Daily Encouragement: Quotes From my Buddhist Mentor
A daily dose of wisdom
An awareness and understanding of death raises our state of life. When we are cognizant of the reality and inevitability of death, we begin to seek the eternal, and become determined to make the most valuable use of each moment of life.
— Daisaku Ikeda (from Quotations by Daisaku Ikeda)
As I am in the final third of my lifespan, I think about the inevitability of death drawing closer. I am chanting to leave behind a legacy for those who follow. Since I have no children, my legacy will look different than others whose heritage continues in their family tree.
That’s one of the reasons I write. I can create a record of the culmination of my learnings, thoughts, dreams, ideas, realizations, and creative efforts. Something that might exist beyond my current lifespan.
The Buddhist scriptures were first compiled orally since writing was not in common use in the Buddha’s time in India. The sutras of Buddhism are documentary proof, like the Bible in Christianity, and follow the same paradigm, in that they are understood as the authentic words of the sage Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha, 563–483BCE). These sutras were memorized by one of his closest disciples in a pattern, and later committed to writing to preserve his vision. It is said that the 80,000+ sutras, or teachings of the Buddha, came from the recording of all the thoughts, dreams, and teachings of the Buddha.
Nichiren Daishonin, a monk in Japan in the 1200s, traveled from monastery to monastery to study the different Buddhist teachings since each place had a different collection. At age 8 he had determined to become “the wisest person in Japan” in order to alleviate the sufferings of people. At that time there were floods, epidemics, corruption in the government, and the threat of the Mongols invading. Sifting through the scattering of documents, he discovered the thread that was all but lost in the confusion — the Lotus Sutra.
This Sutra was taught by the Buddha in the final eight years of his life. Within it, the Buddha made it clear that all other teachings were preparation, like the scaffolding erected to support building a structure. He was now revealing his final and ultimate teaching. From this, Nichiren devised a practice that anyone can use to produce their own enlightenment — the chanting of Nam Myoho Rengo Kyo. He was a radical and vilified by the establishment. He had acquired some powerful enemies who wanted him dead. In a dramatic turn of events, he was captured and taken in the middle of the night to the beach at Tatsunokuchi to be beheaded. Just as the soldiers had raised their swords, a comet swooped through the sky lighting up the night as if it was daytime. (History records this as the great comet of 1264) The soldiers took it as an omen and were too frightened to carry out the sentence. Nichiren was then banished to a remote island with nothing to sustain him. He was expected to languish and die. (which he survived). The government and the powerful Buddhist sects were in collusion to line their pockets with parishioners’ money. They saw Nichiren as a threat to their power and pocketbooks since he was teaching that a person does not need a priest to intercede for them with a higher deity. He was demonstrating that by chanting the daimoku, you can manifest your own Buddha nature from within yourself.
My chanting continues, and I share my thoughts with you dear readers. I will be chanting for your happiness as we all continue on our respective journeys. Keep writing and keep the faith!
