11 Tips for Terrific Tosos (How to Chant Joyfully for Longer Times)

Sometimes SGI Buddhists like to chant for longer times. No one has to do this, or is expected to chant a toso. But sometimes we just want to! No one will ever judge you if you don't want to join in, but we will support you if you do. 
A group of us are gathering at my house to chant from 5:00 until 8:00 tomorrow evening. Wonderful! 

When I first began chanting a leader told me our lives and our karma can be compared to a glass with dirt at the bottom. The dirt represents the karma that exists inside our lives. She said when you start to chant you stir up that dirt and see it swirling around...and if you want to really dig deep and clear it out, you might want to chant a Daimoku Toso (chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo for an hour or longer) and to set a goal with specific time targets to chant per day...to do a Million Daimoku Campaign we call it. 

A reader requested I share some ideas about chanting joyfully, and with concentration - especially since so many of you are challenging yourselves to chant for longer periods of time. Thank you for asking.

Please do not copy and paste the 11 Powerful Tips. Please share by sending the chantforhappiness.com url or using the share buttons at the bottom of the post. Thank you! Jamie

11 Powerful tips:
How to Joyfully Chant for Longer Times.
Toso Power! 
From Chantforhappiness.com by Jamie Lee Silver

1. Realize that what you are about to do...chanting longer than usual ~ doing a Daimoku Toso (The word "Toso" is usually used for chanting periods of one hour or longer)  - has profound significance for your life. Give yourself credit for this worthy goal.  

2. Write your goal or goals. (Some of these goals may occur to you naturally as you're chanting) Write yourself a Power Prayer (fresh determination) connected to the greater good...to the real difference you want to make in the world. 

Remember that you are a precious votary of the Lotus Sutra and when you break through, the energy is forever changed. You are paving the way for others to break through ~ Your Happiness is IMPORTANT! 

So address that in your goals and in your chanting For example: 

"I am determined to have the most beautiful, loving relationship so that I can totally inspire other people that great relationships are possible ...I can show actual proof with my life, and be able to introduce others to this practice!" 

President Ikeda's guidance says you can chant to have 10,000 times more power in your prayer. So I usually dedicate some time to chanting to increase the power of my daimoku by 10,000 times! 

3. Have your favorite drinks close by...tea...water...soft drinks...whatever you like. 

4. DEMAND your results! YOU are the Buddha! Do not beg favors from a 'higher power." Remember the Gohonzon cannot get down off the scroll and do the Buddha's work in the world. YOU actually are the Gohonzon; it is inside your life. The scroll is a reflection of the highest life condition that exists within your own life. So when you are chanting CLAIM what is yours! Yes, the Gohonzon consists of the functions in the universe that are in our lives. Tell your life what you want. 

5. All change comes from within. Take responsibility for your life...not blame. Realize whatever you are going through, whatever is causing you to chant...it's your karma..not your FAULT. Chant to reach the very core of that karma and root it out forever. THEN your life circumstances and environment will change to reflect it. You don't have to figure out the deeper cause, don't worry about getting it right. Chanting is experiential, not an intellectual exercise.  

6. Keep your favorite study material close by...whatever touches your heart when you read it. And if you find yourself losing focus open it up to any page you want. I have "For Today and Tomorrow" next to me right now. I just opened it for you right now...I read "When we chant sonorous daimoku, the sun rises in our hearts. We are filled with power. Compassion wells forth. Our lives are lit with joy. Our wisdom shines. All Buddhas and Buddhist deities throughout the universe go to work on our behalf. Life becomes exhilarating." Read your passage and get right back to chanting!!!

7. Invite others to chant with you!

8. Have pen and paper handy. You'll want to write down those brilliant ideas that come into your mind while you're chanting. You'll also want to write down some of those pesky thoughts and reminders that keep coming back...things like "remember to buy dog food." Just write it down and eject it from your brain so you can focus on what really matters.

9. Put your telephone away. Tell people you are busy. 

10. After you chant write in your journal. Write to me too. I love to hear your successes and your challenges. I will only share your victories with your permission! Write me at Chantforhappiness.@gmail.com. 

