Sometimes we have to get mad when we chant!
Lions ROAR! Lions ROAR!
When we are chanting we are chanting to our own life, and sometimes we have to chant with the feeling
"Life! Enough is enough! I am changing this karma NOW."
We are all noble Boddhisatvas of the earth. In The Heart of the Lotus Sutra, Daisaku Ikeda writes:
When we do gongyo "we are in effect vowing to advance kosen-rufu in accord with the spirit of the original Buddha. Every day we pledge to the Daishonin, "Without fail, I will believe in and spread the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin and help lead all people to enlightenment." page 150
And to fulfill this vow, we have to win in our lives.
Each of us has some negative tendency that happens over and over, don't we? For me, I struggled for years with a feeling that would just overcome me, and wash over me like a wave. Out of nowhere I would feel unloved, unlovable and hopeless. The voices in my head were penetrating and awful!
And when I got this feeling sometimes I would think it was real...that I really was unloved and hopeless, and then I'd pick up the phone to call Kate (my dear friend in faith) and she would remind me that this was my fundamental darkness arising once again. This feeling was a function of the fundamental darkness within my life and within all of life, and this was AGAIN my time to summon up the power of my faith.
That's why I say be FUELED BY YOUR OBSTACLES, not FOOLED BY THEM!
"Get MAD at the shoten zenjin!" Kate would say. Shoten Zenjin are the protective forces that counterbalance fundamental darkness. We use our practice to increase the shoten zenjin and banish fundamental darkness.
And I would generate some angry energy, roar like a lion and use this PowerPrayer inspired by Kate:
PowerPrayer to say,
"No More! Enough is enough!”
I am chanting with
absolute conviction in the power of my life to declare and demand:
No more of this karma
of feeling insecure and doubting myself.
No more of this karma
of being abused or disrespected by anyone or any thing!
No more doubting my own Buddha Nature!
No more living in fear!
No more feeling unloved or hopeless.
No more ________________ (you fill in the blank.)
I don't CARE how many times I have to chant about this. I don't CARE how many times you try to bring me down.
I MUST Win because I am a votary of the Lotus Sutra. I am living my life to prove that chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo works and to help others become happy.
I will win!!!
I am the Buddha.
I am roaring with power in my life!
I now determine with all the power vested in me that I will___________________________.
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