What if We Don't Know Exactly What We Want?

"What is youth?
The French philosopher Roher Gaurady suggests that while
most people believe a person is born young and then ages and dies,
in reality, acquiring youth in the deepest sense is a very long and challenging process.
The youth of which he speaks is the spiritual strength
not to stagnate or grow resistant to change
but to stay ever open to new possibilities.
It is the power of the spirit
that refuses to succumb to complacency and strives forward. "
Daisaku Ikeda, For Today and Tomorrow p. 71

I am often recommending that we all write and rewrite our lists of what we want in our lives, and continue to hone our desires so that we can achieve what we really want in life. 

Being specific is always a good idea...

But what if we don't know what we want? Does that mean our lives will not advance and that our happiness will always elude us? 
No. No. No. 
If we don't know exactly what we want, we can still activate a very powerful prayer on our own behalf. If we focus our prayer on using our lives for kosen-rufu (world peace) we can continue to advance our happiness even if we don't really know exactly what we want. 

Right now, as many of you know, I am looking at the next phase of my life and chanting about my next job/life endeavor. And I have an all-encompassing prayer, rather than a narrow and exact prayer. 

I chant to use every one of talents for kosen-rufu, fulfilling my real mission in life among people who inspire and delight me. I chant to be well-compensated and happy and fulfilled. 
That is enough. 

I don't have to have a clearer vision until I do have one. At some time I may have something specific that catches my eye, and chant for that. In the meantime this is still a powerful prayer.

We can adopt this idea for any prayer...to find love for kosen-rufu...to buy a new house for kosen-rufu, for anything you want for kosen-rufu. 
Basing our lives on kosen rufu will move our lives in the direction of our happiness. That us just the way it is. We can't go wrong. 
The prayer for kosen-rufu is a deep prayer for the happiness of all...the happiness of all beings. Basing our lives on everyone's happiness is a noble and beautiful way to live. Our happiness is assured when we have such a strong prayer. 

Happiness is Something Your Build for Yourself

Happiness
by Daisaku Ikeda

The purpose of life is to attain happiness.
Happiness is something you have to feel inside.
It is something you have to build for yourself.
It is something that lives within you.
That is why the state of your inner realm, your life,
is so crucial to your being happy.
Happiness is not in some far off place.
Happiness exists within your own life.
It is within a single thought in your mind.
You, yourself are the most precious of all.
You have no need to be envious of anyone
or to long for things far away.
Faith and one's single minded desire
to achieve Kosen Rufu (world peace)
are what makes this self of yours shine its brightest
and develop its highest potential;
they are what fill you with good fortune,
satisfaction and eternal joy.
This is the essence of true happiness,
A palace exists within your own life.
When you open that palace
you can be happy wherever you are.

Chanting for Happiness

Now is the time for all of us to shine. 

Yes, as yesterday's post says, there may be a time in each of our lives to mourn, to cry, and to wash away our sadness. 

But suffering and sadness and bearing our troubles is not the goal of Buddhism. "Our goal is not to master suffering," Daisaku Ikeda states. 

Our goal is to be happy.

Smile ~ it is a cause for your own happiness....smile as much as you can. Every smile of yours makes a difference through all the universe. Every smile of yours creates ripples in the energy of life. Your smiles are contagious. This has actually been proven in the field pf Positive Psychlogy. 

We can all become happy. 

Every one of us. 

We all deserve to be happy.

Today I'm suggesting we all chant to praise our lives, and to have the sun shine through our lives. Nichiren means Sun Lotus. How perfect. We all practice the Buddhism of the sun. We are the sun. 
Today on this SUNday, a sunny one here in Chicago, let's chant to light the sun inside each of our lives. 

Let's let our lives shine. We can all chant to be happy. Happiness is our birthright. We deserve to be happy. Go ahead and chant for it! 

More about Despair and chanting from our true hearts

I posted that last post for anyone who is thinking that their suffering will never end. The poem expresses a beautiful truth, doesn't it? Instead of whiling our days away complaining to our friends about our sorrows, or lamenting our lives, we turn to our own lives, our own Gohonzon, where we can pour out our hearts as we chant. Here is our home. Here we are safe. Here we enter into a dialogue with the universe within. Here we can speak our truth and wash the pain away. We can open our hearts to the beauty that is within us. 

Tears cried while chanting in front of the Gohonzon are like gold, or diamonds, in our lives. 

Tears are offerings to our highest selves...offering to our own happiness. And then...in time,  those tears will end. They will definitely end. Our Gohonzon is our home within our home...the home of our hearts. 

