Assistance in what to chant

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jgcaap
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Assistance in what to chant

Post by jgcaap »

Hello,

Recently me and my ex girlfriend broke up (4 years relationship, 2 years living together). I was very tired and stressed from work and I did not had time to rest the mind and recover. Could not sleep well either. (4/5 hours per day).

Before my girlfriend moving in, I was actually becoming a different person, compared to what I was in the past. I am always wanting to self improve.

We have been having lots of discussions because of my personality, where she thinks I am manipulative controller and passive aggressive. We had a fight were I ended up threatening her while I was angry but apologized right after one second. I was feeling super depressed and tired and it was not the relationship but the environment where I was living. After she breaking up I searched for her many times to try to speak with her about this but she is running away from me.

I started to pratice budisme as I want to understand her feelings. My background is Catholic. I really love this woman, and I want her to forgive me and give me a new chance. I wanted to propose to her this year.

I started thinking in myself and decided to start going to a psicologist.

After some investigation I agree with her that I have these behaviours and I want to change. It was very very hard to understand but only now I was able to and took around 2 years to fully understand her complains.

It was explained to me that we could chant to one day come again together. I would like to try. My dedication towards this is a lot because she was the girl of my dreams. I just stopped focusing on her for a while because I was fighting for our future.

Can anyone help me to become a better human, by letting me know what to read and what to chant?

I heard that with chanting the other person can feel us. What do I need to chant to speak with her? Only Nam myoho renge kio?

I want to fix what I messed up. If you can help I would be grateful.

Thanks
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Queequeg
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Queequeg »

Since you are asking in this forum, chanting NamuMyohorengekyo is the essential practice. There are other practices as well.

NMRK is not a magic spell that can alter the past. It is the path to Buddhahood.

You are asking how to fix a relationship that has ended. You think it was your behavior that caused your significant other to leave you.

From a Buddhist perspective, you are already pretty advanced in terms of understanding cause and effect. You recognize that it was your thoughts, words and acts that led to a course of events. You understand that changing your thoughts, words and acts will lead to a different outcome.

Following the Buddhist path may bring you and your ex back together; it may not - the course of our lives is circuitous. Buddhist practice is ill suited as a method for arranging the world of causes and conditions to suit our desires. Its methods can be applied to those ends in limited respects, but sooner or later they fail in those purposes because the aim they are bent to is inherently self destructive. They are inherently self-destructive because they are founded on a fundamental misapprehension about reality, about our real nature. The aim of the Buddhist path is to awaken to our real nature. Everything else is like dew. Following the Buddhist path, instead of bending it to our purposes, leads to awakening. With awakening - I can declare with categorical certainty, all of your concerns about your broken relationship will be resolved.

Consider this:

Chant the Daimoku every day, morning and evening, for at least 15 minutes each time, for a month. See what happens. Don't worry about rekindling your relationship. Let the Daimoku soak into your life, let the medicine take its course. After a month, see where you stand.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
jgcaap
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by jgcaap »

Thank you.

I am being also oriented. I guess you are totally right. :) I hope things will improve. I am working on it.
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Minobu
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Minobu »

Queequeg wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:56 pm
NMRK is not a magic spell that can alter the past. It is the path to Buddhahood.
I think Nichiren Shonin made it clear in His life's work that the practice can affect one's daily life and make it safer, brighter , happier,healthier, and so on...He took it to the common people's level and not just something for monks and priests...

We are all many lifetimes away from Buddhahood and the beauty of Lotus buddhism is the common householder and the like can incorporate the practice into one's life...
Queequeg wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:56 pm Consider this:

Chant the Daimoku every day, morning and evening, for at least 15 minutes each time, for a month. See what happens. Don't worry about rekindling your relationship. Let the Daimoku soak into your life, let the medicine take its course. After a month, see where you stand.
exactly but it is important to note how one actually practices the practice.

All buddhist practice whether it be tantra or simple vipassana requires the technique of focusing the mind on the simple task at hand.

observing....

breath meditation requires one to ignore the "Inner Noise" or the constant stream of thought that is always present and focus on the breath....when one notices they lose concentration just bring it back and focus on the breath...it's not the time to analyze or wonder why you can only watch two breaths before you are back thinking about Sally's thighs.

just do...and ignore....


