On Prayers Getting Answered

On Prayers Getting Answered

  

Imagine doing gongyo, chanting daimoku, doing shakubuku, attending discussion meetings, promoting the World Tribune, participating in zaimu, for lifetime after lifetime for countless aeons, and never changing your karma; never attaining enlightenment. That's a depressing thought.

  

The Daishonin is pointing out here how important it is not to look outside yourself. Don't try to get power from outside yourself. Seek the solution to the problem within yourself. You are the problem. You are also the solution.

  

If you chant daimoku in front of the Gohonzon with the prayer, "Give me the wisdom to know what I need to do. Give me the wisdom to know what action I need to take," you will be amazed at the progress you make. Outwardly-directed prayers will not help you in the least, even if you do it for the rest of your life.

  

The Daishonin's strict point here is that if you are going to chant daimoku, don't waste your time trying to fix things outside yourself. The Gohonzon has almost no power in the outer realm, but the Gohonzon has a universe of unlimited power to change you and reform your life. Open your life and see your true nature. Deal with your true nature. It is characterised by one of the three poisons: greed, anger or stupidity. To find out which it is, just ask yourself, "Am I greedy, am I angry, or am I stupid?" It's one of those three!

  

The Daishonin goes on to state: " ... you cannot attain Buddhahood, even if you practice lifetime after lifetime for countless aeons. Attaining Buddhahood in this lifetime is then impossible ... For example, a poor man cannot earn a penny just by counting his neighbour's wealth, even if he does so night and day."

  

This Gosho goes on to say that if you do not understand that this is happening within you and not out there someplace, you will be unable to change your karma. Your practice will become an endless, painful austerity.

  

Let's turn that around. Look at your life. Is there any area in your life in which, when you chant daimoku about it, it seems an endless, painful austerity? It may be your job, your relationships, your children, or anything else. You might be fine in all other areas, but when it comes to relationships, for example, you can be completely non-Buddhist and getting no benefit. This can go on for years. You may even give up because it's so painful.

  

The problem is not Buddhism. The problem is not that your karma is so heavy. The problem is that you are looking the wrong place. You are the problem. You are not looking inside. It's easier to look outside.

  

Let's say you have a large problem that you want to overcome. You begin a campaign of chanting one million daimoku. Somewhere around 999,950 daimoku, it suddenly dawns on you, "hey, maybe the problem is me!" Knowing this, we can shorten the process a little bit!

  

Start out knowing that "the problem is me." That way we can make progress chanting maybe only 50,000 daimoku instead of 1 million.

  

The quality of our prayer is just as important as the quantity. The ideal thing is to chant quality, quantity daimoku. However, the quality of our prayer is extremely important.

  

When we look at our practice, we only see it from one direction, and it always looks right to us. Most of the time, we think we're fine. But someone else can clearly see if we are way out of line. This is especially true when you have an experienced senior in faith. This is why we receive guidance.

  

When you go to receive guidance, what do you think the guidance will be? Chant daimoku right? Has it ever happened to you that the guidance you received was, "I think you are chanting too much daimoku"? Of course not (although I heard that Nikken once said that chanting too much daimoku was not healthy!).

  

You know what the conclusion will be when you receive guidance. The person giving the guidance knows what the conclusion will be. So why go to receive guidance? The reason is because the daimoku you're currently chanting is not reaching the Gohonzon. Something's gone amiss and you're frustrated. You need someone to point to you and say, "Ah, your view has become non-Buddhist. You've lost the correct spirit and you're chanting for the wrong reason." The power of guidance is to redirect our prayer to the Gohonzon so we can get the benefit to start flowing again.

  

When we lose the Buddhist perspective and we start looking outside ourselves, blaming others or thinking the problem is outside of us, there is no voice that says, "Watch out! You're about to look outside of yourself"! It creeps up on you from behind. Before you know it, your daimoku is losing its power. The joy is not there anymore.

  

You may begin to think, "Maybe I never did get benefit before. Maybe this practice never did work for me." Doubts begin to appear. This is how our faith gets bent. This is why we need guidance. Our organisation is an organisation for guiding people in correct faith so they can straighten out their prayer, get rid of all the non-Buddhist stuff and focus their prayer on daimoku for their human revolution. Immediately after that kind of guidance, people get benefit. It is not the guidance that did it, but the person's prayer. The guidance helped the person see how to get their prayer correct.

   

Source: Excerpt from a lecture given by SGI-USA Vice General Director Greg Martin at the Seattle Culture Centre on June 9, 1995