Bring the practice into everyday challenges

Keep chanting through ordinary difficulties rather than waiting for them to pass, as Nichiren urged in his letters.

Pourquoi ça marche

Nichiren wrote to Shijō Kingo, a samurai follower facing trouble: “Suffer what there is to suffer, enjoy what there is to enjoy. Regard both suffering and joy as facts of life, and continue chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, no matter what happens.” The teaching underneath is the Tiantai principle Nichiren adopted, that each moment of life contains all ten worlds, from hell to buddhahood. Buddhahood is therefore available in the middle of a hard day, not only after it. Soka Gakkai develops this as “human revolution,” inner change that shows in one’s circumstances. Nichiren Shū frames each day with a morning and evening service. Both tie the practice to the actual day.

Comment faire

1. In the morning, chant with the coming day in mind: the work, the people and what you are likely to meet.
2. When a difficulty arises, return to the practice that day, even briefly, instead of waiting until things calm down.
3. Take Nichiren’s line literally: let the suffering be suffering and the joy be joy, without needing either to stop the chanting.
4. In the evening, chant or simply give thanks for the day as it was, and note one moment you met with more steadiness than you expected.
5. Bring what does not shift to your community or a study group. Practical problems may also need practical or professional help alongside the practice.

Données probantes

The passage is from Happiness in This World (1276). Nichiren’s use of the Tiantai teaching that each moment of life contains three thousand realms is traced by Habito and by Habito and Stone. Soka Gakkai’s Ten Worlds page sets out the ten states from hell to buddhahood and their mutual possession, and its daily-practice page describes human revolution. Nichiren Shū describes its morning and evening home services. This is textual and practitioner support. (anecdotal)

Human revolution is Soka Gakkai’s term, and the schools express this idea differently. The tradition’s claims about benefit are claims of faith, and nothing here promises a particular outcome. If what you are facing includes thoughts of harming yourself, contact a crisis line or a clinician now, and lean on the people around you as well as on practice. Not studied in research.

Sources

• Nichiren. Happiness in This World (1276), reply to Shijō Kingo. In The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. I, pp. 681–682. Tokyo: Soka Gakkai (Nichiren Buddhism Library).
• Habito, R. L. F. (1999). Bodily reading of the Lotus Sutra: Understanding Nichiren’s Buddhism. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 26(3–4), 281–306.
• Habito, R. L. F., & Stone, J. I. (1999). Revisiting Nichiren: Editors’ introduction. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 26(3–4), 223–238.
• Soka Gakkai. The Ten Worlds (Buddhist Concepts). Soka Gakkai (global) official website.
• Soka Gakkai. Daily Practice. Soka Gakkai (global) official website.
• Nichiren Shu. Our Practice: Morning and Evening Services at Home. Nichiren Shu Portal, English edition.

Erreur fréquente

Keeping practice for good days and dropping it when life gets hard, or the reverse, using chanting to avoid dealing with a problem. Nichiren’s letter asks for neither, only that chanting continue through both.