I received a letter from a reader this morning. 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?
How can we establish and maintain 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)
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! You change your karma, embrace your challenges and win over any challenge you face. You get what you want and so much more.
4 Dynamic ways
to establish a consistent practice
1. Determine that you want to use this practice to the best of your ability! 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. 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.
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.
An 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 - 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.
The following is a passage from "Lectures on On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime" by Daisaku Ikeda (p. 48-49)
If you want to share this passage please email a link to chantforhappiness.com, or share chantforhappiness.com on facebook. The links are at the botton of the post. Thanks!
"Our daily lives are filled
with an endless succession of problems.
But with the firm belief
that our lives are Myoho-renge-kyo
we should strive
to boldly challenge everything
with the unwavering conviction
that we can overcome all hardships
and become happy without fail.
When we maintain deep faith
based on the foundation that "I am Myoho-renge-kyo"
we can take on any problem with courage.
The key to victory in life
lies in whether we can bring forth courage.
Not a shrinking timidity
but a challenging courage -
that is what we need to have.
Irrespective of the obstacles we may encounter
in the course of our practice,
we must not retreat even a single step.
We must not be alarmed or startled by them.
The power of the Mystic Law (Myoho-renge-kyo)
can triumph over anything.
It is important to be deeply confident of this.
...The Daishonin says: "Nichiren's disciples
cannot accomplish anything if they are cowardly."
(WND-I, pg 481)
In accord with these words,
let us cast aside cowardice
and make courage our foremost attribute."
Daisaku Ikeda
Faith and Attitude - Part 1
Written by By SGI-UK Advisor Mitsuhiro Kaneda, UK Express March 2000
(Reprinted from the Facebook Page, The Power of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo)
Today I’d like to talk to you about how to make your prayers as effective as possible.
Firstly, it is very important to set clear goals. If you are sick, your goal will be to get better as quickly as possible; if you have problems with human relationships, you will want to get over these as soon as possible; and if you have financial difficulties, then of course you should be setting goals accordingly.
Once you have decided on the goal, the most important thing to do next is make a strong determination: ‘Whatever happens, I absolutely will attain that goal’. A firm determination like this is very important. The next stage, of course, is prayer. And after chanting daimoku, the next step necessary is to take action in order to realize your goal. Of course, after we’ve done all that, we know what the effect will be: actual proof. If we do not achieve the goal we have set then, in certain cases, we may need to review the determination, set a new goal, and once again strive to achieve it.
Why we need to pray:
There are three reasons why we should pray. Firstly, so we can have the same wisdom as the Buddha. Secondly, so that we can have life-force, in other words the energy, the courage, to take action. Thirdly, so that we can benefit from the protection of the shoten zenjin, the Buddhist ‘gods’, the protective functions within the universe.
One point I’d like to make sure that you really understand, is that the shoten zenjin only start to take action and protect us when we ourselves undertake action. So, in order for us to achieve a goal, we need to act. We need to move. We need to make efforts. And it is important that our actions and our efforts are the best we can possibly undertake. To ensure that our actions and efforts are efficient, we need wisdom. Furthermore, if we are to attain the goal we have set ourselves, we need to make constant efforts – and we also need courage.
So we pray to the Gohonzon to have the wisdom to take the best, most efficient action possible; to have the life-force to make constant efforts; and to attract the protection of the shoten zenjin when we take an action. However, even if we chant ever so hard, it will be very difficult to boil that pot of spaghetti unless we take action. And to make sure that we not only boil the spaghetti, but that it is al dente, we need wisdom and we need experience.
Quality of prayer
The quality of our prayer is also extremely important. For example, someone who is sick may simply pray to overcome their illness. Or they may pray to regain their health in order to fight for kosen rufu. There is a very big difference between these two types of prayer.
To take another example, suppose there’s a couple who have been unable to have children, despite trying for a long time. While they may be chanting to have a child as soon as possible, what are their reasons for wanting a child? Are their reasons purely personal, because it would make them happy, because they want to have children? Or are they chanting to have a child do that they can bring this child up to become someone who will be a capable person for kosen rufu? There is a huge difference between these two in terms of quality of prayer.
The reason it is very important for us to focus on the quality of our prayer is that President Ikeda has said that true and sincere prayers for kosen rufu (not prayers aimed simply at justifying our own point of view) will be answered without fail.
To be continued in the next post
Written by By SGI-UK Advisor Mitsuhiro Kaneda, UK Express March 2000
September is the time of new beginnings. It's back to school time, back to business time, back to life time. It is a time for each of us to re-envision our lives, our outcomes, our dreams. It is the time for each of us to create the plan for our lives, and re-set our determinations towards November 18th.