Nichiren's Practice is the same...all this gakki goal stuff that had us having goals and chanting for them is the work of demons...chanting for goals and just chant for something ...is not Buddhist meditative practice...in fact once i started to do what they said....nothing happened but endless austerity


the practice is thus...

chant the ODaimoku and listen and focus on the words...feel the words...be the words ...what ever floats your moment to moment experience during daimoku time...observing ....observing and watching...and paying attention to the simple task of chanting...simple...easy ....not really though...hardets thing to get an untrained mind to do....but you have to do it...

i like to pause before i start and actually say to myself...ok this is the time i set aside for Daimoku in front of Gohonzon....everything else is not appropriate to think about now...just the daimoku and looking at gohonzon when i have one.


and then start the chanting and the gongyo in front of gohonzon....it's not the time to wonder why He placed the god Brahma on gohonzon...or hey Dai Bishamon Tenno can grant wealth....


like vipassana the simple task is to chant and observe the words which are medicine....you want to figure out what it is and the nuts and bolts of what you are doing....practice time is not the time to do it...

keep bringing the mind back to the meditation of chanting the ODaimoku in front of Gohonzon if you have one ...

it's like that cut on your hand healed itself without you understanding the nuts and bolts of the process...

Buddhist Medicine is the same...it's part of everything....it just is.....


so like the teaching of esho funi is there for a reason...doing what Q advised is profound....do it and see what happens...

but it is important that you at least focus on at least one daimoku during each session...eventually you will focus on two and then three...during a fifteen minute session....no worries....the act of trying to focus is the practice....but try to focus solely on one ODaimoku...it's incredibly hard and yet simple...
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Queequeg »

Minobu wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 5:15 pm
Queequeg wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:56 pm
NMRK is not a magic spell that can alter the past. It is the path to Buddhahood.
I think Nichiren Shonin made it clear in His life's work that the practice can affect one's daily life and make it safer, brighter , happier,healthier, and so on...He took it to the common people's level and not just something for monks and priests...

We are all many lifetimes away from Buddhahood and the beauty of Lotus buddhism is the common householder and the like can incorporate the practice into one's life...
True.

There is an aspect of tangible benefits of practice but I don't like to emphasize them. Based on Ichinen Sanzen we understand that our body, our relationships, our environment are all reflections of our mind. If our thoughts, words and deeds are NMRK, it follows that we should enjoy good circumstances, though we still can't avoid the ripening of karma. As Minobu points out, many people who learned NMRK learned it in the context of a dispensation that emphasized material gain. That was a message for people living in the ruins of war. I don't see how that message is appropriate for people living in the midst of material excess (even if individuals in our society may be impoverished, material gain has a different significance than it does for someone living with dead bodies in the street and buildings reduced to smoldering ruins).

The point is, the benefits are a side effect of correct practice. The moment that those benefits become the focus and goal of practice, it is no longer Buddhism. Its not necessarily a bad practice in the scheme of samsara, but like all samsaric endeavors, it only perpetuates samsara. It may lead to the three good paths for a while, but it does not lead to the end of samsara.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Minobu »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 6:54 pm As Minobu points out, many people who learned NMRK learned it in the context of a dispensation that emphasized material gain. That was a message for people living in the ruins of war. I don't see how that message is appropriate for people living in the midst of material excess
hmmmm maybe in President Toda's time in Japan in the 19 40's and early 1950's...

but it was not in North America at that time...

It arrived in north America and was basically sold as a benefit machine to young middle class people...The whole war torn thing was not on anyone's radar here in North america when Gakki inspired benefits were the prime directive all through the 70's , 80's and when i was still there in the early 90's...the only aspect of war that was in the air was one of ending the war in Viet Nam and further drafts.

we were not a suffering nation .... we were looking for a magic ..a quick fix and it was sold as that....

in fact people like me who wanted to focus on the spiritual side of it and the buddhist intellectual aspect of it...were shunned !!!!!

in the gakki anyway...which was like 99.99% of the Nichiren thing here.
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Queequeg »

Minobu wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 7:28 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 6:54 pm As Minobu points out, many people who learned NMRK learned it in the context of a dispensation that emphasized material gain. That was a message for people living in the ruins of war. I don't see how that message is appropriate for people living in the midst of material excess
hmmmm maybe in President Toda's time in Japan in the 19 40's and early 1950's...

but it was not in North America at that time...