11. Some obstacles might arise after your toso. And just say "Hello obstacles! I was expecting you!" When you take on the mission to change your karma for yourself and others you can compare it to turning your speedboat to HIGH. The faster you go, the more resistance you feel. 

Above all - Don't give up! You CAN change your problems into benefits. You ARE the Buddha! 

I am chanting for you to accomplish your goals and shine with happiness. 

If you are using the PowerPrayers please let me know how they are working for you! Email me at chantforhappiness@gmail.com

I'd love to hear from those of you who have connected to the SGI through my blog!
I am sharing your stories with Daisaku Ikeda, Sensei.

Email me at chantforhappiness@gmail.com 

PowerPrayer for a Harmonious Family

PowerPrayer for a harmonious Family
By JamieLee Silver
From ChantforHappiness.com and the upcoming book:
PowerPrayers for Chanting Your Way to Absolute Happiness and Success

As Nichiren buddhist, we know that wars begin and end within our own hearts. and I know from personal experience that we sometimes turn against the ones we love when we are really stressed and challenged. But we know, we really know, that the answer lies in our determination to create a harmonious family, and to change our own, and our family's karma with our determined Daimoku. (Chanting of nam-myoho-renge-kyo). 

Daisaku Ikeda states: 

A person who respects others is respected by others in return. Those who treat others with compassion and concern are protected and supported by others. Our environment is essentially a reflection of ourselves.
From Ikedaquotes.org

Daimoku can change ANYTHING. It can change inharmonious relationships, and give us the courage and wisdom we need to make changes in our lives. 

With that in mind, I offer you the PowerPrayer for a Harmonious Family. Usually we read PowerPrayers before chanting so that we can keep our determinations and prayers fresh in our minds while sonorously chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, the title of the Lotus Sutra and the name of the rhythm of life itself. Chanting allows us to tap into the vast resources our lives already possess, raise our life conditions and become absolutely happy...possessing the type of happiness that is not swayed by daily changes in our lives.  Chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the most powerful cause we can make for our lives. 

That's it! 

The following PowerPrayer is an excerpt from the upcoming book PowerPrayers for Chanting Your Way to Absolute Happiness and Success by Jamie Lee Silver and Julia Landis 
Please do not copy and past the PowerPrayer. You can share it by emailing the url chantforhappiness.com or using the sharing buttons at the bottom of the post. Thanks! 

PowerPrayer for a Harmonious Family

Life!

I am Nam-myoho-renge-kyo!

I have the power to chant happiness and harmony for my whole family

With every daimoku I am picturing us happy

I am erasing years of karma with every Nam-myoho-renge-kyo

With every Daimoku I am summoning appreciation for my loved ones. I appreciate them more and more. 

For every fault, sickness, sadness, problem I see in my family ~

I chant to change this in MYSELF so that the karma of the whole family is changed! 

I am chanting happiness and harmony into my family

My prayer is enough!

I will not give up

I am tearing every bit of karma that makes any of my family members suffer - I am tearing that karma out by the roots. 

My family will never be the same. 

I will not give up!

I will have a happy family that will shine as a beacon of hope to all who are suffering. 

My chanting gives me the wisdom to communicate with composure and compassion. 

I am the Buddha!

I chant specifically for these outcomes:______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3 Benefits of Consistent Practice, and 4 Dynamic Tips to Make it Easier!

I received a letter from a reader recently. She wrote that she chants consistently for one week, and then stops chanting for a week and her anxiety and depression immediately comes back. Every other week she forces herself to chant again, and then stops. This is a very difficult way to practice. It is much easier to establish a twice a day practice and stick with it. But how do we do this? And what are the benefits if we accomplish a consistent practice? 

How can we reinforce our determination to practice twice a day every day, strengthen our lives and create unshakable benefit? 

