At any moment we can have a change of heart that totally changes our destiny. In Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism there is no karma that cannot be changed, no poison that cannot be turned into medicine. We can all change our karma starting from this very moment. NOW.
Three Steps to Changing Our Karma Forever:
1. First - we need to make the deep, deep determination in our hearts that we CAN and WILL change our karma, and that we deserve to be happy.
We are all Buddhas. Every single one of us!
It's important to stop trying to figure out WHY we have the karma (or suffering)...or blaming anyone or anything for it. Most of all we have to stop blaming ourselves. When we blame ourselves we are just slandering our lives. It is another thing to wallow in the blame and uncertainty of it. We practice Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism - we have the Hon-nin-myo spirit..."From this moment forth" we can change our lives!
2. Next we VOW to change our karma, not just for ourselves, but for all who are also suffering. When we tie our happiness to the happiness of others our prayer is much more powerful! We are living the life of the Buddha.
3. We can then chant to root the cause of the karma out of our lives FOREVER, and to replace it with our brilliant, shining, sparkling self. At the core of all of our lives is our shining, diamond-like Buddha nature. Much of our suffering stems from our disbelief that we are the Buddha. That is why it is so important to chant as I talked about in yesterday's post. We must reawaken to how great we are. When we chant in this manner, study the works of Daisaku Ikeda and Nichiren Daishonin and help others to the best of our ability we will definitely win in life.
As Sensei says:
"To be concerned only with one's own happiness is egoism. To claim you care only about the happiness of others is hypocrisy. Genuine happiness is becoming happy together with others. Josei Toda said: "Just becoming happy oneself—there's nothing difficult to that. It's easy. Helping others become happy is the foundation of our faith." - Daisaku Ikeda
"Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is like fire. When you burn the firewood of earthly desires, then the fire of happiness - that is, of enlightenment - burns brightly. Sufferings thus become the raw material for constructing happiness. For someone who does not have faith in the Mystic Law, sufferings may be only sufferings. But for a person with strong faith in the Mystic Law, sufferings function to enable him or her to become happier still." ~ SGI President Daisaku Ikeda ~ Learning From the Gosho: The Eternal Teachings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 91.
