Good

He gets me out to meet new people,
He urges me
to chant and study
He

makes me think about eternity

"What is Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo?"

"What is a correct way of life?"
"What is a true patriot?"
"What is Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo?"

A young Daisaku Ikeda posed these questions to Josei Toda on Aug. 14, 1947. It was their first encounter. In a hoarse voice, his eyes framed by thick glasses, Toda responded to each of the young man's questions with sincere and straightforward clarity. The 19-year-old Daisaku was moved by the frank and honest responses he received. The venue was a Soka Gakkai discussion meeting.

In the aftermath of war, the young man was disillusioned with the empty ideals his generation had grown up with. He overflowed with questions about life. He was earnestly searching for a philosophy he could live by and a mentor from whom he could learn."




-From World Tribune, July 27, 2007, pg. 7 -

Freedom of Religion

". . . People feared and worshipped the great power of nature. Sensing the existence of a destiny they were powerless to change through their own efforts, they prayed to their gods for their lot to improve. From such prayer religion was born. Prayer was not born of religion; rather, religion was born of prayer . . ."



- Excerpted from Daisaku Ikeda's "The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra Volume IV", pg. 152 -

Who

I was at FNCC
For the Arts Conference.
Sheilah was there -
Giving every last ounce of her life
For the sake of encouraging the members.

I overheard her
As I passed a conference room
She was asking,
"Who can't you forgive?"

Come To Savor

"Life proceeds along a path, though it is invisible. There is definitely a path for human beings that leads to absolute happiness - the path of the Mystic Law. If we continue to advance along this road without abandoning our faith, we will definitely come to savor a state of life in which all our desires are fulfilled both spiritually and materially."





(SGI President Daisaku Ikeda's Addresses in the United States, pg. 82)

Zip

"The moment you resolve to be victorious, every nerve and fiber in your being immediately orient themselves toward your success."

-Daisaku Ikeda-

"Is it too much to demand?
I want a full house and a rock and roll band."

-Lucinda Williams-

What you

"What you wish for another, you get for yourself."
-Anonymous-

Push

"You will pass through storms and heavy rains and at times you may suffer defeat. The essence of the creative life, however, is not to give up in the face of defeat, but to follow the rainbow that exists in your heart. Creativeness means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway to life. This is not an easy struggle. Opening the door to your own life is, in the end, more difficult than opening the door to the mysteries of the universe. At the same time it makes life worth living for you. To be human is not merely to stand erect and manifest intelligence or knowledge. The fight to create a new life is a truly wonderful thing. In it you find for the first time a wisdom that causes your intelligence to shine. I myself think of this creative life as a human revolution. This human revolution is your mission now as it will be throughout your lives."

-Daisaku Ikeda-

Dialogue Brings

"Dialogue brings brilliance to our lives and melts the frozen regions in our hearts.

Dialogue brings gentle breezes that lift away the clouds of distrust and strife.

The rainbow of peace radiates over the broad sky of truthful and friendly dialogue."


-Daisaku Ikeda-

Net

"Suspended above the palace of Indra, the Buddhist god who symbolizes the natural forces that protect and nurture life, is an enormous net. A brilliant jewel is attached to each of the knots in the net. Each jewel contains and reflects the image of all the other jewels in the net, which sparkles in the magnificence of its totality.

When we learn to recognize what Thoreau refers to as "the infinite extent of our relations", we can trace the strands of mutually supportive life, and discover there the glittering jewels of our global neighbors. Buddhism seeks to cultivate wisdom grounded in this kind of empathetic resonance with all forms of life."

Excerpted from :
SGI PRESIDENT DAISAKU IKEDA'S ADDRESSES IN THE UNITED STATES, pg. 64

Arrow

Excerpted From a speech by Daiskau Ikeda: Mahayana Buddhism and Twenty-first-Century Civilization--Harvard University, US, 1993




"Premised on the above, I would like to discuss three specific areas in which I feel the outlook and approach of Mahayana Buddhism can contribute to the civilization of the twenty-first century.

The first is as a driving force for the creation of a peaceful society.

Since its inception, the philosophy of Buddhism has been associated with peace and pacifism. This derives principally, I feel, from Buddhism's consistent rejection of violence, its constant emphasis on dialogue, discussion and language as means of resolving conflict. Karl Jaspers astutely attributes the great sadness of Shakyamuni's disciples on his approaching death as deriving from a fear that "the word will have lost its master." [4] One sutra describes Shakyamuni as meeting others with joy, approaching them with a bright and welcoming countenance. [5] The life of Shakyamuni was one completely untrammeled by dogma, a life of open dialogue expressive of his openness of spirit.

