Another Awesome Benefit!

I remembered to get a shot of the sun to show you on Saturday!


This is the second time in my life I have influenced the weather.


I know, I know, it sounds impossible, but I'm going to tell you about it anyway.


The first time was on my wedding day.
December 20th 1987.
We woke up in Oakbrook Illinois and it was so overcast that the clouds were hanging so low that we felt we could touch them. It was a cold, cloudy and ugly day.
My good friend Etjen, who was in my wedding,  joined me and Paul and we chanted for an hour and a half and the sun came out and every single cloud went away. I even had a friend say "Jamie, I KNEW you couldn't be married on a cloudy day!"


Well, this Saturday, the day of Aaron's graduation from the University of illinois,  I looked up the weather for the weekend. Rainy...thunderstorms...not very many clouds...they didn't cover a wide expanse, but there was no wind to blow them away. They were predicted to make things awful all weekend. At least that's what it said on the weather app on my iphone. 


Well, I thought...just the challenge for this votary of the Lotus Sutra!


I chanted sincerely with full concentration for an hour and 15 minutes for the wind to blow the clouds away. I chanted by all the power vested in me as an honorable votary of the Lotus Sutra, just like Nichiren Daishonin, just like YOU. And I could feel my prayer working. I mean it!


And we had two beautiful days. No rain, perfect weather. We spent most of the weekend outside, walking around U of I's quad with Aaron and Ben and every other beautifully dressed family and graduate. It just would not have been the same in the rain!


Remember, Daimoku is for the impossible!! Make it happen!

Great Picture, and a New Financial Benefit!

 

Jumping into their future! 

My son Aaron and his friend Katie on their beloved quad 

at the University of Illinois.

A here's two very recent experiences I think you are going to love~!


You know it is true that you can chant for anything. Anything. 
My constant prayer day and night, (and even when I am not in front of my Gohonzon I have this prayer in my heart)...is that all the people who are suffering, hopeless and searching will find out about Nam Myoho Renge Kyo and have the opportunity to experience the power of chanting. My prayer is actually to END suffering in this world...through my transformation, my example, my prayer and my heart. THAT is my constant prayer...to experience my life as the Buddha, being the Buddha, doing the work of the Buddha...as so many of us are! 


AND, along the way there are things I need to accomplish that. I must be happy. I must be financially self-sufficient. I must build upon the foundation of fortune in my life to be healthy and able to attract what I need when I need it.


So ~
Tomorrow Aaron and I embark on "Aaron's Victory Lap" to California. He was born in San Francisco and we have many friends to visit all up and down the coast of California...we have friends and memories, and new memories to make. Ben joins us after his test on Friday. He is in the midst of career research and this trip will be awesome for him! He's thinking of joining the world of education...and so many of our friends are educators. 


OKAY - the experience:
Last week I just decided that what I really need right now is $5000 out of the blue. A windfall. Right now. So that's how I chanted. I chanted in front of my Gohonzon, I chanted in my car. I am a votary of the Lotus Sutra and I need this now to accomplish my mission! I have made contributions to the SGI with every paycheck...putting money into my bank of financial fortune by helping the SGI grow. I contribute sincerely, from the heart. 


Last Wednesday the doorbell rings and my financial advisor, a wonderful friend is there. I forgot I made this appointment and run around tidying up. She shows me my "portfolio" of funds and accounts that are finally all in one place. WOW! I ended up finding $5000 that I didn't even know I had. The effect was  immediate! 


Thank you life! Thank you Gohonzon! 


Today I pack! Today I complete all I need to do to set forth on this journey free and clear...the Buddha of Absolute Freedom with my fabulous Buddha Boys! We are visiting my Buddhist mentors, and my two dear friends who began chanting after knowing me and the boys for 10 years. We are spending time with Hal, Kate and Sarah, and Donna and Peppino D'Agostino (the famous, talented guitarist) and their daughter Aleza! We are staying at the fabulous "Flynn Inn" with dear friends from my days at the Bay Guardian Newspaper in San Francisco. And we will be participating in an anniversary ceremony for our friends Cliff and Julia, along with Danielle, amazing earth mother and her family. We'll be soaking up the energy of Mt. Tamalpais and communing with the ocean...the powerful ocean...too cold usually for me to swim in, but so wonderful to soak in the energy!


California here we come!

Experience from a reader! Chanting brings many benefits and surprises!

Thank you to the reader who sent this in:


I will post my experiences: I had almost zero communication with my family and that is when I was suddenly introduced to Nam Myoho Renge Kyo last June. 


