Our reading and reciting is a solemn practice, one that carries great significance. We are not who we may think we are when we engage in this seemingly simple practice. We are no longer the mere mortal living a mundane life. Our voices are carried throughout the entire universal Dharma realm, our thoughts are also spread to the farthest edge of the limitless universe, as contradictory as that may seem. They are our offerings we carry to all the entities, all the beings, all the energies throughout space and time. We are in fact creating a cascade of Dharma-influenced causes that reverberate outward from us, and inward toward us. Just as we send the Dharma nourishment to the beings of time and space, that same nourishment imprints on our own lives the Ultimate Truth of the Buddha, causing us to manifest all the rewards and benefits of the Lotus Sutra.

Our actions upon the environment become actions on ourselves as well. These thoughts should be the thoughts that occupy our minds as we engage in our devotions of reading and reciting the sutra. Our sitting or kneeling, our prostrations, our bowing, our bell ringing, our water offering, our incense burning, our book opening, the turning of the pages, our shifting in place as our joints ache, our singing of the hymns, our reading and reciting the sutra and chanting the sacred title are all priceless offerings we give to all sentient beings and to the Three Treasures of Buddha Dharma, and Sangha. We are not merely common mortals sitting in a simple room with a small box shrine housing a yellowing scroll or dented Buddha statue and reading in a scratchy voice. All of that is transformed into the grandest castle housing a gold-plated shrine wherein is housed a scroll written in gold, silver and platinum characters as we lift up the sutra with the voice of an operatic singer.

You and your place of practice are not merely transformed. No, they are truly revealed. Your place is revealed as the Buddha’s Pure Land it has always been. You are revealed as a Buddha you have always been.

These are the mysteries for us to contemplate as we engage in the solemn yet joyful practice of reading and reciting the sutra in our daily practice.

This doesn’t wear out. You can’t use it all up. In fact, the more you do it the more abundant it becomes. Your dedication of merit to others does not reduce your merit. Your Buddha’s Pure Land and your own enlightenment grow and expand as your practice continues to grow and deepen.