PowerPrayer for Changing Your Karma and doing your Human Revolution!

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book 

The BuddhaZone, PowerPrayers for Chanting for Your Absolute Happiness:

Treasures of the Heart

Section 1: PowerPrayers for Human Revolution. 

In Nichiren Buddhism it all begins and ends with you. 

You are the one who has power in your life. 

And YOU are the one who can change any karma into mission and any poison into medicine. 

When you change internally, your environment and everything in it changes. 

The world is a mirror of your thoughts, deeds, and feelings. 

When you “do your Human Revolution” you bring forth your sparkling and brilliant Buddhahood from within. With continued practice and focus your entire existence becomes the Buddha world - where everything works to your benefit and you see the workings of the perfection of your life, and you revel in every minute, even the challenging ones.  The purpose of life is Happiness. Having a resilient spirit, and possessing the knowledge that YES, every poison can be changed into a benefit, and that your life, every moment, has profound meaning...well...THIS is absolute Happiness. And available to you through chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in the manner we have described. This begins your journey:

(Note to readers: PowerPrayers are meant to be read before chanting to increase focus and aim your prayer like a sharp arrow toward the bullseye of your desires.)

PowerPrayer for Human Revolution

Adapted by Jamie and Julia from For Today and Tomorrow, Daily Encouragement, By Daisaku Ikeda. November 17th 

"Only if you challenge your human revolution in a manner that is true to yourself will the people around you naturally begin to trust and respect you. That in itself is the greatest way of laying the groundwork for the spread of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism." ~ Daisaku Ikeda

PowerPrayer for Human Revolution

I am doing my Human Revolution! 

I am determined to make any changes necessary 

in my thoughts, 

in my actions, 

in the way that I chant 

and to make every thought, word or deed 

a positive cause every moment of every day. 

As I chant I am rooting the negative karma OUT OF MY LIFE! 

I am determined to make the changes inside myself, 

to change any weakness within me into strengths...

I change this karma now for me and for all my family:

(Fill in the blank below of what karma you are determined to change - you do not have to know WHY you have this karma; you do not have to figure it out...all you need to do it chant to ROOT IT OUT of your life forever!) 

___________________________________________________

I now do my own human revolution 

and raise my life condition! 

I am determined to change in any way necessary to make ___________ happen!

Life! 

I am bringing the determination, wisdom and fire I need 

to create the life of my dreams. 

I AM NAM MYOHO RENGE KYO! 

I AM ROARING LIKE A LION IN MY OWN LIFE! 

I WILL CREATE MY LIFE! 

I do this not only for me, but for everyone who is suffering. 

I am determined to glow within my own life. 

I am a shining light for all who are suffering. 

I am a beacon of hope 

that ANYONE can solve their problems 

by chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. 

I am ready to meet people 

who are ready to hear about this practice!  

I chant to have the most inspiring life. 

Gohonzon (my life) I demand to see these results now!"

Chanting Can Solve EVERY Problem

This blog is about a very unique form of Buddhism...a form that many people have never heard of. 
When integrated into our lives...when, in fact...we BASE our lives on the practice of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo every morning and evening, attending SGI discussion meetings, studying and teaching others to the best of our ability, we tap into the ultimate positive force in the entire world...our Buddha Nature. And we change our karma (problems) into benefits. 

Some problems change right away, others take more time, but we are doing our own human revolution when we chant, and if we keep chanting we will see our lives change. We will strengthen the CORE of our lives. Strong Lives are happy lives. We still have problems but we greet them with the knowledge that we can change them and create benefits from our challenges. 

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo means: I fuse my life with the mystic law of cause and effect through sound vibration. Or, I am one with the flow of life. It is the literal name of the law of cause and effect, and the ultimate good cause we make in our lives. 
Chanting these words puts us in rhythm with all that is good, right and true. Chanting these words raises our life-condition (what some call "vibration") and when we raise our vibration, everything in our environment also raises in life condition and vibration because of the interconnectivity of our lives and ALL of life. We are able to gain a foothold and change any karma into mission. ANY KARMA! 

Using this chant we can change ANYTHING. ANYTHING. No matter how dark and hopeless it seems at the time. 

But don't believe me. Try it for yourself. It's experiential. Not intellectual. 

The following passage is an excerpt from my upcoming 

(any day now - I promise!) book called

The BuddhaZone, Power Prayers for Chanting Your Way to Happiness. 

You have happened upon a practice that is very unique indeed. Some of the ways this practice is different include these points:

~ The goal of this practice is RESULTS, also called actual proof, or benefits. 