Significantly, the sutra describing the travels that are the culmination of Shakyamuni's Buddhist practice at the ripe age of eighty begins with an episode in which he uses the power of language to avert a war of invasion. [6] According to the sutra, Shakyamuni did not directly admonish the minister of Maghada, a large country bent on realizing its aims of hegemony through the conquest of the neighboring state of Vajji. Rather, he persuasively expounded upon the principles by which nations prosper and decline, thus dissuading the minister from the planned invasion.

The final chapter of this same sutra concludes with a moving description of Shakyamuni on his deathbed, repeatedly urging his disciples to ask any question they might have about the Buddhist Law (Dharma) or its practice, so that they would not find themselves regretting unasked questions after his passing. To his final moment, Shakyamuni actively sought out dialogue, and the drama of his final voyage from beginning to end is illuminated by the light of language, skillfully wielded by one who was truly a "master of words."

Why was Shakyamuni able to employ language with such freedom and to such effect? What made him such a peerless master of dialogue? At essence, it was the embracing expansiveness of his enlightened state, utterly free of all dogma, prejudice and attachment. The following words, attributed to him, are illustrative: "I perceived a single, invisible arrow piercing the hearts of the people." [7] This "arrow" could be termed the arrow of a discriminatory consciousness, an unreasoning emphasis on difference. The India of his time was in a period of transition and upheaval, in which the horrors of conflict and war were an ever-present reality. To Shakyamuni's penetrating gaze, it was clear that the underlying cause of this conflict was attachment to differences such as those of ethnicity and nationality.

Speaking in the early years of this century, Josiah Royce, one of many important philosophers Harvard has given the world, declared as follows: "Reform, in such matters, must come, if at all, from within ... The public as a whole is whatever the processes that occur, for good or evil, in individual minds, may determine." [8].

Indeed, the "invisible arrow" of evil to be overcome is not to be found in races and classes external to ourselves, but embedded in our own heart. The conquest of our own prejudicial thinking, our own attachment to difference, is the guiding principle for open dialogue, the essential condition for the establishment of peace and universal respect for human rights. It was his own complete release from prejudice that enabled Shakyamuni to expound the Law with such freedom, adapting his style of teaching to the character and capacity of his interlocutor.

Whether mediating a communal dispute over water-rights, converting a violent criminal, or admonishing one who objected to the practice of begging for alms, the quality we find throughout Shakyamuni's dialogues is the effort to make others aware of the " arrow" of their inner evil. It was the power of his extraordinary character that brought these words to the lips of one contemporaneous sovereign: "Those whom we, with weapons, cannot force to surrender, you subdue unarmed." [9].

Only through overcoming attachment to difference can a religion rise above an essentially tribal outlook to offer a global faith. When, for example, Nichiren dismisses the Japanese Shogunate authorities who were persecuting him as the "rulers of this little island country" [10] it is clear that his vision was directed toward a world religion embodying universal values, transcending the confines of a single state.

It should also be noted that dialogue is not limited to the kind of placid exchanges that might be likened to the wafting of a spring breeze. There are times when, to break the grip arrogance has on another, speech must be like the breath of fire. It was the occasional ferocity of their speech that earned Shakyamuni and Nagarjuna, whom we typically associate only with mildness, the sobriquet of "those who deny everything," [11] from the powers-that-be of their respective eras.

Likewise, Nichiren, who demonstrated a familial affection and tender concern for the common people, was uncompromising in his confrontations with corrupt and degenerate authority. Always unarmed in the inveterately violent Japan of his time, he relied exclusively and unflinchingly on the power of persuasion and nonviolence. The following passage, written when he was exiled to a distant island from which none were expected to return alive, typifies his lionesque tone. Whether tempted with the promise of absolute power if he renounced his faith, or threatened with the beheading of his parents if he adhered to his beliefs, he vowed that "whatever obstacles I might encounter, so long as men of wisdom do not prove my teachings to be false, I will never yield! [12].

Nichiren's faith in the power of language can only be termed adamantine. If more people were to resolve to pursue dialogue in this same unrelenting manner, the inevitable contentions of human life would surely find more harmonious resolution, prejudice would yield to empathy, war and conflict to peace. Through the workings of genuine dialogue, opposing perspectives are transformed from that which divides and sunders people into that which forges deeper union between them.

During World War II, the Soka Gakkai challenged head-on the forces of Japanese militarism. As a result, many members, beginning with founder and first president Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, were imprisoned. There, far from recanting, Makiguchi continued to explain to his guards and interrogators the principles of Buddhism--the very thoughts which made him a "thought criminal." He died in prison at age seventy-three.

