Daily Encouragement by Daisaku Ikeda
Monday, August 25, 2014
Life flashes by in an instant. By devoting our lives to Buddhism, we will live a life of complete fulfillment. We are selling ourselves short if we fail to attain such a wonderful state of life.
From the Writings of Nichiren Daishonin
Monday, August 25, 2014
This Gohonzon is the essence of the Lotus Sutra and the eye of all the scriptures. It is like the sun and moon in the heavens, a great ruler on earth, the heart in a human being, the wish-granting jewel among treasures and the pillar of a house. When we have this mandala with us, it is a rule that all Buddhas and gods will gather round and watch over us, protecting us like a shadow day and night, just as warriors guard their ruler, as parents love their children, as fish rely on water, as trees and plants crave rain, or as birds depend on trees.
The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, page 624
On Upholding Faith in the Gohonzon
Written to the lay nun Myoshin on August 25, 1275
Wisdom for Modern Life by Daisaku Ikeda
Monday, August 25, 2014
One of the fascinating things about human beings is this: Believe for long enough that you are not as smart as others and this will actually lead to intellectual ineptitude. But, confronted with the same doubts, if you choose to believe that your mind is merely dormant for now, lacking in exercise, once you begin to train it, there are no bounds to what you can achieve.
Excerpt from Daisaku Ikeda - A Youthful Diary (07 February 1956) p.289
The "Life Span" chapter of the Lotus Sutra reads:
Abandoning restraint, they give themselves up to the five desires
and fall into the evil paths of existence.
Always I am aware of which living beings
practice the way, and which do not,
and in response to their needs for salvation
I preach various doctrines for them.
At all times I think to myself:
How can I cause living beings
to gain entry into the unsurpassed way
and quickly acquire the body of a Buddha? – (LS16, 231-32)
A lonely day.
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