~ As we mentioned, each person is a Buddha, and possesses the entire power of the universe within their own lives. This is the awakening that the original Buddha experienced under the Bodhi tree. We all possess the potential for bringing forth our own Buddhahood (happiness and strength) through chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, right now, in this lifetime without having to focus on making other changes in our lives. There are no lifestyle, diet or rules of behavior and no “paths” to memorize or carefully trod. There is the keen awareness that life operates under the strict law of cause and effect, but most of us knew that already! 

~ Desire is not the enemy. Each person chants for their desires from their heart. Alleviation of desire is NOT the goal of this practice.  

~ There are no clergy, no robes and no temples. There are community centers, and many smaller meetings are held in people’s homes. We are all normal people in the world living extraordinarily happy lives.  

~ We are changing our karma every time we chant. Karma is not immutable. 

~ We do not chant “to” anything. When we are chanting we access our own wisdom and power as a the Buddha, or awakened one. 

~The main practice is reciting the words Nam-myoho-renge-kyo over and over and over. Everyone on earth recites the same phrase. We will explain why, and how to do this in detail. 

~There are no lifestyle rules of any kind. All people regardless of sexual orientation are welcome. 

~ People do not have to “convert” to Buddhism to chant. Anyone can chant. 

~ There is no guilt, there is only the awareness of the law of cause and effect. 

To find out more, click on the link at the right  - The SGI Portal, and you can read all about this practice. You can also access many of the blog writings I've posted. Check out the experiences! Email me at chantforhappiness@gmail.com with any questions or comments. 

I Need a Web Developer!

Go Buddha Go!

If you're a web developer and would like to help me bring the books, audios and other cool things I am creating to the readers of ChantforHappiness.com, please send me an email at chantforhappiness@gmail.com! 
I need someone with Wordpress expertise!

Thanks! Jamie

The Most Powerful Prayers to Get Results Lead to ACTION! Part 2

Part 2.
Written by By SGI-UK Advisor Mitsuhiro Kaneda, UK Express March 2000. Reprinted from the Facebook page The Power of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

Taking action

Very often, however, members chant a lot of daimoku but do not take any action. Some people don’t take action because they are afraid of the results they might see. They are afraid that they won’t see the result they want, so they don’t take any action. For example, a salaried employee with a fixed income might want to become self-employed, or start his or her own business, but might not take any action for fear of accumulating a lot of debt.

Another common example is found amongst young people who want to get married. Because they’re not sure that the marriage will work out, and that they will live happily ever after, they are full of anxiety. So, before they get married, they think, “Well, maybe we should live together.” Some end up not getting married as a result of having lived together.

So, even when people chant a lot of daimoku, other factors such as personality and human character come into play and prevent people from taking action, even if they are praying.

Of course, taking action also includes Soka Gakkai activities. When you participate in Soka Gakkai activities, you are encouraging others. So you are actually working as a messenger of the Buddha. Inevitably, therefore, all those who participate in Gakkai activities will accumulate good fortune. And because these people accumulate good fortune, they will be able to achieve their goals and show actual proof.

I know that all of us have very different circumstances and situations – some of us may not have that much free time. Nevertheless, I really want to encourage all of you to participate in Gakkai activities because this will allow not only you, but your whole family, to be bathed in good fortune. So in order to achieve our goals, not only do we need to take concrete action, we also need good fortune. That is why Soka Gakkai activities are crucial.

Make up your mind

In Italy, we have a couple who have been living together for fourteen years. Once they came to me because they wanted to receive guidance. I said to them, “You’ve been trying out your relationship by living together for fourteen years now. The fact that it has continued this long, is this not a sign that it is working?

Even though their relationship had been successful and they still wanted to live together, they still weren’t sure whether they should get married. Of course I gave them all kinds of encouragement, but there is one particular point that I would like to share with you. I asked them, “In order to make a firm determination, how much time do you need?” To make a determination requires less than one second. So I asked, “How many seconds there have been in fourteen years?”

You may laugh at this story but please, reflect on your own life.

To sum up, to put Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism into practice, we need to decide, chant and take action.

FAITH AND PRACTICE DOUBT-FREE FAITH

DECIDE

Clarify the goal and make a determination

DECIDE CHANT CHANT

If you have a problem,

Chant one million daimoku

ACT ACT

Make maximum effort;

strive to resolve the problem

EXPERIENCE

Accumulating experiences deepens one’s faith

Theories without experiences are no more than pure idealism

RESULT

Show actual proof DON’T DOUBT

Faith means having no doubts

BELIEVE

Written by By SGI-UK Advisor Mitsuhiro Kaneda, UK Express March 2000

The Most Powerful Prayers to Get RESULTS ~ Part 1

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

Relative or Absolute Happiness?

