Sensei’s guidance on planning

I gathered some guidance awhile ago in the hopes that my district would start having planning meetings that were more than a few minutes at the end of another meeting. Someone once told me that it is important not to pick and choose which of Sensei’s guidance we follow, for this is not the path of the Oneness of Mentor and Disciple, without which achieving kosen rufu will be difficult if not impossible. I hope this is useful and encouraging!

 

What is the driving force towards achieving kosen-rufu in our local community? It is our district planning meetings. For the sake of the prosperity and flourishing of our villages and towns and the happiness and victory of everyone in them, let’s advance by bringing together all of our wisdom! (11/25/13 Daily Encouragement)

Our district planning meetings are the very wellspring of our wisdom and the source of our unity. Using fresh and original ideas and our ingenuity, let’s create a surge from the very forefront of our movement. Remember, each and every one of us has such an important role to play towards kosen-rufu! (9/27/10 Daily Encouragement)

The advancement of kosen-rufu originates from what goes on at our local district planning meeting. With us all being of one mind in contributing to the prosperity of our local community, let’s begin a brand new drama of victory! (8/20/10 Daily Encouragement)

Even seemingly small matters are often very important. Being careless or thoughtless is only an expression of our arrogance. Both a lack of planning and inadequate preparation comes from being overly confident. Be it at work or in any of our SGI activities, let’s make absolutely sure to be well prepared for whatever we are about to undertake. (12/21/09 Daily Encouragement)

The local district/area planning meeting is the very source of our unity and wisdom for activities! By setting clear and specific goals, with united minds and hearts, let’s make a fresh start towards achieving new victories! (5/22/06 Daily Encouragement)

Thorough planning and good communication is the key to our achieving victory! (3/4/16 Daily Encouragement)

We can’t accomplish anything by just proceeding aimlessly, without careful planning. (2/24/14 Daily Encouragement)

Society is a place of unceasing change. Let’s lead the times with fresh, new ideas, flexible, adaptive planning, and bold, courageous actions! (5/28/15 Daily Encouragement)

Faith – a poem by sensei

FAITH – By Daisaku Ikeda

Because I have faith, I am capable of comprehending life, eternal and mysterious.

Because I have faith, amid the ugly struggle for survival, I can stride, maintaining purity,
through a victorious life.

Because I have faith, amid humanity bound by iron chains and imprisoned in the burning house, I can walk, in peace and tranquility,
through a life of freedom.

Because I have faith, I can grasp life as the reality of eternity, happiness, true self and purity, and not illusory dreams born of transient phenomena.

Because I have faith, even in a society filled with contradictions and irrationality, I can advance boldly, confident in the law of cause and effect.

Because I have faith, I will not be moved even in the least by huge waves, for I have boarded the great ship of eternity.

Because I have faith, I can experience value, major good and vital life force, and the happiness of human revolution.

-from a Youthful Diary, p. 75

Tiny daily choices

I woke up this morning at 4 am from nightmares and couldn’t get back to sleep. I did a few things around the house, avoiding making a decision. I was feeling emotionally awful and really just wanted to watch TV. As enjoyably distracting as it would be, I knew in the long run it would make me even worse. To feel better in the core of my life, I knew I needed to chant. But I really really REALLY didn’t want to. It’s so strange – TV makes me feel better in the short term, but worse in the long term; chanting makes me feel worse in the (very) short term, but tons better in the long term.

I had a sense of standing at a crossroads. I had two choices in front of me, and I had a pretty good idea where the roads led, since I had been here many times. It seems like a tiny decision – watch TV or chant. It would only be for a small amount of my day, so what did it matter? Yet, I knew it mattered profoundly.

It is the tiny daily choices in life, each moment to moment to moment, that add up to large results. There is a reason Nichiren says that if we slacken our resolve for even a moment that devils and demons (negative functions) will take advantage. Or as another member once told me, like riding a bicycle, I can only be coasting when heading downhill.