3 Benefits of Consistent Practice 
(Doing morning and evening gongyo and chanting daimoku consistently)
By Jamie Lee Silver of Chantforhappiness.com I share this as a fellow practicing SGI Nichiren Buddhist

1. It's easier. Once you establish the practice you just greet your life twice a day in front of the Gohonzon without having to force yourself to do it. It just becomes part of your life. 

2. Benefits flow more consistently, 

3. It WORKS! We change your karma, embrace our challenges and win over any challenges we face. We get what you want and so much more. I like to think of all my problems as a great wall in front of me. When my practice is consistent I rise higher and higher in life condition and look down on that wall - it has now become a tiny little thing. Nothing is impossible! The only way to experience this is to chant consistently. 

As Daisaku Ikeda says:

"A stone wall that seems infinitely high when seen from the ground, is no more than a slightly raised boundary line when viewed from an airplane. Similarly (by earnestly chanting), if your life-condition changes for the better, so will the way you view and respond to things. You'll find yourself surmounting every adversity with composure and thoroughly enjoying the drama of life."

New Human Revolution, Volume 7, page 103

4 Dynamic ways 
to establish a consistent practice

1. Determine that you want to use this practice to the best of your ability and STUDY. Remake your list of what you want in your life. Read the Gosho or President Ikeda's guidance every day. Chant to understand the magnificence OF your life WITH your life! Chanting consistently means winning the battle over your lesser self. Make your list of determinations and goals. What have you decided is impossible in your life? We chant to make the impossible possible. Why no really go for it? 

2. Embrace your friends in the SGI. (You can click on the SGI Portal to the right to find your local SGI, if you're not connected yet. Remember there are no dues or rules or priests. The SGI is an organization of people working together for their own happiness and the sake of others.) 

3. Establish a "Chanting Buddy" to chant with you.
Our friends in the SGI are our friends in faith. When I was first chanting 28 years ago my mentor came to my house every morning for a few weeks to help me generate Activation Energy for my practice. Today I still have several chanting buddies, and Oh! How it helps! 

4. Establish a Tele-Toso Chanting Buddy
If you can't chant together in person you can do it by telephone, or by text. Just establish a time and contact each other before and after. If you want, you can keep the telephone connection while you chant. (It's better if one person turns the volume down.) Or you can just call or text before and after. 

A Dynamic Experience in Chanting Consistently: 

Chanting consistently must be experienced to be understood. 
My dear "Baby Buddha" (the nickname she chose for herself) heard me tell her for two years to chant every morning and evening, and she replied that she doesn't do ANYTHING consistently and wasn't going to do this. No way. I kept chanting for her and inviting her to chant. And one day, she just made the decision to try chanting twice a day to see how it felt. She couldn't believe how different she felt. She also realized a deep desire and began to chant for it to happen. Now she lives in Colorado - and loves it! - she got what she was chanting for! THIS is why we practice. Our desires are worth chanting for! 

You may have other ways of creating and maintaining your consistent practice. Please share them with me and I'll share them with the other readers of this blog. Email me at chantforhappiness.com with your ideas, questions, suggestions, victories and challenges. 

4 Tips for Strengthening Your Muscle of Appreciation!

A reader requested I write a blog giving tips for generating more gratitude and appreciation in her life. 

Daisaku Ikeda writes in Faith into Action, page 7 (under Appreciation)
"To "enjoy what there is to enjoy" means to cause the "mystic lotus of the heart" to blossom brightly with a sense of appreciation and joy. Someone who can find joy, who can feel appreciation, experiences a snowballing exhilaration and joy in life. Such is the heart's function."

So here you go. Thanks so much for writing in! 

4 Tips for More Appreciation in Your Life! 

Gratitude is attitude. It starts with YOU. It is a muscle you can build. And once you build it....ahhh the benefits that begin to flow! 

Tip #1
Before you get out of bed think about ten things you are grateful for that very day. They can be ANYTHING. You can be grateful for sight, hearing, feeling. You can be grateful to be alive...grateful to have woken up! Lie there and think of ten things. I've mentioned before that when my Mom was feeling depressed I gave her this tip and everyday after that she did this, and her depression lifted. She always told me it was this one action that changed her life. 