After the tears end we can make a fresh start with a new determination towards our happiness. 

We can boldly say: onward. Hon Nim Myo. From this moment forth I am confident in the power of my life. I know that I am creating value with every moment and every cause I make. 

Chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo IS the cause for our happiness. And we can chant as often and as long as we wish. And if there is some impediment to our chanting, we can CHANT to be able to chant more. We can put that very prayer into our prayer. 

We are all precious Boddhisatvas of the earth. We all have such important missions. It is my honor to be able to touch you in any way that inspires you, and inspires us on our journey together. This world needs us. Let's not waste any precious moments in complaint. Let's renew, refresh and move on. 

Thank you again for all your kind words and invitations. I will surely travel to meet you all when the time is right. I put a button for donations on the top right side of this blog. If I have inspired you I can inspire more, and you may express your appreciation in this way if you wish. Another way of expressing your appreciation is forwarding this blog to others. (Just type chantforhappiness.com in the body of an email message.) They might see and find just what they were yearning for...and in turn inspire others and on and on... 

If you are in despair, here's a poem for you

O! Wanderers in the shadowed land



Despair not! For though dark they stand,

All woods there be must end at last,

And see the open sun go past:

The setting sun, the rising sun,

The day's end, or the day begun

.
For east or west all woods must fail. ♥ 



J.R.R. Tolkein

You CAN do it! You have the POWER. How to Summon it!

Winter always turns to Spring! 

Thank you for contacting me. Your letters of gratitude and your questions really inspire me. It is so nice to know that my determination to use my own challenges to inspire you is working for so many of you. I have cherished a dream to have friends all over the world for my entire life. I love getting to know you. One day I hope to travel extensively, meeting you in your unique environments. I have traveled quite a bit but there are so many places I have never been, India, Malaysia, Australia, South America, to name just a few. I love hearing from you and sharing your lives, as you share mine. Every time I strengthen my faith, I hope to help you strengthen your faith too. You can email me at chantforhappiness@gmail.com. 

Today I want to revisit the nature of study and our attitude in study. In this month's Living Buddhism there is a quote from Josei Toda. As many of you know he was the Soka Gakkai's second president, a lion for world peace, and Daisaku Ikeda's mentor. He was imprisoned in WWII for not supporting the Japanese war effort and refusing to enshrine a Shinto talisman on his altar. His mentor Tunesaburu Makiguchi, founder of the Soka Gakkai in 1930 was also imprisoned and died in prison.  Josei Toda lived to rebuild the Soka Gakkai with Daisaku Ikeda by his side. Daisaku Ikeda (Sensei, or teacher, as he is known to many) tells us that every day he continues to have a dialogue with Josei Toda in his heart. 

In March's Living Buddhism, Toda is quoted as saying:

"Every time I read the Daishonin's writings, rather than simply trying to understand his words, I seek to come into contact with his immense compassion, his towering conviction, his ardent spirit to aid and protect others, and his solemn and unswerving commitment to kosen-rufu.

Whenever I read his writings, his radiant spirit, like the midsummer sun at noon, floods my heart. My chest feels as if it is filled with a giant ball of molten steel. Sometimes I feel like a scalding hot spring is gushing forth inside me, or as if a great, earthshaking waterfall is crashing over me."
From the March 2013 Living Buddhism, page 26. 

Wow, talk about reading the Gosho with your life. I remember that adage from my early days of my practice. Read the Gosho with your life. Not with just your brain...but with your entire life. I am going to strive to feel this more and more. 

I know that the passage I shared with you last month brings out that towering feeling of strength in me. It is one of my favorites and I'll repeat it here for you. In this Gosho (honorific writing, letter to his follower)  Nichiren Daishonin is being taken off to be beheaded for having the audacity to offer his prayers in service to the government, and claim that the prayers they were offering at the time weren't correct. He is being led on his horse to the place of his execution. He sees a statue of the god Hachiman and asks to have a moment with this statue. He gets down from his horse and screams at this God. Remember, in Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism all "Gods" are functions within our lives, and a part of us, not outside of us. He is addressing the Hachiman within him when he yells:

"Bodhisattva Hachiman are you truly a god? When Wake No Kiyomora was about to be beheaded, you appeared as a moon ten feet wide. When the great teacher Dengyo lectured on the Lotus Sutra you bestowed on him a purple surplice. I, Nichiren, am the greatest Votary of the Lotus Sutra in Japan, and entirely without guilt. I have expounded the law to save all people from falling into the hell of incessant suffering for opposing the Lotus Sutra...
If I am executed tonight and go to the pure land of Eagle Peak, I shall report at once to Shakyamuni Buddha that Tensho Daijin and Hachiman have broken their oath to him. If you feel this would go hard on you, you had better do something about it right away!"
From the Gosho called "The Actions of the Votary of the Lotus Sutra. Previously called "On the Buddha's Behavior" 

And, as you know, a brilliant, bright orb came out of the sky and scared his executioners away. Many of the people who were in the execution party later became Nichiren's disciples because of the compassion he showed for them, and the strength of his determination. The full story is in the same Gosho. 