Today, I made the choice to strengthen my life condition. I can’t say I feel great, but I definitely feel less awful, which I am profoundly grateful for! 

Tacking Against the Wind

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Haven’t chanted much last few days and really feeling it. Then I saw this. I love this so much! Faith first, then my mind will work in ways that are from the highest world and create benefits, instead of the usual workings of my mind which just reinforce my karma. And “take advantage of change”! So amazing! It doesn’t matter what happens because with faith and wisdom, I can harness any change to create benefits, like a sailor tacking against the wind. Chanting to not be blown over by the wind, but tack instead so it still fills my sails and moves me forward! 💨⛵ 

Guidance on Illness

I have serious long term illness and some days are harder than others! This guidance from Daisaku Ikeda has really helped me keep going, and challenging myself to “laugh off the devil of illness” and raise my life condition as the best cause I can make to promote my healing and contribute to kosen rufu. 

Subscribing to publications is a fantastic powerful cause for our lives! This was in the September 2015 issue of Living Buddhism magazine. 

The power of study

My heart was feeling small and afraid, a deep sense of dread in my body. I went to Gohonzon and as I was chanting, I had the idea to look up some study quotes on prayer from Buddhism. ​It is amazing what a little study and a little daimoku will do! I found these great quotes from Daisaku Ikeda and felt my heart lifting! It is so amazing!! When ever I study, I feel his life (or the Daishonin’s life) condition flowing into me, making me stronger! I am the mugwart and ivy, they are the hemp and pine!1

Prayer is the courage to persevere. It is the struggle to overcome our own weakness and lack of confidence in ourselves. It is the act of impressing in the very depths of our being the conviction that we can change the situation without fail.

Prayer is the way to destroy all fear. It is the way to banish sorrow, the way to light a torch of hope. It is the revolution that rewrites the scenario of our destiny.

Prayer is an attempt to merge the inner workings of our life with the rhythm of the universe. When we pray in such a way, all the workings of the universe will function to protect us and the endless cycle of painful reality will be transformed into a cycle of victory and happiness. 

Prayer is the key to open the door to unleash that infinite human potential within our lives.

Prayer is not a feeble consolation; it is a powerful, unyielding conviction. And prayer must become manifest in action. To put it another way, if our prayers are in earnest, they will definitely give rise to action.

Prayer entails an intense challenge to believe in yourself and stop diminishing yourself. To belittle yourself is to disparage Buddhism and the Buddha within your life.

1 – “You have associated with a friend in the orchid room and have become as straight as mugwort growing among hemp.” (“A friend in the orchid room” indicates a person of virtue. The implication is that the company of a virtuous person works as a good influence, just as one is imbued with fragrance on entering a room filled with orchids. It is said that mugwort supported by hemp plants grows upright.) 

“the green ivy that twines around the tall pine can grow to a thousand feet.” 

Fierce daimoku first

​Chanting fiercely for the protective forces to activate and for this intense “opportunity” happening now to be siezed full force and all this poison to be turned into medicine, for great and bountiful benefits that couldn’t come about any other way to come flowing forth! For everybody, from protester to President to standers by, to feel my daimoku resonating inside them and, like the caged bird in the Gosho, their Buddha nature to naturally respond and guide them. For my local community to take concrete and specific action to further kosen rufu and protect the people. For my life condition to be in Buddhahood and for the environment to reflect _that_. To find the joy, even in this! Boddhisatvas of the Earth emerge dancing! Another name of the Buddha is One Who Can Endure, but endures with fierce joy and fighting for kosen rufu! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Great blog post about pain management clinic experience / pacing yourself #chroniclife

http://www.sarahinwonderland.co.uk/2015/08/week-one-RNOH.html?m=1

Questions from today’s #SokaChat

I am hosting a live #SokaChat on twitter every Saturday at 9am, PST. Here are the questions from today:

Questions from today’s #SokaChat

From the live twitter chat, #SokaChat