Tip #2
SMILE! 
Smiling is a cause not an affect. 
The more you smile, 
the more reasons you will have to smile!
Make your smile light your day. 

I like to think of the song by Carol King:

You've got to get up every morning

And show the world

All the love in your heart!

When you smile you physically create a happiness hormone in your body. There have been studies done recently about this. Also, when you smile at another person, they automatically feel better...their brain registers happiness even if they do not smile back at you. Isn't that cool? Smile! 

Tip #3
Write a Rampage of Appreciation
Take a notebook and put titles as the top of each page. Titles could be:
My body
My work
My relationship with _______
My parents
My children
My home
My car
My self
My practice
My________
...and on an on...you get the idea. 

Then list all the things you ARE grateful for under each heading...or all the things you COULD BE grateful for. 

I promise you that you will feel happier after doing this! 

4. Chant in Gratitude
While chanting  ~ generate these feelings of gratitude and happiness. Your gratitude will amplify and spread.

What do you do to build the muscle of appreciation into your life? Write me at chantforhappiness@gmail.com

Tip of the Day for Outstanding Gongyo/Outstanding Life!

Gongyo Tip of the Day!

Daisaku Ikeda writes in For Today and Tomorrow, page 81:

"Gongyo and chanting daimoku are like starting an automobile's engine every day and driving in the direction of happiness and truth. By doing so day after day, you will gradually attain perfect unity with the universe and the law. That state is the state of the Buddha."

Perfect unity with the universe and the law!

For me, this translates into wisdom, ~ the wisdom to know what action to take at every moment that will create the most value in my life and others ~ based on my own strong prayer through chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and reciting the Lotus Sutra every day, twice a day (gongyo!). 

To develop and hone this wisdom I am challenging myself to do a perfect Gongyo twice a day...using my focus and concentration during this sacred act to bring about even more rhythm, results, happiness and success in my daily life. I know Gongyo and Daimoku is where it starts. I've known this since the early days of my practice when I worked so hard at gongyo and saw the rest of my life begin to flow more easily in the direction of my desires. 

As always, I write as a practitioner of the law, an enthusiastic SGI member, practicing since 1985. My views do not represent the SGI in an official capacity - they are from my heart to inspire. 

Tip of the day for perfecting Gongyo:
from Jamie Lee Silver of Chantforhappiness.com. 

Read the Silent Prayers over and over until you feel them. When you finish reading each prayer ask yourself "Did I feel it? Did I actually send forth that prayer? Did I feel it?", and if you didn't, keep reading it until you do. Take a moment to rephrase it in your own heart if you need to. FEEL it. PRAY it. Don't just read the words. 
It may take longer, but for many of us, our daily practice is a solo act. 
Of course, if we are chanting with others, and following a leader, we will adjust our timing to be in perfect rhythm with that leader, and not linger on the silent prayers. But we can also focus on feeling the prayer at that time. Just more quickly! Feel each one! 

This morning's gongyo took real focus. I had vivid dreams last night. (I usually do when it's a full moon). This morning I had to read the first prayer to the Shoten Zenjin over and over and over because the dream was sticking stubbornly in my mind. I kept asking myself "Did I FEEL that silent prayer? Am I really praying to the Shoten Zenjin or am I just reading words and "getting it done"? 

So I went over that prayer many times. And it felt good. When I finally really prayed to the Shoten Zenjin I also felt as if I had blessed this Gongyo...I felt as if the Shoten Zenjin inside my life were now awakened for THIS Gongyo to be THE Gongyo that would help me break through in all areas of my life. Living in the moment. Being aware. This is what the word "mind-full-ness" really means, isn't it? 

And when I got to the end of Gongyo, before the silent prayers, I had the urge to get up and do something before I read the silent prayers and I realized once more how powerful it is to resist that urge, and to STICK to my determination to begin and end every Gongyo with full concentration and no interruptions. I completed the silent prayers before getting up. 

