What to Think About When We Chant?

What to Think About When We Chant?

People often worry about what they should be thinking about when they chant, but there are no hard and fast rules on this score.

Generally it is a good idea when you begin each chanting session to try to concentrate on establishing a precise and clear rhythm and to listen to the sound of your daimoku.

Then, quite naturally, any problems you may be facing, or your current preoccupations or desires, will probably come into your mind as prayers, to be bathed, as it were, in your own intuitive buddha wisdom.

  

Gradually, as you repeat this process, you will find that the decisions you start to make (not while you are chanting, but in your daily life) will be based more and more on this wisdom -an expression of your true self- and you will begin to orientate your life towards the kind of happy future you begin to realize could be yours...

  

Through chanting at times, you will be able to re-inspire yourself with courage and confidence to keep battling when things look black; at other times you will be able suddenly to see a solution in what seemed like a hopeless situation; or at times you may simply be able to keep fatigue at bay to finish an urgent task.

  

In short, chanting Nam Myo Ho Renge kyo to the Gohonzon is designed for any problem or circumstance, no matter how insignificant it might seem.

  

Finally in the same way as when we began, we should listen to our voice chanting during the last few moments of our daimoku when, quite naturally, we can feel joy rising up within us; indeed, ideally we should continue to chant until we feel this joy welling up from deep within our lives."

  

Source: Excerpt from 'The Buddha In Daily Life', by Richard Causton