THE KEY TO UNLOCKING OUR POTENTIAL
Please understand that our karma is both positive and negative. We need to recognize all our positive karma and embrace ourselves for that too. At least we don’t suffer from that stuff. Understand that there is a causal thread between us and everyone we meet and everything we experience. In other words, each one of us has the most fortune in the world because we have been given the greatest gift by Nichiren Daishonin. And here we are in the most perfect environment in which to prove it. That gift is the key to unlock our potential to tap into the Mystic Law that exists inside and outside of us. And by unlocking it we can direct it to anywhere in the universe. Through using it with the conviction and the belief that it has limitless power, it can enable us to do anything.
So try to see, that those people in our life that cause us pain and suffering, are also part of the gifts to allow us to fundamentally transform our destiny. If only we can find the compassion to send our daimoku to them with the determination that, through our chanting, we are going to battle their weakness with them. They may be unable to win over their weaknesses at this moment, but now they are in my life to provide me with the opportunity to battle negativity in theirs. And through battling the manifestation of negativity or weakness in another person, I simultaneously change it in myself. All of the people in our life that bring us suffering are our greatest gift. They are the ones that provide us with the opportunity to change in the most fundamental way. Instead of seeing everything as separate from skin out, we have to chant to see cause and effect in our life. To see that there is a causal connection between me and everything I experience in thought, in words, and in action. When we get that point, it is empowering. When we see that there is a causal connection between all of us, our problems and our environment, it means that we have the ability to change it there and then. If however, we separate the environment from ourselves we become powerless to change it.
When we perceive things from such a deep perspective, although we cannot see it with our eyes, that inner connectiveness between ourselves and everything else is always present. We have to challenge all of the little problems, as well as the big ones because the big problems are usually composed of lots of little ones. And we must believe, that no matter what it is we pray for, whatever happens during the day, every little challenge that comes up is the answer to our prayer. Each challenge is there to get us to take on that weakness in our life that holds us back. And it is only by taking them on and winning, that we make the causes to move our lives, and kosen rufu, forward.
Life is this journey of discovering, sometimes after many, many years of practice, that what we have always been in search of in our lives, we have always had. It’s always been inside of us. With Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo there is no limit to what we can achieve…what we can be…and what we can do. Our experience of growth can then be limitless. If we have but the guts and the courage to use the mighty sword of the Lotus Sutra, we can win. Use the strategy of chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo first, rather than using your head. If we can use the strategy of understanding no matter what the problem, fundamentally we will always have the solution. And chanting with that conviction that Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo will awaken the wisdom in us to see life correctly, we can make the necessary causes to change our lives.
That joy, that new sense of joy we’ve been talking about, is the direct affect of the willingness to take on our greatest and deepest insecurities, fears, and doubts. On the other side of that is everything we’ve always been waiting for, always been wanting, but we can only get to the other side by fighting through the problems and challenges of the present reality.
The Art of listening with the eyes of a Buddha - Excerpt
By Linda Johnson, SGI-USA WD Leader
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