Heir to Makiguchi's spiritual legacy, second president Josei Toda emerged from the ordeal of a two-year imprisonment and, declaring his faith in the global human family, engaged in widespread dialogue among the common people, suffering and lost in the aftermath of the war. President Toda also bequeathed to us, his youthful disciples, the mission of building a world free of nuclear weapons.

With this as our historical and philosophical basis, the Soka Gakkai International is at present engaged in activities for peace, education and culture, forging bonds of solidarity with citizens in one hundred fifteen countries and regions worldwide. For my own part, I am committed to continuing my efforts to engage in dialogue with people of good will throughout the world, in order to contribute in some small way to the greater happiness of humankind."

Vow

Born in response
To your call -

I plant seeds,
Protect people,
My vow.


-Bethany Wild-

United States

"If we attain the state of Buddhahood in this lifetime, that state will forever pervade our lives. Throughout the cycle of birth and death, in each new lifetime, we are endowed with good health, wealth and intelligence, along with a supportive, comfortable environment, and lead lives that overflow with good fortune. Each of us will also possess a unique mission and be born in an appropriate form to fulfill it."

-Daisaku Ikeda-

Ride

Lime green Kawasaki
Losing fuel-
On its side;

Mystic message-
Omen to me.
"Get up again!
Ride."


-Bethany Wild-

Poem for Buster

For Buster Williams

Brown beautiful hands
open like hope-
and restore my heart.

Spaces in your fingers
spring forth and sing-
"I am forbearance".

Trees who offer to serve
your wonderful sound-
rejoice constantly.

-Bethany Wild-

Mothers

"A mother's love is unimaginably deep and her influence profound. If all people treasured their mothers, the world would undoubtedly be filled with peace and happiness."

-Daisaku Ikeda-

Sword

Start again
Renew my goals
And fight

Wayne once told me,
"Probe the depths of the music,
Walk the path of integrity,
Courageously interact."

And so today
I start over-
Raise my sword;
Cut right through.

-Bethany Wild-

DBR

"Even if someone is close by
their heart may be distant.
But if someone is far away
if there is a heart to heart bond
they could not be closer.
The heart is what counts.
In the world of the heart, there is no separation.
Chanting daimoku erases distance."

-Daisaku Ikeda-

A little more from Alex

The Poetic Spirit

". . . The eyes of a poet discover in each person a unique and irreplaceable humanity. While arrogant intellect seeks to control and manipulate the world, the poetic spirit bows with reverence before its mysteries.

Human beings are each a microcosm. Living here on Earth, we breathe the rhythms of a universe that extends infinitely above us. When resonant harmonies arise between this vast outer cosmos and the inner human cosmos, poetry is born.

At one time, perhaps, all people were poets, in intimate dialogue with Nature. In Japan, the Manyoshu collection comprised poems written by people of all classes. And almost half of the poems are marked "poet unknown."

These poems were not written to leave behind a name. Poems and songs penned as an unstoppable outpouring of the heart take on a life of their own. They transcend the limits of nationality and time as they pass from person to person, from one heart to another.

The poetic spirit can be found in any human endeavor. It may be vibrantly active in the heart of a scientist engaged in research in the awed pursuit of truth. When the spirit of poetry lives within us, even objects do not appear as mere things; our eyes are trained on an inner spiritual reality. A flower is not just a flower. The moon is no mere clump of matter floating in the skies. Our gaze fixed on a flower or the moon, we intuitively perceive the unfathomable bonds that link us to the world.

In this sense, children are poets by nature, by birth. Treasuring and nurturing their poetic hearts, enabling them to grow, will also lead adults into realms of fresh discovery. We do not, after all, exist simply to fulfill desires. Real happiness is not found in more possessions, but through a deepening harmony with the world.

The poetic spirit has the power to "retune" and reconnect a discordant, divided world. True poets stand firm, confronting life's conflicts and complexities. Harm done to anyone, anywhere, causes agony in the poet's heart.

A poet is one who offers people words of courage and hope, seeking the perspective--one step deeper, one step higher--that makes tangible the enduring spiritual realities of our lives.

The apartheid system of racial segregation was a grave crime against humanity. In resisting and combating this evil, the keen sword of words played an important role.

Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali is a South African poet who fought against the iniquities of apartheid with poetry as his weapon. He writes: "Poetry reawakens and reinforces our real, innermost strength; our spirituality. It is the force that makes us decent people, people who are filled with empathy for those in need or pain, those suffering from injustice and other wrongs or societal ills." Nelson Mandela read Mtshali's poems in prison, drawing from them energy to continue his struggles.