From the Muddy Swamp we turn Mud to GOLD!

The Muddy Swamp is where we are "born." 
The Muddy Swamp is where all our stories begin. 
Our own personal muddy swamps are the mud that we transmute to GOLD as modern-day alchemists. 
And we have found the secret formula to transmute mud to gold: chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo over and over...and over and over...every day of our lives...not giving up for ONE second. (Well, maybe we do give up for one second, until a fellow SGI member (and good friend in faith) hauls us back onto the boat and we make a fresh new determination to win once again!) 
Here's an excerpt from our book The BuddhaZone, PowerPrayers for Chanting Your Way to Absolute Happiness about the Lotus Flower:

The lotus is a very special and unusual flower. It is the only flower in the known natural world that produces both blossoms and seeds simultaneously, whereas other flowers tend to flower first, then  dry up and then produce seed pods. Others, still, make seeds and then flowers. In either case, neither one does it simultaneously as does the lotus. But wait, there's more: the lotus exists on both land and water, more accurately in land and above water. Each lotus seed eventually finds its way down to the bottom of the pond and makes of its rich murky and dark loam a profound root bed. It draws the composting muck at the bottom of the pond up though its body and turns it into the precise nourishment needed to produce an astonishingly beautiful blossom that hovers just above the water through which it came. When we talk about the Lotus as Buddhists, we are talking about peace  of mind, self sufficiency, happiness, and most importantly, simultaneity. 

Simultaneity is a big word for people. What the heck does it mean, really? The Buddha taught through the  Lotus Sutra the astonishing fact that all causes and effects exist simultaneously. In fact, all time truly exists simultaneously. Because of this, when we pray as Buddhists, things start to manifest right away. And, if we really look, we will begin to recognize the signs that our prayer is having an effect as soon as we begin chanting. 

Through this practice, one realizes that the Lotus, which is emblematic of our very life, blooms not in spite of the murky depths, but because of them. Thus, the deeper the swampy mess of our life, the more "dross" or base matter we have at our disposal, so to speak, to use as we make of it our very own alchemical golden happiness. No trouble is too serious, no disaster too tragic, no loss too painful for the mystically beautiful process of value creation that is our essential and true purpose, once we have come to understand who it is that we truly are: The Lotus aka The Buddha.

We owe the brilliance of our lives to the Muddy Swamp! Tina Turner turned her Muddy Swamp into a world of gold...and in her mid-seventies shines forth with the radiance of the mystic law. 

And throughout our lives we return to our own Muddy Swamp to dig up something that we can turn to gold. As Daisaku Ikeda says " We summoned this storm!" Usually it looks as though something has "happened" to us. But in reality is something from our own lives...a challenge...an obstacle...an opportunity to turn poison into medicine through chanting the name of the mystic law. 

And all of us are alike. We all share challenges together - which is what makes the SGI organization of Buddhist practitioners so important. We each grow and learn from each other. In August, as you may know, I launched the Worldwide Million Daimoku Campaign (It's not too late to join the Worldwide Million Daimoku Campaign. Just set your goals, make a chart that represents 300 hours and start your own Million Daimoku Campaign. You can have a set end date if you want (mine is the end of the year so I am chanting 2 hours a day), or you can have no set end date and that's okay too...just check off one space for each hour you chant. Email me at chantforhappiness@gmail.com to let me know you're in!)

Right after I launched this campaign I went deep into the muddy swamp with someone I love with all my heart. It's too early to share the details, but I can tell you that it is getting better and better and better, and my fierce determination to win in every aspect of the situation has never wavered, no matter how wildly my emotions were jumping about. I will use this experience to inspire others. And my loved one will do the same! 

Just like being on a boat...I have a rudder to my life...the rudder of Nam-myoho-renge kyo. And as long as I keep my hand on that rudder by chanting abundant daimoku, encouraging and chanting with others, doing shakubuku and studying...I know I WILL WIN. There is no doubt in my mind. One dear friend received her Gohonzon in August, and another will receive theirs next week. 

Just remember, no matter how muddy it seems...and sometimes it feels like we are really stuck in that mud...by basing our lives on this practice we will WIN. Winning means happiness. Winning means actual proof. Winning means inspiring other. Winning means strength and fulfillment in life. 

We are all winners as long as we don't give up!

Join me in Bali in November! I will be leading a workshop from November 16th through the 22nd on brining out your inner Buddha. We'll explore Bali together and deepen our faith in our own innate, powerful Buddhahood! 
Visit Love Your Spirit Tours to enroll!