Sensei's Daily Encouragement - 30 July 2020 - Year of Advancement and Capable People

    

Daily Encouragement by Daisaku Ikeda

July 30, 2020 

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

July 30, 2020 

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 Nike

Written to Niike Saemon-no-jo in February 1280

 

---

 

Wisdom for Modern Life by Daisaku Ikeda

July 30, 2020 

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.

 

---

 

Daisaku Ikeda - A Youthful Diary (17 July 1954) p.191 

Visited Sensei's home in the evening. Received guidance on various matters. Was also severely reprimanded. This could not be helped; it was totally my fault. Disciples will forge on and grow, no matter how many times they are scolded. Must never become arrogant. For me to think that I, who lacks ability and a solid foundation, am something great – this is arrogance.

Lifelong advancement; lifelong study; lifelong effort; lifelong construction.