The Brazilian poet Thiago de Mello, lauded as the protector of the Amazon, also endured oppression at the hands of the military government. On the wall of the cell in which he was imprisoned, he found a poem inscribed by a previous inmate: "It is dark, but I sing because I know the dawn will come." They were words from one of his own poems.

Amid the chaos and spiritual void that followed Japan's defeat in World War II, like many young people of my generation, I gained untold encouragement from reading Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." The overflowing freedom of his soul struck me like a bolt of empathetic lightning.

Now more than ever, we need the thunderous, rousing voice of poetry. We need the poet's impassioned songs of peace, of the shared and mutually supportive existence of all things. We need to reawaken the poetic spirit within us, the youthful, vital energy and wisdom that enable us to live to the fullest. We must all be poets.

An ancient Japanese poet wrote, "Poems arise as ten thousand leaves of language from the seeds of people's hearts."

Our planet is scarred and damaged, its life-systems threatened with collapse. We must shade and protect Earth with "leaves of language" arising from the depths of life. Modern civilization will be healthy only when the poetic spirit regains its rightful place."


[SGI President Daisaku Ikeda's opinion editorial published in The Japan Times newspaper on October 12, 2006.]

Jump the Song

Unity

"Our fellow members are all family with whom we are linked by deep bonds. If we support and protect this family, they will act as protective forces in our environment, supporting and keeping us from harm in lifetime after lifetime. This is a profound principle of Buddhism." (April 23, "For Today And Tomorrow")

"The crucial element is to ensure that any struggle against evil is rooted firmly in a consciousness of the unity of the human family, something only gained through the mastery of our own inner contradictions." (pg. 20, SGI Quarterly April 2007)

-Daisaku Ikeda-

Desires

I recently spoke with a woman who told me about her experiences as a sleep walker.
Once, her husband woke up to find her trying to go out the front door.

After that, they moved all the furniture in the bedroom. This new arrangement made it impossible for her to get out of bed without climbing over her husband, waking him up.

I asked her if she was still having the sleep walking episodes, and she said "No".
She and her husband divorced. The sleep walking stopped.

-Bethany Wild-

From A Message

Two sentences from President Ikeda's message to the members of the East Territory:

"The important thing is to defeat any cowardice or weakness in your own mind. It is always your mind, and not the mind of the other person, that is being put to the test."


-Daisaku Ikeda -
July 1, 2007

Question

I wonder about the principle
Of taking upon oneself the suffering of others.
Does the creation of unity depend on this?
What choice is there?

Is it possible that to refuse
Is to remain imprisoned in the same of one's own?

Isn't this the point in Buddhism that means "practice"?

To continue to return;
To restore one's own humanity
With the process of bravely opening oneself to others
And their anguish?

Feeling it
Willingly -
Becoming strong enough
To transform it
Together.

-Bethany Wild-

FAITH # 11

From President Ikeda
Faith #11

"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. Believe in yourself! Don't sell yourself short! Devaluing yourself is contrary to Buddhism, because it denigrates the Buddha state of being within you.

Prayer is the effort to align the gears of our life with the movement of the universe. Our lives that have been passively embraced by the universe, now embrace the universe in turn, make the universe our ally, and fundamentally redirect our state of life in the direction of happiness.

As Burns wrote, "a man's a man" - and prayer is the key that opens door after door to the full potential within each individual."

Daisaku Ikeda

This is a photo of Daisaku Ikeda. So much to learn from him. Here are segments from one of his books called, "Treasures of the Heart". (pgs 71,72)

"Any person, even the worst villain, inherently has the spirit of a Bodhisattva, and moreover, the spirit of a Buddha. With regard to this point, the Lotus Sutra relates the parable of the jewel hidden in the robe:

Once upon a time there lived a man who had, as a friend, a rich public servant. One day the man called on his rich friend, who entertained him with food and wine. He became completely inebriated and fell asleep. The rich friend, however, suddenly had to set out on a journey involving urgent public business. He wanted to give his friend a priceless jewel which had the mystic power to fulfill any desire. But his friend was fast asleep. Finding no other alternative, he sewed the gem into the hem of his sleeping friend's robe. The man awoke to find his friend gone, totally unaware of the jewel his friend had given him. Before long, he allowed himself to sink into poverty, wandering through many countries and experiencing many hardships. After a long time, now reduced to sheer want, he met his old friend. The rich man, surprised at his condition, told him about the gift he had given him, and the man learned for the first time that he had possessed the priceless jewel all along.

