Guidance from Sensei on Becoming the most Capable and Valuable Person in Your Profession

Guidance from Vice President Hasagawa at the FNCC Arts Division Conference May 13, 2000.

Becoming a Capable and Valuable Person in your Profession

In Japan,high school baseball is more popular than professional baseball. Everyone follows it. During the school year, there are many tournaments and at the end of the year

there is a national tournament between the top high school teams from throughout Japan. This occurs in Tokyo's major sports arena. Everyone in Japan knows the teams and the players and follows very closely. Ten years ago, the Soka High School team made it to this final tournament in Tokyo.

They lost in the first game, but it was still a great victory since only the best of the best make it that far.

On this team, the best player was a left-handed pitcher. He was graduating from Soka High School and was the #l draft pick of a professional baseball team, so he would not be back the next year. The coach of the team reported to Sensei, "Our ace pitcher was drafted and is gone. We are not as strong as we were; I believe our capability is lower, but we will chant and become a greater and more capable team."

Sensei said, "You are wrong. You should have enough capability to win without having to go back and chant. Become capable and then your daimoku will be a wind behind your capability. If you are relying on daimoku to make it happen rather than on your own capability then you are just using faith like a superstition. You should practice and, therefore, become capable.

The team which becomes most capable will be the one which practices and works the hardest and has the most perseverance. Capability is very important because it requires constant courage and training, but if your capability counts only 50% and then you base the other 50% on daimoku to the Gohonzon to bring it about "somehow," then your religion has become a crutch for you. Religion is not there to hide your shortcomings, but to strengthen you as human beings."

In the Lotus Sutra, reference is made many times to "drums and trumpets," which accompany other actions. What it means is that the drums and trumpets are supportive of the other actions, or are the encouragement of the actions. For our purpose, the "drums and trumpets'' represent the encouragement, which comes from within our life to reinforce our life condition. In other words our "drums and trumpets" is our daimoku in this effort. It is like a breeze, which pushes us forward. For example, the capability or talent, which you wish to develop, is like your constructing a magnificent sailing ship, a tall-masted schooner with many sails. 

You have to construct the best ship in the world, with the most solid framework, the strongest masts and the fullest sails. When you have constructed this sailing ship, your daimoku becomes the strong wind, which propels your sailing ship forward.