Friday, December 28, 2012

When it's Hard to Chant...

Sometimes it is difficult to chant. 
It happens to me too. Sometimes I sit in front of my Gohonzon and I keep getting distracted, or I feel unconnected to my prayer, or I feel defeated and hopeless or tired. 
This is natural. We all experience doubt and negativity  from time to time. Life is full of ebbs and flows and highs and lows. How can we chant when we feel this way? What prayer will impact our lives? 

Here in Chicago we have beautiful snow falling this morning, and I am thinking of you all, and chanting for you to not give up hope, and to keep going no matter what. 

I am chanting to appreciate my life and to love myself. I truly believe that if each of us really loved ourselves and cherished our own hearts we could make an even bigger difference in the lives of others and in our own happiness. I am chanting to raise my life condition and to be happy this moment. 

On this full moon and snowy day I am saying:

Chant to experience love for yourself and recognize your own Buddha nature and Buddha self. Chant to appreciate your own loving heart. Chant to raise your life condition so that you can see and feel how wonderful YOU are. 

We are each so precious. We need to summon the knowledge and feeling from within ourselves of how precious, how loving, how wonderful we all are. 

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for your post; been feeling quite distracted this week and stressed. My monkey mind kept trying to take me downswtream with it while I chanted the last two days, but last night was wonderful, by gently brining myself back to focusing on vocalizing NMRK I finally felt that focus and calm that I lost over the Xmas holidays. This is also a great time to chant -- the moon was so bright last night, appeared so intimately close, could feel the vibrating energy from her and from earth! Thank you again and looking forward to 2013 and your wonderful encouraging posts! Much love from CA!

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  2. hi, i am from Inda. i am into this practice since last 3 months . My husband has regurgitation in his aortic valve and only open heart surgery is recommended when he will become symtomatic. No medicine is their to cure this. i planned for a second child and had miscarriage .Planning again but not able to concieve.i am very stressed out. i wanted to know how to chant for my husband problem. This year was devastating for me and i am not happy. I am chanting for 1 hour but feels very mechanical. how to improve my practice.

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