As far as results for the week - well it has been a great week! I had excellent and heartwarming results at work...I made interesting new friends...I had many laughs at the zoo with my son Ben, and I'm returning my car to its original beauty (huge impossible thing for me!).  This weekend I am looking forward to Dahn Yoga, an art fair, and moving forward on the book this weekend.

How is gongyo going for you? 

3 Gongyo Tips from Morag in the UK

Continuing on the theme of perfecting our Gongyo and breaking though in our lives, I offer you this guest post from my dear friend and reader - Morag in the UK:

I recently posted an essay by Ted Morino regarding Gongyo - Morag comments on what she got from reading the post: 

At the end of the guidance from Ted Morino, he says: 

Positive thoughts, 
Strong prayer and 
Clear daimoku.  

If you look at the Gohonzon, the central NMRK , the top character looks like a plus + sign (positivity), the myo looks like a swept off heart sign (strong faith and prayer from the heart) and I look to Nichiren's signature for the strong daimoku to always remind myself of the buddha life state and that it applies TO ME!

After reading Ted's guidance I took down all the extraneous prayers, lowered my Butsudan, de-cluttered the altar and had a thorough clean at the same time.  I know it made a difference.

Much love and gratitude to you for your guidance and encouragement.                       Morag  xx

Thank you Morag! 

Great Gongyo = Immediate Great Results!

This looks like my car!

Creating financial benefits through donations is not a new concept. I first learned about it through the great Unity Minister Catherine ponder in her many books on the power of the word and the power of tithing. Giving away a portion of earnings seems to be a widely knows spiritual principle. As of this May contribution campaign I decided I would donate a percentage of my income after every paycheck. 

As you know, the SGI is a unique organization. There are no dues to pay and no suggested amounts. But some of us choose to show our appreciation for this practice through financial contributions...knowing that making this financial cause also creates a profound financial cause in our lives. I am not telling anyone to donate, or presenting the SGI as any kind of pay-for-benefit organization. That's not the way it works. Donations come from the heart. I just live my life to be an example that the impossible is possible! 

Last week after I got my paycheck I computed the portion to donate and immediately went to the SGI website and sent it. Then I began perfecting Gongyo as I mentioned in the previous posts. I now read each silent prayer until I feel it in my heart, and I start and complete Gongyo with NO interruptions (if I get interrupted I start again). I'm also chanting as much Daimoku as I can!  

All I can say is the benefits are coming and they keep on coming!

As we all know, some things are harder for some people. One of my challenges has had to do with my car. I have the sweetest car, a white Acura that my wise Stepmom Janis originally bought in 2001. It has a sun roof, a great radio, and is super reliable. I've loved this sweet little car since the day I bought it from her in 2007. It marked the day I went from a mini-van to a coup. I entered a new phase of my life. 

After 2007 I went through some challenging times, had a few anxiety attacks, and put messed up the front bumper pretty badly. The anxiety attacks are gone now...but the bumper has looked bad ever since. Fixing it has been a daunting financial challenge. Suddenly, with my new financial determination and the new way I'm concentrating on Gongyo - Boom - tomorrow or Saturday I will leave the shop with a brand new car. 

Without going into details I will just say that this came about through a bunch of things happening in the right way at the right time - and here I am - in rhythm with what I really desire. And it was easy. It had a few bumps that were really humorous too.  The estimator called and told me it would be more than he'd thought and I got so upset I locked my keys in the car with the trunk open. I actually had to crawl into the trunk to get my car unlocked....laughing all the while. And when I told the estimator what had happened (still laughing - I never got mad) he brought the price down, then my Dad and Jan offered to help with the cost!  And I have a replacement car to drive while the car is in the shop (that, of course, was one of the reasons I hadn't gotten it fixed a while ago)

So once again I see actual proof of this practice. Even something as hard for me as a car repair can "magically" happen. (I know, some people find this easy...but for me it was almost impossible) But we all know it's not magic. It's a result that has a cause. It starts every day...every single day...with morning Gongyo and fresh determinations! 

If I can make the impossible possible so can you!