When we chant daimoku, doesn't this summon forth the wisdom to know how to live and interact in our daily lives?
When we chant daimoku, doesn't this summon forth the wisdom to know how to live and interact in our daily lives?
Can we trust our Buddha nature? How do we know when it is emerging and, if that is basis behind our daily lives? Thank you for your insights everyone
In his writing, Hokkemongu (Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra), The Great Master Nichiren said, “If the practitioners of the Lotus Sutra wholeheartedly devote their life to the Lotus Sutra and practice according to its golden words, it is certainly needless to say that not only in the next life, but also in this lifetime they will overcome severe difficulty, prolong their life, receive the great, good fortune of unsurpassed enlightenment, and accomplish the great vow of the widespread, propagation of True Buddhism.”
Re: When we chant daimoku, doesn't this summon forth the wisdom to know how to live and interact in our daily lives?
I don't know when you'll get an answer to this, so, here's one:
Most people, even diligent Buddhist practitioners, have no idea about where they are on the path. Its simply the way ignorance veils everything.
The Buddha, however, sees all, knows people's capacities, predilections, tendencies, desires, etc. The Buddha accordingly leads people along the path whether they know it or not. This is the gist of many of the parables in the Lotus Sutra. By trusting in the Buddha, the potential for awakening is naturally developed. This is the expedient path. However, even in those who are completely ignorant of Buddha, even in those who willfully reject the Buddha, they are being drawn along the path to awakening, being induced and goaded toward awakening.
In effect, like a lion tamer, he causes beings to jump through hoops and walk tightropes, and do this and that, all the while enabling beings to untangle the mess of wrong views that has them trapped until one day... they are ready to hear the Lotus Sutra, at which point they are ready to wake.
Most people, even diligent Buddhist practitioners, have no idea about where they are on the path. Its simply the way ignorance veils everything.
The Buddha, however, sees all, knows people's capacities, predilections, tendencies, desires, etc. The Buddha accordingly leads people along the path whether they know it or not. This is the gist of many of the parables in the Lotus Sutra. By trusting in the Buddha, the potential for awakening is naturally developed. This is the expedient path. However, even in those who are completely ignorant of Buddha, even in those who willfully reject the Buddha, they are being drawn along the path to awakening, being induced and goaded toward awakening.
In effect, like a lion tamer, he causes beings to jump through hoops and walk tightropes, and do this and that, all the while enabling beings to untangle the mess of wrong views that has them trapped until one day... they are ready to hear the Lotus Sutra, at which point they are ready to wake.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
Re: When we chant daimoku, doesn't this summon forth the wisdom to know how to live and interact in our daily lives?
I don't know so much about buddha nature or not, but an observable sign of practice is a stable increase in acceptance, gratitude, patience, empathy and corresponding decrease in judgement, attachment etc.
Re: When we chant daimoku, doesn't this summon forth the wisdom to know how to live and interact in our daily lives?
https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/94Question: If a person simply chants Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with no understanding of its meaning, are the benefits of understanding thereby included?
Answer: When a baby drinks milk, it has no understanding of its taste, and yet its body is naturally nourished. Who ever took the wonderful medicines of Jīvaka knowing of what they were compounded? Water has no intent, and yet it can put out fire. Fire consumes things, and yet how can we say that it does so consciously? This is the explanation of both Nāgārjuna and T’ien-t’ai, and I am restating it here.
Question: Why do you say that all teachings are contained within the daimoku?
Answer: Chang-an writes: “Hence [T’ien-t’ai’s explanation of the title in] the preface conveys the profound meaning of the sutra. The profound meaning indicates the heart of the text, and the heart of the text encompasses the whole of the theoretical and essential teachings.” And Miao-lo writes, “On the basis of the heart of the text of the Lotus Sutra, one can evaluate all the other various teachings of the Buddha.”
Though muddy water has no mind, it can catch the moon’s reflection and so naturally becomes clear. When plants and trees receive the rainfall, they can hardly be aware of what they are doing, and yet do they not proceed to put forth blossoms? The five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo do not represent the sutra text, nor are they its meaning. They are nothing other than the intent of the entire sutra. So, even though the beginners in Buddhist practice may not understand their significance, by practicing these five characters, they will naturally conform to the sutra’s intent.
Question: When your disciples, without any understanding, simply recite with their mouths the words Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, what level of attainment do they reach?
Answer: Not only do they go beyond the highest level of the four flavors and three teachings, as well as that attained by practitioners of the perfect teaching set forth in the sutras that precede the Lotus Sutra, but they surpass by a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, million times the founders of the True Word and various other schools of Buddhism, such as Shan-wu-wei, Chih-yen, Tz’u-en, Chi-tsang, Tao-hsüan, Bodhidharma, and Shan-tao.
Therefore, I entreat the people of this country: Do not look down upon my disciples! If you inquire into their past, you will find that they are great p.789bodhisattvas who have given alms to Buddhas over a period of eight hundred thousand million kalpas, and who have carried out practices under Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Hiranyavatī and Ganges rivers. And if we speak of the future, they will be endowed with the benefit of the fiftieth person, surpassing that of one who gave alms to innumerable living beings for a period of eighty years. They are like an infant emperor wrapped in swaddling clothes, or a great dragon who has just been born. Do not despise them! Do not look on them with contempt!
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,