Jay’s Experience with Buddhism – Jay’s 5-minute sharing at Wasatch chapter meeting on 28 Jan 2024
One of the most significant things that I have learned in my experience since encountering Nichiren Buddhism, is how it has enriched my identity – a deeper sense of who I am.
“In the Lotus Sutra’s eighth and ninth chapters, the “Prophecy of Enlightenment for Five Hundred Disciples” and “Prophecies Conferred on Learners and Adepts,” the voice-hearer disciples awaken to their true identities.”1 (Living Buddhism, Jan 2024, p.40)
In April of last year, along with Clete in the panel of presenters was a student from India (Tanu?). I was impressed with her comments. She talked about how anyone who chants and shares Buddhism with others will attain enlightenment. Those who attain it in this life will be given a choice to stay in the happy land after they die, or to go to the impure land – world of endurance (that would be this world) and endure suffering again. Why would anyone want to? Because we voluntarily came to earth to help others attain the same. We are Buddhas in past life and have chosen to come here. We are “supremely noble” she said.2 (See JJournal 23 Apr 2023)
Her comment left an impression on me. I did not expect to find the things that I’ve discovered in my study of Buddhism. It is, as it were, (in the words of the Lotus Sutra), like a cluster of jewels that have come to me unexpectedly, it’s come to me, unsought. (See The Lotus Sutra and Its Opening and Closing Sutras, 2009, translated by Burton Watson, Soka Gakkai. Translation from Kumarajiva (Chinese), abbreviated as “LSOC,” p.124)
Nichiren writes:
“It is rare to be born a human being. The number of those endowed with human life is as small as the amount of earth one can place on a fingernail. Life as a human being is hard to sustain—as hard as it is for the dew to remain on the grass.” (Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Volume 1, abbreviated as “WND-1,” p.851)
As rare as it is to be born a human being, the Lotus Sutra tells us that rarer still, is as a human, to hear the Mystic Law3. Rarest of all, as a human who has been fortunate enough to hear the Mystic Law, is to encounter a Buddha.4
It is an incredible experience to recognize that my true identity ties me back to something so ancient that it not only predates my life in this sahā world, but extends back many kulpas.5
Nichiren taught that you must never think that Shakyamuni’s teachings are outside yourself. If you seek enlightenment outside yourself then even performing ten thousand practices and good deeds will be in vain.6 This is true because we are connected with and part of a greater cosmic truth within which we live and move and have our being.7
In his presentation at the Unity in Humanity conference (14 Oct 2023), Danny Hall (Director of Public Affairs for SGI) described our identity as waves on an ocean. Though a wave may have a distinct form, size, shape, height, etc., it is part of a greater thing. That thing is the ocean itself. You can’t separate them. They are connected. And so when I talk about Buddhism is connecting me with something greater than what I am, what fascinates me is not just the wave, which is who I am, but the ocean itself to which I am connected is also who I am. By myself I am nothing.8 Put another way, I could say that I know more than all the world put together. The universal intelligence that connects all things together does anyhow, and I will associate myself with it.9
Thank you.
- The article continued with, “They realize that they have always been bodhisattvas striving alongside their mentor.” My thought is that they have always been bodhisattvas in the same sense that the father recognized his son in the parable of the wealthy man and his poor son from the “Belief and Understanding” (fourth) chapter of the Lotus Sutra. To the father, the son had always been his son, even though the son did not awaken to this realization until the very end. The question is, was the son his son before he even existed? The question of “existence” I have started to address in JJournal 22 Jan 2024. ↩︎
- Compare Abraham 3:22: “Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was, and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones. And God saw these souls, that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them and he said, These I will make my rulers. For he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good. And he said unto me, Abraham, you are one of them; you were chosen before you were born.” ↩︎
- “The times when the buddhas appear in the world are far apart and difficult to encounter. And even when they appear in the world it is difficult for them to preach this Law. Throughout incalculable, innumerable kalpas it is rare that one may hear this Law, and a person capable of listening to this Law, such a person is likewise rare. It is like the udumbara flower, which all the world loves and delights in, which heavenly and human beings look on as something rare, but which appears only once in many many ages. If a person hears this Law, delights in and praises it, even if he utters just one word, then he has made offerings to all the buddhas of the three existences.” (LSOC p. 79-80) ↩︎
- “It is very difficult to encounter a buddha — you meet one once in a million kalpas.” (LSOC, 52)
“Because encountering the buddha is as difficult as encountering the udumbara flower. Or as difficult as it is for a one-eyed turtle to encounter a floating log with a hole in it. We have been blessed with great good fortune from past existences and so have been born in an age where we can encounter the buddha’s Law.” (LSOC, 356) ↩︎ - “And this is the manner after which they were ordained: being called and prepared from the foundation of the world, according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works in the first place, being left to choose good or evil; therefore they, having chosen good, and exercising exceeding great faith, are called with a holy calling — yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.” (Alma 13:3. See also Jeremiah 1:5) ↩︎
- “You must never think that any of the eighty thousand sacred teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha’s lifetime or any of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions and three existences are outside yourself. Your practice of the Buddhist teachings will not relieve you of the sufferings of birth and death in the least unless you perceive the true nature of your life. If you seek enlightenment outside yourself, then your performing even ten thousand practices and ten thousand good deeds will be in vain.” (WND-1, 3) ↩︎
- See Acts 17:28. Compare also with Mosiah 2:21. ↩︎
- What do I mean by that? It is described in the Lotus Sutra in “Peaceful Practices” chapter (14, p.237), but that takes me outside the scope and time limit of today’s topic. See JJournal entries for 21 and 22 Jan 2024. (See also John 5:30, “I can of mine own self do nothing.”) ↩︎
- Borrowing language from Joseph Smith, “But I am learned, and know more than all the world put together. The Holy Ghost does, anyhow, and He is within me, and comprehends more than all the world: and I will associate myself with Him.” (TPJS, p. 350) ↩︎