Anything of great value requires incredible fortitude and even hardships. Lets take, for example, the making of a brain surgeon. Lets leave for a moment the difficulties of the four years of Medical School and direct our attention to the requirements of completing both five years of a general surgery residency and then 2 years of a neurosurgery fellowship...
For five years, the resident is on call every other day. During their on call days, they are often awake making life and death decisions for the full 24 hours and if having to give reports or still involved in a surgery, they don't get home to sleep until 2 pm or later (their shift was supposed to end at 7:00am). If they are a general surgery Chief Resident, their last and most important year, they will be returning to the hospital in several hours, possibly to nap for another couple of hours unless thay are called for a surgery or to supervise the residents under him. His neurosurgical fellowship is even more physically and mentally intensive, sometime performing surgeries lasting more than 24 hours, having a nurse hold a urinal while he's operating! He or she has almost no contact with their family and friends. Can you imagine their emotional lives which they must keep in the tightest control?
Shakyamuni Buddha, in order to preach the Lotus Sutra, underwent the Nine Great Persecutions. Nichiren encountered five or six major persecutions in order to attain Buddhahood and the minor persecutions were too numerous to mention, sometimes eating grass, bracken, and tubors that he had to dig up in the freezing cold. Attaining Buddhahood is no easier than becoming a neurosurgeon, despite the vast immeasureable benefits of chanting Namu Myoho renge kyo.
Easy benefit, Enlightenment, Buddhahood? Real Nichiren Lotus Sutra Buddhism
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