This is an allegory told by Shakyamuni Buddha's disciples as they reflect upon their ignorance in forgetting to develop the supreme life-condition of Buddhahood and being satisfied with lower states of life. . . ."


" . . . Even adults come to hate each other vehemently for trivial reasons. Yesterday they were good friends or neighbors, and today they are bitter enemies. Never considering which is true - what the other person was yesterday or what he is today - they emotionally criticize one another. When one calls another bad names, the other returns in kind. Totally unaware of the existence of the "supreme jewel", they basely exchange harsh words and hurt one another. These emotional collisions take place far more often than one might imagine.

The fact that one cannot see the "supreme jewel" in another means that one cannot recognize it in himself either. I firmly believe, therefore, that we should all fix our attention on this point."

Lake

Higgins Lake.
Northern Michigan.

Vast,
Open,
Clean.

Strengthen belief.
My prayers will never go unanswered.

Begin from here.


-Bethany Wild-

True Happiness

"To be dragged around by other people or the environment is not the way of life the Lotus Sutra teaches. True happiness is not feeling happiness one moment and misery the next. Rather, overcoming the tendency to blame our sufferings on others or on the environment enables us to greatly expand our state of life. . . ."


-Daisaku Ikeda-

[Excerpted from the series "Learning From the Gosho,
the Eternal Teachings of Nichiren Daishonin", pg.237]

Fighting Spirit

To fight against:

Loss of conviction
Lack of spirit of responsibility
Failure to challenge self unceasingly
Laziness, complacency
Failure to chant with powerful resolve to triumph
Failure to impart confidence and conviction
Loss of sight of the need to have a fighting spirit

and to win . . .
I must keep heart and spirit, passion and resolve in sync with my mentor, Daisaku Ikeda.

Must pray powerfully

"as though to produce fire from damp wood
or to obtain water from parched ground." - Nichiren Daishonin -

To my Sensei

The first time I saw you
Eleven years ago,
The chorus sang New York, New York.
I sat in the front row.

I wore the hat
And sought your eyes
When we sang the second song
To the tune of 'Dulcinea'.

After, you came over,
Said, "Get up!"
And I hesitated.

That night
I dreamed -
And sped through galaxies,
Lights like jewels.



Last night
July 3rd -
Mystic day of mentor and disciple,
Again in the front row,

I wore my hat (A new one).

We all chanted together -
Grand Ceremony in the Air!

And after,
I got up
To lead the song -

New York, New York!


-Bethany Wild-

Reconfigure

I especially love this quote from Daisaku Ikeda - it's from his Peace Proposal for 2007. (SGI is an NGO of The United Nations).

The title is "The Challenge of Nuclear Disarmament", and he is speaking of the bold declaration for the abolishment of nuclear weapons made by his mentor, Josei Toda.

"He was calling for the steady and painstaking work of correctly repositioning and reconfiguring the function of anger in an inner world where wisdom and harmony prevail."

Isn't it great? This idea of inner reconfiguration as a daily(momentary)work?

I'm trying to practice it more than ever now. I want the one with the deeper vow, the one with the truest identity to be firmly established at the front and center of my inner life.

I'm so glad to have a mentor, and many friends in SGI, who show me that this can be done.

Strive

Dialogue On The Lotus Sutra #41

Those Who Practice With a Spirit of Endurance Are Buddhas


Ikeda: The Buddha goes to the place where people are suffering the most - to the saha world. A real Buddha shares everyone's sufferings. Anything short of this is not the genuine article. Is a priest automatically respectable? No, definitely not. Does being a politician or a celebrity make someone great? Certainly not. Nor does having a high position in our organization. Commendable are those who exert themselves alongside the people facing the most hardship. Members on the forefront of the women's division who pray for the happiness of all and work tirelessly to spread the Daishonin's teaching, sometimes even over the chiding and opposition of their husbands and the bad-mouthing of others, are truly great. That spirit to endure is what we mean when we say "Buddha." . . .

. . . Even after he had attained the Way, Shakyamuni continued to carry out the actions of a bodhisattva to spread the great Law to which he had awakened. While boundlessly rejoicing in the awareness of the eternity of life that filled his being, he took action to spread that Law to others. This is what is meant by a "bodhisattva-Buddha." That's why Mr. Toda said that this revelation turned Buddhism on its head. The essential point is that even after attaining enlightenment, Shakyamuni continued to exist as a human being. The Lotus Sutra thus appeals: "Restore your humanity!" - Daisaku Ikeda -