Last night Linda Johnson came to give me encouragement regarding the recent death of my 22-year-old son Ben.
My heart is filled with gratitude. Melissa Bradford came to help me remember and absorb the guidance. What fortune I have in my life. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo!
Linda said that even though it's hard to hear, everyone eventually dies. No amount of chanting changes that. After I told her about the last two year of his illness, she said it's clear that I extended his life. This is what Nichiren teaches. In spite of his struggle, through my love, I extended his life.
AND, There's no way he would have died unless he fulfilled his mission. I must chant to see what I must learn, and how to make his life and death meaningful. Only through my Daimoku will I understand.
She said my prayers at this moment (all our prayers) definitely affect his state of life, and how he will be reborn. She said even though schizophrenia took over his life, it is momentary from the perspective of eternal life.
She said to hold on to our beautiful memories. And I insure his victory by winning in my own life. He will always be a part of my life. How can I show value, what can we manifest together?
She said to have a dialogue with his life and to thank him for every single wonderful moment we shared. Fill my heart with appreciation that I had him as long as I did in my life. And from now on I live my life in tribute.
She said doing this will help repair the hole in my heart. What wonderful guidance.
She said Ben is a Buddha in life and a Buddha in death. He is continuing to do shakubuku. He is continuing to encourage people. As Buddhists we can see the positive workings of death. We cannot fathom everything with our intellect, but we can have confidence in our prayer. Everything can be used to create value.
I told her sometimes I feel like running away from the pain and she said this is a natural feeling. How could I NOT feel this way? But the more we run, the stronger the pain gets. Boy, isn't THAT true?
And lastly, when I asked her how to pray to bring my kosen-rufu life partner into my life she said to chant to connect with his life and pull him into mine.
I am having the most delicious dialogues with my own life while chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo (I fuse my life with the Mysti Law of Cause and Effect Through Sound Vibration) to the Gohonzon (scroll which represents my own life). "Life, my commitment to kosen-rufu and the happiness of all beings is so strong ~ stronger than ever. How can I make my life matter more than ever? How can I make Ben's life matter, so that no one else has to suffer the way he did, and no families have to go through this ever again? How can I be stronger, stronger than ever, stronger than I have ever been, or ever thought I could be? How can I continue to encourage the noble readers of Chantforhappiness.com who have encouraged me as much as I have encouraged them?"
"When we decide to live each instant fully, with all our might, to live true to ourselves and make the present moment shine, we discover and bring forth immense and unimagined strength"
Daisaku Ikeda, Ikedaquotes.org
PowerPrayer for Inner Strength
and Wisdom
By JamieLeeSilver from Chantforhappiness.com
Life! Now! This is the most important moment of my life. Now is the time to take all I have learned and all the Daimoku I have chanted, and am chanting now ~ to create more value than ever before. Life, let me be wiser, better, smarter and more insightful than ever, so that I can help others unveil their highest and best selves, as they learn to chant the kind of daimoku that will blow their lives wide open with happiness, joy and HOPE! Let me see and choose the best action at every moment! Life, through my thoughts, words and actions may I help others even more than before. And turn poison into medicine now. Now I will take extreme care of myself...love myself...treat myself well...cherishing every moment with family and friends...taking the best, most positive actions...and trusting in my own goodness, intuition and inner guidance more than ever. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo!
by Scott Viau, from the Downers Grove Patch Newspaper 7/15/15
He Lit Up Every Room He Walked Into
“Ben Silver didn’t take his own life,” said Jamie Lee Silver, Ben’s mom. “Mental illness took his life.”
Ben will be remembered for a lot of things. His kindness, compassion, generosity, sense of humor and athletic ability, just to name a few.
More than 700 people came out to Ben’s life celebration this past weekend, where his mother encouraged people to get up and share their stories of him.
“Over and over and over people shared how kind he was and how much he cared,” Silver said. “One young man came up and said he was bullied a lot and Ben always intervened.”
Another person told a story about how he wasn’t a very fast runner. Ben slowed down for him, put his hand out and said, “You can do it. Come on. Come on.” The young man ran faster as a result of Ben’s encouragement.
One of the incoming freshman at Downers Grove North High School when Ben was a senior said he expected Ben not to be very nice and perhaps even full of himself because of his athletic ability.
“But it was just the opposite,” Silver said. “He went out of his way to welcome them to the team. He went out of his way to let them know he was happy they joined this fellowship.”
Ben was a part of the Downers Grove North Cross Country and Track Team, which Jamie likened to being more like a family.