It arrived in north America and was basically sold as a benefit machine to young middle class people...The whole war torn thing was not on anyone's radar here in North america when Gakki inspired benefits were the prime directive all through the 70's , 80's and when i was still there in the early 90's...the only aspect of war that was in the air was one of ending the war in Viet Nam and further drafts.

we were not a suffering nation .... we were looking for a magic ..a quick fix and it was sold as that....

in fact people like me who wanted to focus on the spiritual side of it and the buddhist intellectual aspect of it...were shunned !!!!!

in the gakki anyway...which was like 99.99% of the Nichiren thing here.
Preaching to the choir.

To be fair, NSA came with both - the material benefit machine as well as a rigorous dharma curriculum. Don't know how it was in Canada.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by narhwal90 »

There are plenty of people suffering badly in 3rd world conditions or worse in the US and elsewhere who find solace and strength in their SGI practice. Its easy to dispense with considerations of material benefits when one has enough, though I certainly appreciate the dubious aspects of chanting for a new car or new girlfriend as an ultimate goal. I know personally some folks chant or have chanted to not be homeless or for their loved ones to survive in hospital or in jail.

I'm no defender of the modern SGI study programs such as they are, but for many of those who take up the practice its a do or die scenario.

To minobu's point tho, I recently put my foot down with participating in SGI meetings- I'm not going to walk thru the usual dialog or Mr Ikeda master/disciple thing- if I'm going to contribute it'll be sutras and Zhiyi and Nichiren history good, bad, and ugly- not just repeating the accepted SGI line. We'll see if I get invited back :)
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

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narhwal90 wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:27 pm There are plenty of people suffering badly in 3rd world conditions or worse in the US and elsewhere who find solace and strength in their SGI practice. Its easy to dispense with considerations of material benefits when one has enough, though I certainly appreciate the dubious aspects of chanting for a new car or new girlfriend as an ultimate goal. I know personally some folks chant or have chanted to not be homeless or for their loved ones to survive in hospital or in jail.
This can be argued extensively. However, I stand by the assertion our relationship with the material environment is a very different circumstance with post war Japan where that formula emerged. Just as its different than the present material circumstances of people in the slums of Mumbai or Lagos. I'm not trying to say the sufferings of people struggling with poverty in the US are negligible. I am saying, though, I've seen how that message plays out for people here over the course of decades and having seen the distortions that result, I am not at all convinced that its a productive teaching for people here. And to boot, its taught wrong. Its taught as a commercial exchange: 100 NMRK = 100 points in the karma bank toward [fill in benefit here]. At best, its packaged as some sort of Buddhist flavored humanism, which is still short of Buddhism. In Japan, they were dealing with people who had Buddha Dharma deeply ingrained into their minds, even if it wasn't identified with the symbols. Certain sensibilities were activated through Buddhist practice.

We don't have that connection. People here have a very different mental make up.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

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narhwal90 wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:27 pm There are plenty of people suffering badly in 3rd world conditions or worse in the US and elsewhere who find solace and strength in their SGI practice. Its easy to dispense with considerations of material benefits when one has enough, though I certainly appreciate the dubious aspects of chanting for a new car or new girlfriend as an ultimate goal. I know personally some folks chant or have chanted to not be homeless or for their loved ones to survive in hospital or in jail.

I'm no defender of the modern SGI study programs such as they are, but for many of those who take up the practice its a do or die scenario.

To minobu's point tho, I recently put my foot down with participating in SGI meetings- I'm not going to walk thru the usual dialog or Mr Ikeda master/disciple thing- if I'm going to contribute it'll be sutras and Zhiyi and Nichiren history good, bad, and ugly- not just repeating the accepted SGI line. We'll see if I get invited back :)
i played a bit of the devil's advocate here in my last two posts.....

notice i said ..
Minobu wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 5:15 pm
I think Nichiren Shonin made it clear in His life's work that the practice can affect one's daily life and make it safer, brighter , happier,healthier, and so on...He took it to the common people's level and not just something for monks and priests...
but it is important to note how one actually practices the practice.
I have told you all and it is documented with a hospital and CBC radio that my father's bone marrow rose from the dead after two years of living on blood transfusions due to no bone marrow alive.

it was not a remission thing....