Can you feel his tremendous conviction and spirit in this passage? 

You too can summon this power. 

You are the latter day Nichiren. 

You are the Votary of the Lotus Sutra. 

You live a proud life to save others from suffering. 

You can sit in front of your Gohonzon and command the forces within your life to protect you, to have you rise above your problems, to have you achieve victory in all areas of your life. 

You can say "enough"! 

No more of this karma of feeling insecure and doubting myself. 
No more of this karma of being abused 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 struggling in a job you hate, or is any other terrible situation. 
No more ________________ you fill in the blank. 
You are a Buddha. 

Whatever it is, whatever suffering you have, you can change it. 

Rise up like a strong lion. Roar in front of the Gohonzon. Tell your life what it MUST accomplish for you. Write your determination. Chant every morning and evening, chant as much Daimoku as you possibly can, and study as much as you can. Encourage other people to the best of your ability. (Sending people links to this blog or other SGI websites counts. Ikedaquotes.org is one of my favorites.) 

And whatever you do, don't give up. We are changing the karma for our entire lineage. We can change our karma this lifetime. We must persist. 

Chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo Works

"What is easily done can be easily undone. To move steadily forward on one’s chosen path, step after step, whether or not others are watching; to meet difficulties with the steady, relentless strength of ceaselessly flowing water—such firmness of purpose, such integrity and perseverance builds a foundation that can never be compromised." 
Daisaku Ikeda

Last night's SGI meeting at my house was amazing, just as amazing as this whole week and whole life has been. 
If you follow this blog you know that I chanted 7 hours on Monday (3 in the morning, 1 after working out, and 3 more at night after I returned from a third meeting about a prospective job). Tuesday I chanted another two hours and Wednesday I went to visit and encourage a member who needed guidance. 

I was chanting for confidence and to do the right thing regarding this prospective job. I chanted to discard the transient and reveal the true of my life and potential, and to have absolute confidence in my life. I chanted to root out the karma of being in the state of hunger (a definite family karma that has been passed down through the generations, and I am determined to STOP this karma now and forever). Hunger is one of the four lower worlds marked by insatiable desire that is never thoroughly quenched. In the unenlightened state it is a cause for deep suffering, in it's exalted state it can be expressed as desire for Kosen Rufu and to guide people to happiness. I chanted to desire most what is BEST for my life. I chanted to only accept this job if it's the absolutely right job for Kosen Rufu. I chanted for America and the strength and wisdom of our leaders. I chanted for kosen Rufu (World Peace) I chanted for my sons and every member and all of the readers of this blog. And I chanted for shakubuku and for at least two people to receive their Gohonzons on Wednesday night at my meeting. 

Right before the meeting I had a moment of anxiety about the outcome of all these job interviews. Then I looked at my email and there were several from readers thanking me for this blog. I realized I just HAVE to trust my life and my prayer. If this job is good for me I will accept it. If not, a better one will come along. I can relax and trust the process of my Daimoku. 

Right before the meeting Aaron, my son in Medical School showed up to surprise me. He makes as many Wednesday nights as he can, but Med School keeps him pretty busy. 

At the meeting Patty received her Gohonzon joyfully, She is full of enthusiasm for this practice, just like I was, and still am. I look forward to posting her experience here. We asked if anyone else wanted to receive a Gohonzon and Aaron said it was time for him to get a large Gohonzon (he's been practicing with a small Omamori since he left for college in 2008). He said he knows he will take on a huge challenge in life. Every day in Med School they are presented with opportunities for doctors to make major differences all over the world. Yesterday he learned of a need for doctors in a certain region of Ghana. This summer he will go to Bolivia. He said he is determined to strengthen his practice and life, and knows the significance of getting a large Gohonzon. And he's very aware he has to OWN his practice. He doesn't chant to make his mother (me) happy. He has to chant for the strength of his own life. Can you imagine how happy this made me? 

Daimoku absolutely works. And you don't just get what you chant for. You get so much more!

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo