Sensei's Daily Encouragement - 22 March 2021 - Year of Hope and Victory

                             

Daily Encouragement by Daisaku Ikeda

March 22, 2021

 

I call to each of you: Strive for prosperity! Strive for development! Strive for victory! Life is about striving all out to achieve our aims; it is about hard work and effort. Regardless of how smart you may be, intelligence alone cannot guarantee your future.

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From The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin

March 22, 2021

 

If a tree is deeply rooted, its branches and leaves will never wither. If the spring is inexhaustible, the stream will never run dry. Without wood, a fire will burn out. Without earth, plants will not grow. I, Nichiren, am indebted solely to my late teacher, Dozen-bo, for my having become the votary of the Lotus Sutra and my being widely talked about now, in both a good and bad sense. Nichiren is like the plant, and my teacher, the earth.

 

The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, page 909

Flowering and Bearing Grain

Written to Joken-bo and Gijo-bo in April 1278

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Wisdom for Modern Life by Daisaku Ikeda

March 22, 2021

 

Life is full of unexpected suffering. Even so, as Eleanor Roosevelt said: "If you can live through that [a difficult situation] you can live through anything. You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." That's exactly right. Struggling against great difficulty enables us to develop ourselves tremendously. We can call forth and manifest those abilities lying dormant within us. Difficulty can be a source of dynamic growth and positive progress. 

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Daisaku Ikeda – A Youthful Diary (14 December 1951) p.121

 

Slept through the morning. I wish I could say I slept well, but I was disturbed by a succession of bad dreams. In the end, I was still tired.

...

Decided to start tomorrow to make year-end preparations for Gakkai activities and for the company.

 

1. Detailed planning.

2. Well-organised administration.

3. Ability to take broad-minded action.

4. Unyielding progress.

 

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