I did not chant directly for this when told i could cure him.

i just did the practice 7 hours a day after gongyos ...i did not concentrate on his illness...i concentrated solely on the practice ....like i was doing Transcendental Meditation practice from which i came from...
TM taught you to meditate and let your life develope ...don't think about it..see what happens in a 6 month stretch..i was surprised to see Oprah tell the world on Letterman that they both practiced TM ....and then she did the unthinkable >say out loud her Mantra and then sort of peer pressure Dave into admitting his was the same as hers....which is the same as mine....hmmmm.

the second post was just to get history correct....


the demonic aspect is in the way gakki tried to effect change in people's lives...they focused on the fact and sold it ....


.the practice will grant desire....but not if you chant for it....directly....


it's like Sansho Shima rose and screwed up the practice with focusing on one's desire instead of developing a higher life up the scale....gradually...


you are in hell....you just do the practice and overtime hell vanishes......detach one's self from their mundane hell condition....focus on the practice for one self and others...just do the practice to develop...it's like your desires just appear like everything else in this life we think is real and inherent.... it rains pleasure , which is like dew and can vanish as well...

eventually you see the even higher goal of becoming a Buddha and giving rise to pure lands and universes filled with love...

We are Bodhisattvas of the Earth ..Earth is our domain for the next few kalpas of infinities...if not this planet there are others....

we live in hell and then transform into heaven like conditions....but the trick is......forget about the mundane and concentrate on the Dharma itself...


all will unfold.....i think this needs to be made clear and then forgotten ....

it's like learning about generosity and it's power to create wealth karma....the trick is to not be generous in order to collect good karma...

So you know it's a law of the universe...or "The Way" ...and you do it for others just as much as you do it for yourself....

Lotus practice is similar....the aim is Buddhahood for everyone...the practice brings you there....but you have to forget about or detach yourself from you desires and PROBLEMS whilst practicing....then just go about your day and forget them as well....


by the way ...i'm a sort of have not that is impossible to hit rock bottom....i cannot get rich it seems ...but it is impossible for me to get poor...and not from any inheritance but from a business that was inspired and fell into my lap when i was first practicing....it's like a survival for ever with no chance of becoming rich....LOL...really really weird .....
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

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Minobu wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:53 pmthe demonic aspect is in the way gakki tried to effect change in people's lives...they focused on the fact and sold it ....
My problem with the "chant for benefits" approach is that it just encourages reification of the ego. I see people who practice for decades, hung up on the benefit thing, with their practice rising and falling with their material fortunes. That's just riding samsara, riding the "I".

At the same time, I look at these people and see that the decades of practice have had the calming effects that practice should have. It has the effect of dissolving ego. How? Because through the practice, one can't help but encounter reality. But the lack of higher teachings to advance further are missing, so they get stuck, unable to understand that encounter with reality - they don't have the words and ideas to understand what that is, and so it is hard to develop understanding. The only choice is to reinvent the wheel, and that ends up with all kinds of hoky explanations passed around by word of mouth. At some point, you do need a real, in depth exposure to the Three Truths from someone who can explain it theoretically and relate it you your experience of practice and thereby set up a framework for more advanced practices of getting into the Mind and starting the heavy lifting of rooting out ignorance and breaking karmic habits based on ignorance.

In theoretical terms, it never gets beyond the Second Stage of Hearing the Name as described in the Four Depths of Faith and Five Stages of Practice, and the blank left by the Buddha wisdom in the modern iteration of SG is filled with humanism. The limit of humanism is that it doesn't take us beyond the human world. It makes the group innocuous to the wider society, even admirable, winning secular praise, but it drops the ball on the real work that the Buddhist path entails. Not everyone is ready for this, but some people are, and they are the ones not served by SG's curriculum, and I would argue even hindered by it, told basically that there isn't anything else. They are then in the position of searching out themselves and hit or miss finding answers on their own, or they're in the position of basically writing off those deeper experiences.

Nichiren explained that faith is the essential step, but he never taught that was as far as we go in this life. He explicitly taught instead that we should strive even to Ichinen Sanzen meditation if we are inclined and capable. Its not a negligible detail that part of the curriculum at Minobu was a monthly lecture on Maka Shikan in memory of Tiantai Zhiyi.

Case in point:
eventually you see the even higher goal of becoming a Buddha and giving rise to pure lands and universes filled with love...
****
all will unfold.....i think this needs to be made clear and then forgotten ....

it's like learning about generosity and it's power to create wealth karma....the trick is to not be generous in order to collect good karma...

So you know it's a law of the universe...or "The Way" ...and you do it for others just as much as you do it for yourself....
We get introduced to the teachings, and then, with time, they become habitual. We don't need to deliberately practice, it becomes our fluid nature.

by the way ...i'm a sort of have not that is impossible to hit rock bottom....i cannot get rich it seems ...but it is impossible for me to get poor...and not from any inheritance but from a business that was inspired and fell into my lap when i was first practicing....it's like a survival for ever with no chance of becoming rich....LOL...really really weird .....
That sounds like the best possible business. LOL
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Minobu »

well first you are preaching to the choir here...

your post is lucid and cannot be denied in any way.

BUT!!!!!

Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 6:41 pm
Minobu wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:53 pmthe demonic aspect is in the way gakki tried to effect change in people's lives...they focused on the fact and sold it ....
My problem with the "chant for benefits" approach is that it just encourages reification of the ego.
The practice does answer your desires....you have grown to understand the deepest meaning of Ichinen sanzen and can teach about it on so many levels...you could quite easily have a cuppa with Tien Tai The Great and discuss comfortably His Teachings...

don't you think this was a desire fulfilled ?

Nichiren Shonin dealt with peasants and treated them with the utmost respect , He took the time to write to them and for them and have stuff read to them...a lot of it mundane human desire stuff...

nuff said.
d



we could discuss whether this practice is linked to desire....


yes indeed the business came when i was being poisoned in an oil refinery and i was chanting for a lottery win to get me out....H2SO4 gas is not fun to inhale....3 friggin times i was poisoned due to emptying what was called a dry drum into open air into a hole in the ground which led to lake Ontario ...part of a catalytic converter ...or the pussy cat hardened oil workers referred to it as....


when i was granted the knowledge to support myself...by no one actually...it was just something i saw and tried....i quit the oil refinery...put the dry drum as the reason in writing....2 months later the union got Gulf Oil to install a 250 grand device that did it electrically and totally contained...

i found out and was thanked by bumping into someone on the street...

and the street is my approach to Buddhism ..and Kundalini as i've talked about...


words from Jethro tull's
Thick as a Brick :

Really don't mind if you sit this one out
My word's but a whisper your deafness a shout


I've come down from the upper class to mend your rotten ways


So, come on ye childhood heroes!
Won't you rise up from the pages of your comic-books, your super crooks
And show us all the way
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Queequeg »

Minobu wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 7:01 pm well first you are preaching to the choir here...
Well, you know, its just a jam session. All we can do is play off each other's riffs.
Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 6:41 pm
Minobu wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:53 pmthe demonic aspect is in the way gakki tried to effect change in people's lives...they focused on the fact and sold it ....
My problem with the "chant for benefits" approach is that it just encourages reification of the ego.
The practice does answer your desires....you have grown to understand the deepest meaning of Ichinen sanzen and can teach about it on so many levels...you could quite easily have a cuppa with Tien Tai The Great and discuss comfortably His Teachings...

don't you think this was a desire fulfilled ?
Well, that's flattering but not true... but to your point... if I were so wise, it would be the fruit of arousing bodhicitta. That's a different kind of desire than the ordinary sort that keeps us spinning in samsara.
Nichiren Shonin dealt with peasants and treated them with the utmost respect , He took the time to write to them and for them and have stuff read to them...a lot of it mundane human desire stuff...
Yes. One part of those letters was clearly the "Thank You" note, but he always slipped at least a line or two to encourage the person. In not so many words, that was Nichiren saying Never Disparaging's line, "I would never disparage you because you are destined to be a Buddha!"

To relate this to SG - I grew up with Daisaku Ikeda in the air around me. I met him several times and attended meetings where he spoke. Since I can understand Japanese, I can hear his talks directly. He is an incredibly warm person. His way of interacting with people embodies Never Disparaging's practice. In that sense, I deeply respect and admire him.
we could discuss whether this practice is linked to desire....
Bodhicitta. Even though that word is not used. Its something that comes after the faith and daimoku in the scheme of things.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Minobu »

in any case...
i just want to express that by practicing properly like a proper Buddhist practice with a semblance of focus your life condition will improve over time...

desires get answered...naturally without asking for it

i had gone well past the proper practice when i was in the oil refinery...my father was living a normal life...i had studied under the gakki and was taught to chant for stuff...it made sense...i had proof that stuff happens

i still drifted to my TM training during chanting...but i had that prayer section in gongyo and i was told to ask and chant for...so i was doing both...


in any case....

i quite naturally fell into a business that supported me for life...i've made and spent over a million dollars....over 43 years that isn't exactly a lot...lol...i chanted for the million dollar lottery ,and to use a metaphor , was taught how to catch fish..


i see now the wrong.....
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Minobu »

Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 7:22 pm
Minobu wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 7:01 pm well first you are preaching to the choir here...
Well, you know, its just a jam session. All we can do is play off each other's riffs.
Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 6:41 pm

My problem with the "chant for benefits" approach is that it just encourages reification of the ego.
The practice does answer your desires....you have grown to understand the deepest meaning of Ichinen sanzen and can teach about it on so many levels...you could quite easily have a cuppa with Tien Tai The Great and discuss comfortably His Teachings...

don't you think this was a desire fulfilled ?
Well, that's flattering but not true... but to your point... if I were so wise, it would be the fruit of arousing bodhicitta. That's a different kind of desire than the ordinary sort that keeps us spinning in samsara.
hmmm i don;t know about that....
everything is desire based...even the altruistic impulse is desire based...wanting to learn is desire based...

we live in a world of desire...desire is what continues to create samsara....everything you see hear and touch is from Karma past produced into what we now see and experience as the physical universe .....
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Queequeg
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Queequeg »

Minobu wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 7:31 pm
Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 7:22 pm
Minobu wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 7:01 pm well first you are preaching to the choir here...
Well, you know, its just a jam session. All we can do is play off each other's riffs.


The practice does answer your desires....you have grown to understand the deepest meaning of Ichinen sanzen and can teach about it on so many levels...you could quite easily have a cuppa with Tien Tai The Great and discuss comfortably His Teachings...

don't you think this was a desire fulfilled ?
Well, that's flattering but not true... but to your point... if I were so wise, it would be the fruit of arousing bodhicitta. That's a different kind of desire than the ordinary sort that keeps us spinning in samsara.
hmmm i don;t know about that....
everything is desire based...even the altruistic impulse is desire based...wanting to learn is desire based...

we live in a world of desire...desire is what continues to create samsara....everything you see hear and touch is from Karma past produced into what we now see and experience as the physical universe .....
In some respects, yes, bodhicitta is a sort of desire. However, its distinguished from ordinary samsara perpetuating desire. Bodhicitta is not ignorant craving. It doesn't help to collapse these things. There is a reason and basis for the distinction. I will have to find some sources.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Minobu
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

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I had a rethink on this;
Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 6:41 pm
Minobu wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:53 pmthe demonic aspect is in the way gakki tried to effect change in people's lives...they focused on the fact and sold it ....
My problem with the "chant for benefits" approach is that it just encourages reification of the ego. I see people who practice for decades, hung up on the benefit thing, with their practice rising and falling with their material fortunes. That's just riding samsara, riding the "I".

my first approach to this statement was...yeah but you do get benefits from chanting and done properly over time a really wondrous healing of your life occurs and one seems to get desires answered....mostly the ones you did not know you wanted so much...or answered in ways you never thought of..

but is this really what Buddhism is about...great for bringing in the crowds...but just because as your life improves so does your lot in life ...applies to life itself...samsaric life....

I think in the west many Buddhist sects are vying for your dollar and promising material gain....have a look around...

it's the same with the whole afterlife promises....sssshhhhhhh that can get you banned around here....
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Minobu »

Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 6:41 pm
Minobu wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:53 pmthe demonic aspect is in the way gakki tried to effect change in people's lives...they focused on the fact and sold it ....
My problem with the "chant for benefits" approach is that it just encourages reification of the ego. I see people who practice for decades, hung up on the benefit thing, with their practice rising and falling with their material fortunes. That's just riding samsara, riding the "I".

Lets really look at the benefits thing...

i came by a chance look at a sight i cannot mention on this site.

it's a new Tibetan thing based on an old protectorate who the site says will give you what you desire if you take total refuge in the deity.

the site sounded so much like early gakki .. don;t want to taunt the mods with the use of the sects name...but it is odd that the site talks about miracles and benefits...

so is this maybe what Buddhism really is all about...making one happy in samsara if you so desire...

like don't we all want to be masters of our lives...

i vascilate between alrtuism and material gain....some would say they are one and the same.
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

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The "benefits" question...
Queequeg wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:56 pm Buddhist practice is ill suited as a method for arranging the world of causes and conditions to suit our desires. Its methods can be applied to those ends in limited respects, but sooner or later they fail in those purposes because the aim they are bent to is inherently self destructive. They are inherently self-destructive because they are founded on a fundamental misapprehension about reality, about our real nature. The aim of the Buddhist path is to awaken to our real nature. Everything else is like dew. Following the Buddhist path, instead of bending it to our purposes, leads to awakening.
In my experience and observation, there are two types of benefit in SG practice. The line between them is easy to define in principle, but more difficult to identify in practice, and the reason for that is illuminated by the Inclusive Three Truths of the Perfect Teaching. I'm not going to address that reason, but limit my comments to these two types of benefits.

Usually, when discussing benefits, the distinction discussed in SG is between Conspicuous and Inconspicuous benefits. That's not what I'm talking about.

There are what people think are benefits but are really constructed phenomena, and then there are the real benefits of practice that are really just the perfection of refuge in the True Aspect.

The former benefit is really just the result of focused effort to order the world around us according to our vision. It is a matter of imposing our will.

If I want to build a house, I collect the materials and put them together in a way that results in what we call a house. There is no magic to it - its just material cause and effect. I have to see that vision through, from beginning to end, overcoming obstacles along the way. If I stop construction after laying the concrete foundations, the house will not materialize. The reason people often fail is simply because they lose nerve or focus before accomplishing their goal.

Gongyo is taught as a way to take a vision (your "earthly desire") and stay focused on it to completion. It is a remarkably effective method. There are no complicated tricks - its just focusing the mind and through that focus, choreographing thoughts, words and actions toward the goal, relying on our inherent capacities to problem solve and carry out tasks. The underlying principle is what you'll find in most self-help/productivity books - though they dress it up in novel words and particular details relevant to one endeavor or another to sell books.

In SG, various Buddhist teachings about the nature of reality are applied for problem solving. Change, emptiness, dependent origination, the middle way, ten worlds, 100 worlds, 1000 factors, three thousand realms - these are craftily applied to help keep us adaptive and tuned in to circumstances, keep us balanced, grounded, and resolved. All of it is tied to Gongyo which is a practice that has been developed and used for millennia toward various pursuits, but most critically in the Buddhist context, to the goal of awakening. With Gongyo applied to a vision, we set aside a period of time every day during which we still our thoughts and focus the mind. This takes advantage of the natural way our mind works to develop vision and work out the details of achieving the vision, which we then carry out when we get up from the place of practice.With morning gongyo, we prepare for the day. With evening gongyo we review the day.

The fact is, many of us are naturally undisciplined, lazy, unfocused. We did not have the benefit of being raised by disciplined and focused parents, or if we were, we have squandered the lessons they offered. Gongyo is a way to apply these lessons in our lives.

The real benefits derive from actually putting the Daimoku into practice - single mindedly taking refuge in the real aspect of reality. This is what Namu Myoho Renge Kyo really means. When we single mindedly direct our thoughts, words and deeds to the real aspect, our entire being naturally comes to conform to the real aspect, like an acorn planted in a meadow grows into a tall and robust oak tree. With our vision purified, our desires are purified, our thoughts, words and deeds are pure, meaning they are merged with the true aspect.

