"... the Two Dharmas of the Causal Practices and Effect [Virtues] of Lord Shakya are fully possessed in the Five Characters 'Myo ho ren ge kyo'; when we receive and keep these Five Characters He spontaneously yields and assigns [to us] the merits of those Causes and Effect" (Kanjin Honzon sho, STN, v. 1, 711).
"One receives because of faith; one keeps because of recalling." (Hokke mongu (Text Commentary on the Lotus Sutra) T.34.107c).
"The people who hear and receive this Sutra are many; the people who, as they have truly heard and received it, though great persecutions come, keep it in memory and do not forget it are few. To receive it is easy; to keep it is difficult. Therefore, attaining Buddhahood lies in keeping. The persons who would keep this Sutra keep it with the understanding that they shall encounter persecution.There is no doubt that 'They then will quickly obtain The Supreme Buddha Way' ["Chapter of the Jeweled Stupa"11 (T.9.34b)]. To recall 'Namu Myoho renge kyo' which is the Great Matter of the Buddhas of the Three Eras [Past, Present, and Future] we call 'keeping.' In the Sutra it says, '[We] shall guard and keep what the Buddha has entrusted.' ["Chapter of the Practices of Peaceful Joy"(T.9.36c)] Tendai Daishi says, 'One receives because of faith; one keeps because of recalling.' It also says,
"This Sutra is difficult to keep;
If there is one who keeps it even for short while,
I shall at once rejoice
And the Buddhas shall likewise do so' "
["Chapter of the Jeweled Stupa" 11 (T.9.34b)] (Shijo dono gohenji, STN, v. 1, 894).
"Each person of Japan and so on to the Land of Han, the Yuezhi [India], and the whole of Jambudvipa, regardless of whether they have wisdom or have no wisdom, should uniformly abandon other matters and chant 'Namu Myoho renge kyo'" (Hoon sho, STN, v. 2, 1248).
one wonders what the sgi/nst/shu think when they read stuff like this? delusion is a bottomless reality.
ReplyDeleteOne wonders the likelihood of SGI NST EVER encountering the true teachings!! It's a stacked deck holding up personal gain and material benefit-- with enough authoritarian control over members to prohibit them from realizing they are being duped-- until the goodies stop rolling in and the pain and suffering are too much to bear !!
ReplyDelete~Katie
indeed katie.... the eternal buddha and his emissary both encourage faith in the lotus sutra as being the ultimate goal. really, there are only two paths. one can encounter the law and slander it or, encounter and take faith and uphold it. apparently the people who make their appearance in the saha world, in most cases have a slanderous relationship to the buddha and the law. certainly, the world we live in reflects this truth. it is very sad that once one encounters the dharma, they squander the opportunity to purify their lives by following the wrong person, remaining ignorant of the teachings and thereby creating horrible karma for themselves. i believe nichiren would say that they have wasted this lifetime.
Deleteindeed it is difficult to keep and speaking for myself i could do better, however, the word strive to, is a good two words. apparently few really does mean few.
i doubt there are many so-called buddhist chanters who have read this, and if they have...they think its talking about someone else. cheers!
Makes me wish I had kept a journal/log of every response I got to the Gosho passages i would refer to when questioning MOST of what was discussed at SGI activities-- and written in the Pubs--
DeleteI remember lots of the *ignore that-- here's what Nichiren really meant..* stuff but to have the journal would reflect how this was an ALWAYS response style that never demonstrated ANY reflection on the part of SGi leaders-- even for a moment they could not pause and wonder-- Why are we saying/doing the opposite of what Nichiren himself wrote?"-- Made me wonder years later if part of leader training was specific instruction on completely ignoring Nichiren's own writings and sticking to the passages and commentary of the Gakkai *wisdom academy* -??
I reflect on this because NOW it seems that such a dismissive attitude about Nichiren's teachings is the status quo, baseline, NORM-- and the fact that this is outrageous slander cannot even be addressed with those who NEVER took Nichiren at his word-- NEVER-- NOT EVER !! Because they don't even bother to read HIS words!!
Noel-- now preaching on arbn, consistently holds up his sources resources-- the SGI dictionary, wikipedia, and the spam rests of the SGI troll, Chas, etc. AND proves he doesn't' read anything that conflicts with his personal preferences. Noel's response to the actual words of Nichiren is *disbelief* followed by another personal attack on me--Mark, Shinkei- Mudpie, who disappeared and you who were more respectful of Noel than I could summon the courage to be--
I am grateful for the archives here-- and those who take the time to read how simply and logically the situation boils down--
Cheers!
~Katie
hey katie , all very interesting. as you know i joined the nsa/sgi in july of 1967. that time was the beginning of the american faced member explosion. most of the leaders were japanese. broken english. much of what they taught was not really buddhism but japanese culture. as americans, most could not tell the difference. i must say, and most would agree, it was a very interesting time. men on one side of the room and women on there other, is a pretty good example. i was lost and needed some structure as did most american youth. "chant and you can get anything you want", oh boy!
Deleteat that time, the nsa did in fact have much of the spirit of nichiren. we were encouraged to study the gosho and the lotus sutra. this was the beginning of the world tribune and it was only two pages. i am not saying that nsa was correct because they took their understanding from the shoshu. we now know how nuts that is. really just saying that the early nsa/GMW had the spirit to follow nichiren. at that time ikeda was just the young president of the soka gakkai and although revered, not overly so. as nsa began to grow, by 1971 ikedas weight and presence was felt more and more. looking back, i have no doubt that williams was under much pressure to speak highly and kowtow to ikeda. i think ikeda is really a very mean and petty man....to those who are close to him.
long story short... little by little everything about buddhism became about ikeda, his explanations, his image, pretty soon it was to see ikeda was the same as seeing the die gohonzon.
for 20 years i did activities 24/7...little sleep, chanting tons, follow the leader even though their behavior was hideous. however, i did study and took nichiren at his word even though i was encouraged to not do that. probably much like you. finally by 87' i had seen enough. i knew in my heart something was horrible wrong........so adios!
much later i spent some years with the nst but knew their teachings were ridiculous so goodbye to that. they got real mad at me too. fuck you! around 2004, people were telling me that the sgi had really changed. feeling more knowledgeable and more mature, i decided to check it out for myself. ha ha..boy had they changed. even i was shocked at how far away they were from what they used to teach and encourage. it did not take long for me to call them on their absurdity and became persona non gratis. stood up at my last meeting and told them that "this is not buddhism, goodbye". some time later ran across mark on the net.
too bad about mudpie and noel...so close, yet so far. noel has a big ego and it is his downfall. i gave him some slack because for the most part he supported what mark posted. hoping he would move in a correct direction. then you came along and the light got a little brighter neh?
over the years many people have come and gone. you missed the wars over on fraught with peril.....appropriate name. he he. they ganged up on mark and gave him the heave ho. "he will be banished again and again". truthfully, most people cannot hang when the going gets a little rough. this of course shows that most people don't know the teachings, or if they do know a little, they don't believe them. bitter, yet unavoidable. yeah, i guess so. even back in the nsa days i would read things like this and ask..where does this fit in? nichiren says this but the nsa/sgi says that. i still believe that whom ever we touch will someday seek the correct law. although i don't think it will be in the next couple of months. lol. best wishes.
oh yeah, regarding noel...i don't think courage was the issue. i think it was a timing thing. and maybe a button issue. just sayin'. cheers.
Deletei ran across this post the other day....
ReplyDeletebuddhagirl says:
April 29, 2015 at 8:45 pm
Thanks to greg romero I am here today! :^)
Hope yr doin well greg…:- )
Patty fisher & charles parker wrote forever sensei.
I remember when mr. Parker lived in his rv at pico.
And would sit at the front desk and chain smoke..
Wow.how times have changed!..
Saw barbara parker up north a few yrs ago..
don't know who she is but someone from the past. i have to laugh, because its positive and usually it just ugly. rare !
i know both patti fisher and charles parker. parker was one of the first senior leaders in the L A/santa monica area, also one of the first americans to work for the headquarters. he died a little young from brain cancer. his wife barbara went into hiding to avoid the sgi. fisher left the sgi in the 90's. today she may be a fringe member. don't know if they wrote f sensei but is possible.
Deletethis is my reply to her.......
ReplyDeletegreg romero says:
January 10, 2017 at 4:04 pm
hello buddhagirl… i just saw this post(1-10-17). sorry, a little late. i am doing well so thanks for your reply. today, i practice independently and as should be, my teacher is the emissary for the modern age, nichiren. through much practice and deep study, years ago i came to the understanding that neither sgi or nst follow what the eternal buddha or nichiren taught. truthfully, they both slander the real teachings. GMW was betrayed by ikeda and the american staff, and GMW got a very raw deal. he was not protected as the sutra promises, because he like ikeda, went against the teachings. nst teachings are absurd. they all should be ashamed. ikedas trip is power/money, and aggrandizement, and GMW was too popular. to look any place else is foolish. i could go on but….., ikeda has not been seen in public for 6 years. he had a very bad stroke and i doubt he is making any decisions. yet, the sgi corporation still continues to use his image. shameful !
cheers to you whoever you are and thanks for your kind thought. namu myoho renge kyo !!!!!!!! also…cheers to david.
this is from the endless further blog run by some long ago nsa/sgi member who no longer practices but felt the need to blog about GMW.
if buddhagirl replys to my comment , i will direct her to eagle peak.
DeleteSeems like "the sun is breaking through"-- though not exactly as depicted in "Forever Sensei"-- it is a very odd and sometimes creepy set of circumstances that give me hope that even the karma one created by singing Forever Sensei can be transformed and the suffering of the avici hell [retribution for each and every time this song was sung] can vanish in an instant!!
DeleteI hope buddhagirl does show up here :)
Cheers!
~Katie
i hope she will too. actual, curious to know who she is. unfortunately, i did not see her post for a long time. she could be long gone. also, i don't really know if she is a hardcore ikedabot. most likely not. another of the few would be nice. preferably female. women have great power.
DeleteWhat happened with Mudpie?
ReplyDeleteI wish i knew-- after noting that the archives over on arbn were *tampered with*-- September or October-- around then... Mudpie stopped posting on arbn as iainx-- and disappeared here where he was always mudpie boi--also around that time Noel went to arbn and was especially brutal in his attacks-- on al of us, but what Noel said about iainx was particularly un-called for!
ReplyDeleteLast month there was a comment posted on the *chas refutation index* by @chubby-- announcing the reddit whistleblower site's newcomers of which iainx name was included--
I wondered *out loud* if there were copyright violations for the posting of Buddhism in Action excerpts that proved how far off Ikeda has veered from when he was a *disciple of Jose Today*-- legal action initiated by SGI legal-buzzards ?? LOL-- but hey, this does happen.
In any case I miss him-- and hope he still checks in even if he is currently disinclined to post comments--
~Katie
not that it matters, but i wonder if he could be a she. i always prefer to know who i am talking to. Boi.
Deleteeither way mudpie, lets us know how you are doing.
Over on arbn Mudpie/iainx came out as a gay male-- the response by the "Boy Band" Chas and Noel were stellar examples of --well, the opposite of what one might associate with an *enlightened* perspective--.
ReplyDeleteThere are the sure -to -arise -agonizing ordeals that accompany the declaration of the true teaching-- and declaring things exactly as they are. I am wondering if this was Mudpie's first episode of refuting error and rebuking slander--for a *first* it was HUGE -- considering the magnitude of the indictment- evoking evidence about SGIkeda--and the public venue-- on-line forum where he disclosed these jewels!
So-- let's keep him in our thoughts and prayers ---?
~Katie
sounds good to me katie. just to be clear...it does not matter to me at all. i believe and practice that everyone should be treated well regardless of sex, color etc. only a thought because lesbians refer to young butch girls as boi. he left some good posts here. regarding the net, one is never sure who they are talking to.
Delete