Within a week I was talking again to everyone and the relationship somehow solved and healed itself (when I thought impossible!). 


I also travelled for a job and before I travelled, exactly a few days before I received a surprise $5,000 check. This check hit my account literally as I landed in the country (staying for few months). 


Besides that check I received a surprise approved money transfer off of a commission, $2,000. Later this money came to protect me as the job fell through. 


I also had kind people that protected me. I have many stories of being protected and surprise gifts. 


For example my phone screen broke and was replaced by someone generous who had his friend let me borrow an extra phone until I left the country. When i left the country I had to use my broken screen phone again but surprise, the screen began working!

Mother's Day Filled With Gratitude for my Sons!

Me and my two wonderful sons. 

Aaron just graduated from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. He was graduated from the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the division of Molecular and Cellular Biology with Distinction. After this, as I've mentioned before, he goes on to Loyola Medical School at the end of July. 


My younger son Ben just finished his first year at Miami of Ohio. He's on a running scholarship there. 


On Wednesday we leave for California on what I am calling "Aaron's Victory Lap". We will see my Buddhist mentors and our dear friends. We will travel our whole stomping ground....from the Bay Area to LA to Aliso Viejo and Soka University. I am bringing my computer and will continue to blog from California...just like I did when I travelled there two years ago. 


What words can possibly describe the joys of motherhood? 


I, along with their father, brought these two beautiful, loving beings into existence. 


And from then on I have concentrated my daimoku and energy in the direction of their happiness, their development, their growing faith and their happiness. Yes. I said happiness twice. I think happiness is the most important of all. 
So many things flow from happiness! 


And right now my heart is filled with gratitude....
gratitude for knowing 
these these young men are kind, thoughtful men...
these young men know the law of cause and effect...
never bullied each other...
never bullied others...
they would never start a war...
they are sweet, loving...
know what they want...
and how to get it...
they can stand up for themselves
and for others...
they are intuitive...
strong...
self-motivated...
talented in brain-power
creativity...
leadership...
mentors to others...
and wonderful and thoughtful and appreciative of their parents, and grandparents and all the goodness around them in the world. 
They can chant to make a better life...
and a better world for their children...
What could be better than this. 


Oh, Happy Mother's Day!

Unconditional Love and Appreciation

Today, May 10th is a great day to summon all the appreciation in your heart and chant to expand your capacity for feeling and expressing appreciation. 


Those who can fully appreciate, always attract more and more and more to appreciate. 


I believe developing appreciation is like developing every other spiritual muscle. The more you focus on it, the more it increases. 


Yesterday we had a powerful and wonderful meeting of Soka Gakkai members at my house. And I also received beautiful roses. I have so much to appreciate!


But I must focus on developing even deeper appreciation as well! 


Today I chanted once more to break my ties to my familiar sufferings and I vowed to increase my capacity for joy and appreciation! I vowed once again to be happy and joyful and to show every moment what is possible in life. 


We are Buddhas. 


Joy can be ours. 


Focus on bringing joy into your life. Do what makes you feel good. Bring smiles to people's faces and you will experience more and more joy. Remember, what we focus on increases. Let's all focus on joy and happiness today!

What if you get bored with your own prayer?

It happens. 


Sometimes you have a specific prayer...and for awhile you have so much fire behind that prayer and then suddenly POOF that prayer is no longer so firey and meaningful.... and your mind is thinking of other things when you sit down to chant.


What do you do? 


This is an awesome time to chant for others. 


Chant for your friends...for your family...for the members in your district, for the people you haven't even met who are suffering. Chant for the country...for the planet...for everyone you dislike and every one you love. use this time to chant for others and fire up your prayer. 


Time spent in front of the Gohonzon is so precious!


Don't waste a minute!

Experience! And do you have an experience to share?

I received a request from a reader to post some more experiences. My pleasure! 

I will post some of mine, and 

I would love to share YOUR experiences. 

Please send them - and send a picture if you can. 

Experience finding a job ~ and of changing career karma!:


As some of you know I have been practicing since 1985. I was living in San Francisco. I had a BA in Creative Writing from Drake University and a flair for communication, but other than that, no real job skills. One of my first prayers was to get a job. Within a few weeks of chanting I got a job I enjoyed, and over the next few years experimented with several different kinds of jobs. Then I got a job in a great location with what looked like nice people and it turned out the owner was kind of a monster. He constantly yelled at the lovely saleswoman, who was also his live-in girlfriend. It was truly a bizarre situation. He'd swear at her really abusively, using words I'd never heard anyone say out loud.


