Daily Encouragement - 30 July 2011

Daily Encouragement by Daisaku Ikeda Saturday, July 30, 2011   Faith enables us to secure ultimate victory. It enables us to live with vigour and joy and to strive to improve ourselves - to become the very best people we can be. Moreover, faith enables us to walk through life with complete assurance and confidence, unafraid of anything.     From the Writings of Nichiren Daishonin Saturday, July 30, 2011   Our worldly misdeeds and evil karma may have piled up as high as Mount Sumeru, but when we take faith in this sutra, they will vanish like frost or dew under the sun of the Lotus Sutra.   The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, page 1026 Letter to Niike Written to Niike Saemon-no-jo in February 1280     Wisdom for Modern Life by Daisaku Ikeda Saturday, July 30, 2011   Religion must teach an "attitude to life." To live a life of true human dignity is certainly difficult. Life is change; it is continuous change. Nothing is constant. The four sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death are an eternal theme that no one can escape. Amid harsh reality, people yearn from the depths of their beings to live with dignity and for their lives to have meaning, and they make efforts toward that end. The product of these human yearnings, these prayers, is religion. Religion was born from prayer. What is Nichiren's response to these prayers of human beings? What attitude toward life does he teach? The answer, in short, is the principle of attaining Buddhahood in this lifetime.     Sensei on Self - Mastery - Words of Wisdom   Human integrity is determined by the heart, not by cleverness.