It is important not just to chant, but also to take action. Today I am setting my list of action items, and I just chanted 2 hours for the wisdom to make them happen.
This weekend we attended the World Peace Prayer meeting in downtown Chicago. One of the speakers said he chanted all year just for Kosen Rufu...that has been his prayer. He has lost 60 pounds and accomplished many of his goals. He said that within the prayer for Kosen Rufu is the prayer for everything your heart desires. Within the prayer for shakubuku is embedded the prayer for everything you want for yourself and others.
This morning I was chanting for each one of you to tap into exactly what you want...and to draw the power of the Gohonzon from within your life more powerfully than you ever have before. All of us have such potential for world peace, for our own happiness, and to create brilliant shining lives in those around us.
Today, September 3rd I am chanting or peace on earth, for Kosen Rufu, and the Universal Prayer for the Happiness of all.
I hope you are persevering with your Worldwide Million Daimoku Campaign, and welcoming every storm that comes your way. I hope you are standing up to what is unacceptable in your life and vowing to change it once and for all ~ for your own sake ~ for the sake of your family and for all who will come after you.
We are the proud and strong Soka Gakkai Buddhists making a stand for happiness with the power within our own lives. Be proud. Be strong. Tap into the vast reservoir of power within your own life and banish fear forever from your life! We stand together!
As Soka Gakkai members who base their lives on the mystic law, we are changing ourselves, and the world, through our prayers, and I know, we all know, that some prayers are just harder to manifest, right? And they seem to be different things for different people. Some people fall in love and marry their soulmate and are happy for life...others search and search and chant and chant and still have to persevere to find the love of their lives. Some are born healthy and stay healthy and others fight for their health over and over...some have great careers...you get the picture.
But it all comes down to one thing, our karma.
If we really do persevere, and TELL our lives what we want we will eventually achieve it.
My co-leader Kathy was out of work for over a year, then she got a job that did not turn out to be the right job for her and she was laid off again. This time she said -
"No way! I am changing this karma forever and I will find the job that I deserve so that I can encourage others for Kosen Rufu"
- and she began chanting 3 hours a day.
She only had to do that for a few months and now she has a job where she feels really appreciated and she's learning all kinds of new things.
If we want to succeed we have to dig in and wrestle our karma to the ground. It's August 2nd, what new determination can you create within your life for you?
What does it mean to be an outstanding disciple?
Many of us have heard of the Mentor Disciple Relationship and we understand it in different ways. How can it help you to become happy and infuse your life with meaning? Can the Mentor Disciple relationship do this?
Well, the answer for me is yes, but it takes focus and concentration. And Work. And a Vow. All the things it takes to develop the mentor disciple relationship are also the things that give life meaning and bring happiness.
First I'll share a quote from Faith in Action about Mr. Toda and Mr. Makiguchi. I've been thinking about them all week, and just marveling about having the kind of conviction that you are willing to go to JAIL for your beliefs in order to inspire those in the future, and really make a difference in the world. This takes extraordinary guts and conviction.
Here is President Ikeda's quote:
"When Mr. Toda was released from prison, the Soka Gakkai was left with only a handful of members. Even before the war, the membership had stood at only about 3,000. The organization's presence in Japanese society was, therefore, minuscule. Nevertheless, Mr. Toda characterized President Makiguchi as "a great man of global stature." And he encouraged us to be aware that we are disciples of this outstanding individual. Nobility is the mark of a true disciple. And Mr. Toda was an example of an exceptional disciple."
Daisaku Ikeda, Faith in Action, page 231
In my opinion the mentor disciple relationship is self generated. It doesn't just happen, you have to search for it, understand it and internalize it. And when you do gain the understanding you do become proud and noble, and your faith becomes like the fly on the tail of the horse...
Okay, if the mentor disciple relationship needs to be generated from the disciple ~ how do you do it?
For me, it starts with study. I read President Ikeda's words every single day. And I chant about what I read. I also chant to see with Daisaku Ikeda's eyes, to chant with the same conviction her has. I literally chant to have my daimoku be as strong and as far reaching as his...for my daimoku itself to become 10,000 times stronger, and develop my faith that much deeper. I chant to share his heart for humankind and kosen-rufu. I chant to develop as wise a life.
I don't "worship" him, I aim to emulate and understand his heart. And this has had a profound effect on my faith, my happiness and my life. I chant for my every action to make him proud, and for all the words I write to resonate - and be the words he might say too.
And I am so grateful I was born at this time, with him, and with YOU, so we can carry out kosen rufu together!
