🔹🔸LECTURE ON ATTAINING BUDDHAHOOD IN THIS LIFETIME - EXCERPT🔸🔹
What makes Buddhism revolutionary is that Nichiren says each one of us is already complete, able to transform a problem into value creation.
We disempower ourselves when we have an altercation for example, and we pull back to not get more hurt. It is a natural thing to withdraw from pain. We blame the other person. We think: "I need you to change, I cannot be happy until you change."
We devise strategies for how that person will change, must change. The strategies don't work or if they do only for a little while. Then the person reverts to being themselves again. This repeats itself over and over. The most drastic strategy is:"I'm out of here!" [I won't accept responsibility].
You are not perceiving the mystic truth or what is called dependent origination:" I cause them to be and they cause me to be."
As soon as you decide: "It's impossible, I cannot change this person, there is nothing I can do, "I'm out of here", Nichiren says, "You are practicing an inferior teaching."
The solution is always inside of you. The difference between a Buddhist and an ordinary person is that the Buddhist has "diligently polished" his/her own life and so removed fundamental darkness, the negativity in his/her own life that impedes our attaining our goals.
This is work. Nichiren says "diligently polish it", "day and night","arouse deep faith", "you must summon up deep faith that Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo is your life itself".
Do not just put in time chanting, do not be ritualistic. Faith is the realm inside us that wins over the negativity. Instead of feeling "I can't do this", do "fighting daimoku".. Use the sword of the Lotus Sutra to defeat your internal negativity.
Example: If you lack courage, just because you chant - your lack of courage will not just go away. Chant to become strong, then each time you overcome your lack of courage, you win.
You create your good fortune, no one gives it to you. An example is if you pray to attract the "right person" or the "right job". You are beseeching the Gohonzon, begging. Putting it outside you. Instead, pray to see "what are the causes I need to make to see the effect I want to see." "How am I making causes to create these effects." This is the realm of empowerment. "I change my causes and so I change my effects." We are not free of causes: we must take ownership of our causes.
Linda Johnson
Sent from my iPhone
