Once we make a determination that we are going to succeed with a wonderful opportunity╤then we have to guard our inner, subjective world against the onslaught or the subtle insinuations of the negative voices, ╥Nothing is going to change, it is always going to be the same.╙ If we╒re susceptible to that, which most of us are until we are strong enough inside to deflect those voices automatically, we listen to them and allow them to influence us. The longer we listen, the more it erodes our prayer. So internally we start replacing our prayer. At some point we start to agree with the negative voice because that is what we have always done most our lives.
At that point, our prayer becomes not to succeed. When you chant daimoku it is what you are thinking and feeling that╒s being projected into the universe. And because the Law is impartial, we have free will. It is like a mirror. So if we change our prayer unknowingly, then the Law accepts that as what we want. It╒s non-judgmental.
So our responsibility is that if we want something, to hold that prayer and not allow that negative voice to discourage us. Because we start compromising, before we know it, we have given up on the prayer. Once we set our determination, do not compromise. Buddhism is win or lose. It is not compromise. Compromise is something we do all of our lives.
So set the determination and chant daimoku for that. Once you set the determination, how you get it and all that, become the Gohonzon╒s responsibility to work out. Our responsibility is to hold to the prayer without being swayed internally or externally.
It is important every morning to chant to manifest buddhahood. That is the primary point, because if we can not manifest buddhahood, then we cannot have much effect with our prayers anyway. If we do not understand this point, we spend time chanting only for what we want.
What is important too is the concept that we have a buddha nature. Life itself is buddha. Our whole life is buddha. Everything born into this world is buddha. We must not allow ourselves to think of this buddha nature as something outside ourselves. It is one and inseparable. The Gohonzon is an external object. But it is a catalyst to bring forth buddhahood from the depths of life. The buddhahood within us, and that which embodies the Gohonzon is the same reality. It looks like two separate things, but the unchanging, eternal truth is that buddha is life itself. You are buddha now. When you realize this you start to appreciate and recognize the dignity and the power and the unlimited aspects of your life.
This means that you are the buddha in charge of your own life. No one else. You can make it what you want it to be. Not what the environment would like it to be. When you realize that your life is buddha, when you transfer that to a feeling, that is ichinen sanzen. Then you can draw forth that power to transform or create a buddha╒s land where you stand. It is not some place else, or in the future.
The past is just a dream, no matter how good or bad it was╤nothing more than a dream. The future is nothing more than imagination. Either positive or negative imagination. In and of itself it has no existence. The essence of life, which is myo, is eternal and unchanging. The more you realize your life is buddha, then the more conviction you will have in your daimoku.
The ultimate ichinen of the Gohonzon is to make the people of any given world equal to themselves. That is why a buddha appears, to allow all people to open the palace of their own enlightenment and wisdom. If we do not understand this, we are like beggars chanting. At some point the Gohonzon will cease to answer our prayers because if we continue this way, we can not attain enlightenment. We are missing the whole point. What you feel about the Gohonzon you can feel about the living Gohonzon inside yourself.
Buddhism is vertical, this present moment is infinite and unlimited and eternal.
There comes a point where you consciously have to start working out your own enlightenment. You cannot just drift along. You could practice all your life still looking at it the wrong way. But by consciously being aware, you can perceive that your life itself is buddha. You must perceive the nature of your own life. If you cannot realize that, then every time a problem comes up, you suffer. You feel hopeless and helpless. But when we realize our life is buddha, then whenever a problem comes up, great confidence or conviction arises: ╥Because my life is buddha, I can transform this into a great benefit.╙
When you can deepen the conviction that your life itself is the entity of buddha just as you are, not when you become some ╥perfect╙ being, then when something comes up, you can feel no fear or anxiety╤it╒s just another opportunity to transform it into a greater benefit and transform suffering into joy. Supreme optimist, you have no fear of the future, no regret of the past. Your life is buddha, you can transform anything and make any situation manifest it╒s latent buddhahood. So even in a situation of hell, because you have this deep conviction that your life itself is buddha, you manifest that conviction and the buddhahood innate within that phenomenon or situation rises up to match that.
