The Ten Worlds

You Can Change Your Life Condition Easily

We want to introduce you to the idea that you have the capacity to shift out of a negative emotional state and get into a higher one at will. First we need to introduce you to the ten worlds, states of life we live every day.

What Are The Ten Worlds?

The ten worlds are not physical locations but rather potential states of life within each of us. We experience them internally every day. We demonstrate them in our behavior and in all aspects of our lives, shifting from one to another depending on what is happening in our lives.

This is important because we can shift from one to another when we chant. That gives you the power to raise your life out of a negative life condition into a positive one.

The Six Lower Paths

Hell – A life condition where living is misery and suffering and the person feels there is no way out. They can be filled with rage and destructive behaviors.

Hunger – Where a person is at the mercy of their cravings for such things as food, drugs, money, pleasure, power, and recognition. Never satisfied.

Animality – A person is amoral, ruled by the “law of the jungle,” fearing the strong and despising and preying on the weak. Can’t make long-range judgments.

Anger – The person is determined to best others in everything, sees everything as a threat, values themselves as superior, and holds others in contempt.

Humanity – Generally humane, highly vulnerable to outside influences, where can easily fall into the lower four worlds.

Rapture – (Intense joy resulting from the fulfillment of a desire, inner content, physical well-being. Short lived.

These six paths are reactive, responding to changing circumstances in our lives. In the six lower worlds, we are basing our happiness and identity on externals.

The Four Noble Paths

A person realizes everything is impermanent and starts to search for a lasting truth.

Learning – They seek the truth through teaching and experiences of others.

Realization – they seek the truth through their own direct perception. No longer a prisoner to their own reactions.

Bodhisattva – they have an aspiration to achieve enlightenment, and also enable others to do the same. Satisfaction in altruistic behavior.

Buddhahood – a state of perfect freedom, infinite com-passion, deep wisdom and unshakeable happiness. Free of karmic bonds and purified of illusion, and a person can harmoniously resolve what appear to be insoluble contradictions. Buddhahood is expressed in the bodhisattva way of life.

The four noble paths means you must make a decision to do something, be self-motivated. These paths are not reactive to circumstances.

How The Ten Worlds Work in our Daily Lives.

You work for a sales organization and when you go to work there is a meeting to encourage everyone to sell more widgets. The prize will be a trip to Hawaii. For a moment you are in the world of hunger. You receive a phone call from your significant other and when you realize who it is you experience rapture. Then he/ she tells you she doesn’t want to be in the relationship and you fall into Hell.

Maybe later in the day you have a realization that there are certain things you need to learn to be a good business person and for a while you are in the world of learning as you listen thoughts of someone who has been successful in building their organization.

The Mutual Possession of the Ten Worlds

Each of the ten worlds holds the potentials of all of the others, the mutual possession of the ten worlds. This means that when you sit down to chant you can readily move from one world to another. This means you can pull yourself from one of the lower to one of the higher worlds.

You Can Easily Change Your Life State

When you chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, you can bring your life state out of one of the lower worlds and into a higher one at will. You will live experiencing that higher life state and take actions you might not have taken while in the more negative one. You may have to chant to establish that life state a number of times but as time goes on and you tap into your Buddha nature every day, you will maintain that higher state longer and longer.

You will come to embody its enlightened characteristics of your Buddha nature in daily life more and more of the time. You’re attuning yourself to your innate Buddhahood.

In Stepping Stones, A workbook and guide to Nichiren Buddhism, that goes with Your Path to Unshakeable Happiness, you are taught how to start and use the practice that can lead to positive changes in your life.