I realized I had a profound opportunity to change my karma. I knew that the only reason this was manifesting in my life was because of my own karma. I didn't try to analyse it...I just chanted a full hour every morning and poured my energy into doing shakubuku, going to meetings, helping new members learn to chant, studying about Buddhism and chanting strongly to to change this bad-boss karma forever. I also began  contributing financially to the Soka Gakkai as a way of showing my appreciation and a cause for building financial fortune. 


I chanted with determination that I was drawing a line in the sand...and NEVER AGAIN would bad-boss karma appear in my life. I chanted to show actual proof to everyone I knew that this practice works...and to have a tremendous breakthrough....and day after day he was still yelling and I was still chanting. It did not change overnight, but my determination remained rock solid. I knew I could change this karma because I had the ultimate tool to make it happen. I chanted Nam Myoho Renge Kyo!


And gradually I summoned the courage to confront this man and tell him how destructive his behavior was. There were a few moments where we were alone and I quietly told him his behavior really disturbed me and the others in the small office. And there were a few times I actually stopped him in the middle of his ranting. Gradually he stopped yelling.


I stayed there a few more months then left to get the best job I'd ever had. All the fortune I'd built by chanting to break this karma, and chanting for the happiness of all the people in the office manifested in my new job!


In July of 1987 I began working for the Bay Guardian Newspaper in San Francisco. I discovered that my "flair for communication" could bring in great financial fortune as I sold ad after ad after ad. I loved this job and bought my first house because my income kept increasing and increasing! When I decided to have my first child, I arranged to work only three days a week while earning the same high income (because I earned so much on commission) and I kept this job for many years. Both my boys were born while I had this job and worked only three days a week making a great living. 


I am certain that all the daimoku I chanted while on the job with the nasty boss went deep into my life to give me good job karma forever. Taking responsibility for what befalls us and chanting to cut it out at the roots is they key of this practice! That is how you change your karma!


Since then I've had many jobs I've loved. I moved back to Chicago to raise my Buddha Boys. I worked for the Chamber of Commerce and started the first Women in Business Roundtable group in the Western Suburbs. I decided I wanted to work with seniors and easily networked myself into a job with Sunrise Senior Living. Then I was recruited by another senior living community for three times what I was making at Sunrise. 


When the economy hit the senior living field I was laid off and went to California to visit my friends for almost a month. I returned to confront the fact that the pain in my leg was not going away by any of the healing techniques I had been trying for several years, and I had surgery. When I was ready to work again I had an explosive experience in finding a new one. 


On January 15th of 2010 I decided I would determine to get a job by February 27th, the Women's Victory Meetings. I chanted to the Gohonzon that I HAD to show actual proof to my blog readers, my district, my friends and my family. I had also decided to switch careers and work in the field of education...not easy to do in good times, much less in a recession. But I had Nam Myoho Renge Kyo! I began interviewing for several jobs in senior living I really didn't want...but I thought "this is a cause for my new job" and I kept chanting. 


On the weekend before the women's victory meeting my prayer rose to new heights. 


have always been inspired by the Gosho "On the Buddha's Behavior" where Nichiren Daishonin is being taken off to be beheaded and he stops at the statue of Hachiman and literally yells at the God. He tells him "YOU vowed to protect me! If I am beheaded I will report you when I die!" It is so powerful. 
So I chanted and I yelled in my head ~ to my life! To the Buddhist Gods on the Gohonzon which are in my life! I Chanted: 
'I MUST GET A JOB FOR KOSEN RUFU!!! YOU MUST RISE TO THE OCCASION AND SUPPORT ME IN MY EFFORTS. I AM A NOBLE VOTARY OF THE LOYUS SUTRA AND I HAVE MANY PEOPLE WATCHING MY EFFORTS. I HAVE TO GET A JOB BY THE 27TH And YOU (MY LIFE!) MUST DELIVER THAT JOB NOW!!!!) 
It was the roar of the lion. It had to happen. 


That Monday I got an email from the woman who had eventually replaced me at my last position. Ironic. I know! It was for a job representing a health college in community outreach. Shazammm!!! I knew this was it! I had to jump through many hoops and design a presentation (which was a snap because I'd bought myself a sleek new Macbook Air). 


At the women's Victory meeting I reported my victory and I've enjoyed working for this system of colleges ever since. I have a wonderful boss. And I've had great bosses for many years...


You CAN change your karma! You just have to realize that it is yours to change and wield the great sword of your prayer!!!!


Nothign is more powerful than chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo!