In the early 1990s Daisaku Ikeda wrote a series of incredible articles that perfectly explain the profundity of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.
I'd like to share a few quotes with you today.
I will never forget the first time I read the essay called
"Gongyo is a Grand and Noble Rite." It was written when Daisaku Ikeda was in Calabasas, California on February 19, 1990.
The word "Gongyo" refers to our twice daily recitation of the lotus sutra, and chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. The best place to learn to recite Gongyo is in your local SGI meeting. And I plan on releasing a video and audio helping you to learn. It's fun to recite once you know it. It's like singing. Learning it can be a little challenging, but I have a way of teaching it that makes it easy. If you are only chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo at this point, you can still feel that this essay is for you, because chanting Daimoku is a grand and noble rite too!
"Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism teaches that our existence is identical to the universe as a whole, and the universe as a whole is identical to our existence. Each individual human life is a microcosm."
"The practice of gongyo is a grand and noble rite to achieve the vital communication of the microcosm of each person's existence with the universe, based on the Gohonzon."
(The Gohonzon is the scroll that we focus on when we chant...I will write more about the Gohonzon later)
This part is really cool:
"The correspondence of each part of our bodies to parts of the universe is proof that our existence is a microcosm. Our heads are round like the heavens above us, and our eyes are like the sun and the moon. We close them and open them, like day and night. our hair shines like the sparkling stars. Our eyebrows are like the seven stars of the big dipper. Our breath is the wind, and the quiet breathing from our nostrils is like the still air of the valleys and dales. There are some 360 joints in the human body, and they stand for the days of the year. The twelve months. The warm, front side of our body - our abdomen and stomach - is spring and summer. The cold, hard back is fall and winter. Our blood vessels and arteries are streams and rivers. When we suffer a cerebral hemorrhage, it is if a dam or dike has burst. Our bones are stones, and our skin and muscle are like the earth. Our body hair is a forest."
He goes on to further elucidate the correspondences of each part of the universe and how they are all governed under one law ~
"A slight change int he heat of the sun will enormously affect not only the earth but all the other planets. If the Earth's rotation were to stop for the briefest instant, or if its axis were to tilt to the slightest degree, all living things would be threatened with extinction. That is how subtle the natural order is. Furthermore an irrevocable Law of the Universe exists. This hold true for the microcosm as well...
"Nichiren Daishonin discovered and awoke to the great law of all existence that underlies all the partial laws governing spiritual and physical phenomena, and it was he who revealed the Law to humanity as Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. This Mystic Law applies equally to the universe as a whole and to each and every individual human existence. The universe and the individual are one in the mystic law."
"When we practice Gongyo and chant Daimoku (Nam Myoho Renge Kyo before the Gohonzon, our individual existence is perfectly harmonized with the universe."
"Through this practice we can acquire wisdom and good fortune and glow with the energy to overcome any obstacle throughout the four seasons, 365 days a year, we can enter the way to eternal happiness and attain eternity, joy, true self and purity."
"Gongyo is a grand and noble rite that calls forth and activates the infinite power that the microcosm inherently possesses. It transforms your fate, breaks through any apparent dead end and converts suffering into happiness. It creates transformation, a revolution of the microcosm. It is a diagram of Kosen Rufu (World Peace) in our lives."
"The Kosen Rufu that is our aim is a movement to transform the universe, the earth and human society into a world of peace, comfort and harmony in accord with the rhythm of the Mystic Law."
However, he also stresses that the actions we take for ourselves and others is very important. If all we do is sit and chant and do nothing to help others, and take no action to improve our lives our practice will not have the full effect.
He ends with this message:
"Our faith is that every day, every instant begins from time without beginning.
We re always setting out, full of hope, from today to the future, from this moment to eternal happiness. We are always young, always beginning. My message to you is that you must be absolutely certain of this and live your wonderful lives without regret, with joy and brightness, always moving forward."
Thank you President Ikeda. Thank you.
