representation of the Supreme Being; one thing alone remained — to prepare for, or establish, the central seat of his religion. These three instruments of his propaganda were called the ” Three Mysteries.” Although there are some allusions to them in his writings before this time, Nichiren proclaimed this trinity for the first time in the first essay written after his retirement. This treatise is dated the twenty-fourth of the fifth month (June 24) — just a week after his arrival at Minobu. The great plan which he had long been meditating, and the motive which led him to retire from the present world, and to work for the future, was the establishment of the “Kaidan,” or the Holy See of the Catholic Church of Buddhism.
Nichiren, The Buddhist ProphetThe Most Fearful Thing
The Lotus Sutra teaches us, “See it as it is, accept it as it is” without any prejudice, discrimination, or ideas based on stereotypes. Terrorism was not caused by a demon or a god. It was caused by a human being. Human history records the killing of many innocent people, and the destruction of irretrievable things. Someone once asked, “What is the most fearful thing on this earth? A ghost, devil, demon, earthquake or a disaster?” No, it is a human being. They destroy everything, even themselves.
Spring WritingsThe Potential in Yourself
Even if you are not sure of the truth or the reality of Buddhahood inherent in your life, if you chant Odaimoku, Namu-myoho-renge-kyo, if you carry out the practice and study of the Lotus Sutra, it is possible to awaken within you that spark which will allow you to see the reality of your own enlightened nature. Just as the arhats thought it not possible and so they chose not to try, and just as this son in the Parable of the Rich Man and His Poor Son did not in the beginning think he was worthy of staying in the house, eventually through the compassion of the Buddha and the compassion of the father each of those people were able to elevate their life conditions to enable them to see a potential in themselves they had not seen before.
Lecture on the Lotus SutraCompassionate Buddhists
In Mahayana Buddhism, compassion for others is considered to be just as important as attaining wisdom. In fact, wisdom and compassion are considered to be inseparable aspects of the Buddha’s awakening, like two sides of the same coin. Mahayana Buddhism insists that the Buddha’s true intention is for us to follow the way of the Bodhisattva, who voluntarily postpones his or her Nirvana in order to help all sentient beings achieve awakening.
Lotus SeedsWhy We Chant
Chanting the Odaimoku in Nichiren Shu is done to become closer to the Buddha and Nichiren Shonin. We chant to grow in spirituality, faith, character, and in understanding. We chant so that we may develop an enlightened and pure quality of life, just as that of the Buddha himself. We strive to identify and eliminate within our own lives the negative forces and tendencies that wreck havoc on our happiness and of those around us, such as greed, anger, egocentrism, arrogance, jealousy, impatience, worry, a complaining nature, ignorance and others. These destructive elements only bring about suffering to ourselves and to all those around us.
Odaimoku: The Significance Of Chanting Namu Myoho Renge KyoA Way to End Suffering
To those walking their path of suffering and who become tired or discouraged the teachings of the Buddha offer a way out, a way to continue, a way to end the suffering. We only need to embrace the teachings of the Buddha.
Lotus Path: Practicing the Lotus Sutra Volume 1An Endless Stream of Causes and Effects
One understanding of making meaning of such [past] events is the realization that life is more than random events with no connection backward or forward. Our lives – and this is a fundamental teaching of Buddhism – are an endless stream of causes and effects stemming from past causes and effects and moving forward to future causes and effects. Beginning to understand our present, we make choices as to how we proceed into the future.
Physician's Good Medicine