Throughout his athletic career, Ben often received ankle injuries, but he didn’t let that keep him down.
“He would put on a life jacket and go in the pool and run in place in the pool to keep his heart rate up,” Silver said.
According to Silver, a volunteer coach at Downers Grove North who had coached seven Olympic athletes said that none of them had the fire and drive that Ben did.
Ben had received a full-ride college scholarship to University of Miami in Ohio. It wasn’t because he needed it, though. It was because he wanted something to show for all of his hard work.
“He really wanted to earn a college scholarship,” Silver said. “But once he got to college he was injured and wasn’t able to run with the team.”
During his sophomore year in college, it became too much for him to take. His ankle wasn’t getting better and he was struggling with schizophrenia. He eventually lost his scholarship.
About two years ago Ben’s struggle with mental illness began. At the time of his death July 2 at the Naperville Ribfest, Ben was an in-patient resident at Linden Oaks. He was 22 when he died.
But despite the efforts to get Ben help, the mental health system failed him.
“I would go so far to say there is no mental health system in this state whatsoever,” Silver said. “There was no clear path for him to follow to get better.”
Ben had made a previous attempt to end his life and instead of receiving help, he encountered more road blocks.
“No one would take him because they said if he went there and took his life, the state would shut them down,” Silver said. “So if everybody thinks the state is going to shut them down if somebody commits suicide there that means that somebody who has had a suicide attempt has virtually no place to go.”
To combat his illness, Ben went to group therapy, individual therapy and for the most part followed the protocol of what his mental health care providers wanted him to do, but the medicines never really solved the problem.
“Part of the problem with schizophrenia is that even if the medicines do help, they often have so many side effects that people don’t want to stay on them,” Silver said.
During the last few years of Ben’s life, he found it hard to keep up with relationships because of how his illness affected him.
“It made him feel so separate and there were times where he felt like he couldn’t trust anyone,” Silver said. “It’s a symptom of the disease.”
But mental illness isn’t what his mom, family and friends will remember him for. That won’t be the legacy he leaves behind. She’ll remember him for his warmth, love, friendship and smile.
“He lit up every room he walked into,” Silver said.
She’ll also remember him for his sense of humor and impeccable comedic timing.
“I don’t mean he was the class clown, that wasn’t Ben,” Silver said. “But what he was was humorous and warm.”
And he cared. He wanted people to be happy.
“He didn’t take his relationships lightly,” Silver said. “He really wanted to make a difference in peoples’ lives.”
If his life celebration is used to judge that, he certainly did. Silver said people talked about Ben and what they knew, loved and liked about him for close to three hours.
“So many people wanted to come up and talk about the difference he made in their lives,” Silver said. “It was really, really profoundly beautiful.”
Ben was a lifelong Buddhist. He was born into the practice. Silver said chanting with him was like running a race.
“He’d get so much energy and he’d chant so fast,” Silver said. “He did everything with intensity.”
Music also came naturally to Ben and he used the same determination and fire to write music as he did for athletics.
One of the songs Ben wrote was called “The Girl with Zero Flaws,” which he performed as a senior during the Downers Grove North talent show.
“He brought down the house and you can hear it at the end of the song,” Silver said.
At the end of the day, people really loved Ben. They loved him as a human being. Teachers came to his life celebration. Neighbors came crying.
“He touched so many people’s lives. Nobody could even believe that this could have happened,” Silver said. “But schizophrenia is a deadly, deadly illness.”
To remember and honor Ben, the family plans on hosting a run called Ben’s Memorial Mile, which will take place every summer and they plan to start the Ben Silver Memorial Fund to research mental illness and to find a way to have more effective mental illness care.
Surviving Ben is his mother Jamie, his father Paul and his brother Aaron.
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Why do we chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and what makes this practice different than any other form of Buddhism?
1. The goal of this practice is RESULTS, also called actual proof, or benefits. In other words - you get what you chant for- or something better - as long as you do not give up.
2. In this practice, 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. 3. We have a Living Mentor ~ Daisaku Ikeda is the President of the Soka Gakkai International. I write about him often. Several of the posts last week were on the mentor and disciple relationship. Daisaku Ikeda is an extraordinary human being that we connect with through his writings, his speeches, his actions and through our own hearts.
4.There are no lifestyle, diets, rules of behavior or “paths” to memorize or carefully trod. There is the keen awareness that life operates under the strict law of cause and effect, and at each moment WE are creating our lives, but most of us knew that already!
5. Desire is not the enemy. Your desires lead you to chant...when you chant you change your karma. Each person chants for their desires from their heart. Alleviation of desire is not the goal of this practice. Neither is mindlessness. We focus when we chant.
6. There are no clergy, no robes and no temples. YOU have direct access to the power of the universe, your own Buddha power within. No intermediaries are needed. We SGI members practice together because we grow and learn together. There are SGI (Soka Gakkai - Value Creating Organization) community centers, and many smaller meetings are held in people’s homes. We are all normal people in the world living extraordinarily happy lives.
7. We are changing our karma every time we chant. We can change our karma. Karma is not immutable. Suffering is not "Noble", but it is part of life. The goal of chanting is HAPPINESS, not to learn to be better sufferers.
8. We do not chant “to” anything outside of us. There is no Higher Power in this practice. When we are chanting we access our own wisdom and power as a the Buddha, or awakened one. We are chanting to our own lives.
9. The main practice is reciting the words Nam-myoho-renge-kyo over and over and over. Everyone on earth recites the same phrase. It means: "I fuse my life with the mystic (unfathomable) law of cause and effect through sound vibration"
10. The SGI does not discriminate for any reason. All people...ALL people have the right to access the Mystic Law within their own lives. We are all Buddhas. 11. There is no guilt, there is only the awareness of the law of cause and effect. 12. You do not need to convert to try this practice. Anyone can chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo regardless of religion. Test it. See how you feel, and watch what happens. When you see the results, you want to learn more...and you increase results and happiness as you go.
And it's easy to start chanting. You can start with only 5 minutes in the morning and 5 in the evening, and see results. If you click on the SGI Portal link to the right you can find members in your area. Jamie Lee Silver ~ chantforhappiness@gmail.com
Once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your letters, emails, cards and notes. You are so kind, and you warm my heart. Today, I'm here at Riva's Restaurant in Navy Pier in Chicago to meet a friend from out of town. My computer is almost out of charge. Today my friend and I will take a boat ride. The last time I was out on Lake Michigan it was with my Ben. Life has not quite gotten back to normal, or the "new normal" as we are saying, but I'm more determined than ever to have my life, and Ben's life make a difference. I already feel it happening, and it will be my ongoing determination. I know that life is eternal, and I know that all our lives make an incredible difference. You know, I was born on the 22nd, September 22nd, and 22 has always been my lucky number. Ben entered his next journey on the 2nd of July at the age of 22. How about that? And his life has already made a huge difference. Soon I will be able to post his entire life ceremony for those of you who missed it, and want to be a part of it.
He brought over 700 people together in the celebration of his life ~ making new memories, celebrating our community and joining together to honor an excellent human being. Already he is continuing to make an impact. Both yesterday and today I gave my "Growing older, Bolder, BETTER" speeches and will start full time back to work tomorrow. It makes me so happy to give these speeches that change people's lives. I will get one of them up on here for you as well. For now, I want to share some poetry with you that meant a lot to Ben. I found this in his writings from around 6th grade: I Want an Adventure I want and adventure I say to myself. I want to walk miles Without any stop. I want to climb trees And see all that's about. I want to set out Either north or south. I want to shout On the top of a ridge I am Free I am Free And whisper among the trees. I see all, but no one sees me. By Benjamin Lee Silver Thank you for sharing this journey with me! Jamie Lee Silver 17w702 Butterfield #104 Oakbrook Terrace, Il 60181
Thank you so much for all your emails and letters. It is wonderful to receive real mail from real people and not just bills! My address is at the bottom of this post.
My dear friend Joy read this poem at Ben's Life Ceremony. She said he'd written it himself, through her pen, that very day: Joyously ~ Forever On What was missing was the rock, A place for me to stand. A place for me to look Over the vast land. But I was sucked down to the bottom Of a canyon steep and dry I saw dark chamber walls As I gazed up at the sky. I could hear all of you calling "Ben, Ben, come on." But the echoes tore my ears to shreds As my hope was all but gone. I was locked up in a cage And I caught a glimpse of light My heart opened up a bit And I actually felt just right. Now in endless open space The bars and dark are gone. All that lies is endless plains And the horizon - rising sun. The chains broke off My heart did sing. The lightness finally joy did bring. I run like wind. I write my songs. I compose poems All day long. I sprinkle smiles on Mom and Dad. Aaron too, And the clan. My sparkly eyes see broken hearts But live on Yes, you can. I'll show you how For blessed with light I'm with you anytime Day and night. I'll touch you Hug You Sing you songs All while I run Joyously Forever on