This manifests naturally as "benefits". Our inner life is invariably manifested in our mind, body, and the world around us. The need to strive for material benefits dissolves as our thoughts, words and deeds are directed to refuge in the True Aspect, and the natural inclination to seek above and edify below - the Buddhanature naturally finds expression.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Minobu
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Re: Assistance in what to chant

Post by Minobu »

Queequeg wrote: Wed May 02, 2018 5:23 pm The "benefits" question...
Queequeg wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:56 pm Buddhist practice is ill suited as a method for arranging the world of causes and conditions to suit our desires. Its methods can be applied to those ends in limited respects, but sooner or later they fail in those purposes because the aim they are bent to is inherently self destructive. They are inherently self-destructive because they are founded on a fundamental misapprehension about reality, about our real nature. The aim of the Buddhist path is to awaken to our real nature. Everything else is like dew. Following the Buddhist path, instead of bending it to our purposes, leads to awakening.
In my experience and observation, there are two types of benefit in SG practice. The line between them is easy to define in principle, but more difficult to identify in practice, and the reason for that is illuminated by the Inclusive Three Truths of the Perfect Teaching. I'm not going to address that reason, but limit my comments to these two types of benefits.

Usually, when discussing benefits, the distinction discussed in SG is between Conspicuous and Inconspicuous benefits. That's not what I'm talking about.

There are what people think are benefits but are really constructed phenomena, and then there are the real benefits of practice that are really just the perfection of refuge in the True Aspect.

The former benefit is really just the result of focused effort to order the world around us according to our vision. It is a matter of imposing our will.

If I want to build a house, I collect the materials and put them together in a way that results in what we call a house. There is no magic to it - its just material cause and effect. I have to see that vision through, from beginning to end, overcoming obstacles along the way. If I stop construction after laying the concrete foundations, the house will not materialize. The reason people often fail is simply because they lose nerve or focus before accomplishing their goal.

Gongyo is taught as a way to take a vision (your "earthly desire") and stay focused on it to completion. It is a remarkably effective method. There are no complicated tricks - its just focusing the mind and through that focus, choreographing thoughts, words and actions toward the goal, relying on our inherent capacities to problem solve and carry out tasks. The underlying principle is what you'll find in most self-help/productivity books - though they dress it up in novel words and particular details relevant to one endeavor or another to sell books.

In SG, various Buddhist teachings about the nature of reality are applied for problem solving. Change, emptiness, dependent origination, the middle way, ten worlds, 100 worlds, 1000 factors, three thousand realms - these are craftily applied to help keep us adaptive and tuned in to circumstances, keep us balanced, grounded, and resolved. All of it is tied to Gongyo which is a practice that has been developed and used for millennia toward various pursuits, but most critically in the Buddhist context, to the goal of awakening. With Gongyo applied to a vision, we set aside a period of time every day during which we still our thoughts and focus the mind. This takes advantage of the natural way our mind works to develop vision and work out the details of achieving the vision, which we then carry out when we get up from the place of practice.With morning gongyo, we prepare for the day. With evening gongyo we review the day.

The fact is, many of us are naturally undisciplined, lazy, unfocused. We did not have the benefit of being raised by disciplined and focused parents, or if we were, we have squandered the lessons they offered. Gongyo is a way to apply these lessons in our lives.

The real benefits derive from actually putting the Daimoku into practice - single mindedly taking refuge in the real aspect of reality. This is what Namu Myoho Renge Kyo really means. When we single mindedly direct our thoughts, words and deeds to the real aspect, our entire being naturally comes to conform to the real aspect, like an acorn planted in a meadow grows into a tall and robust oak tree. With our vision purified, our desires are purified, our thoughts, words and deeds are pure, meaning they are merged with the true aspect.

This manifests naturally as "benefits". Our inner life is invariably manifested in our mind, body, and the world around us. The need to strive for material benefits dissolves as our thoughts, words and deeds are directed to refuge in the True Aspect, and the natural inclination to seek above and edify below - the Buddhanature naturally finds expression.
:good:

The post is for everyone that practices any form of Lotus Buddhism.

I've read it many times now and have received so much from it...

it's pure truth...it reveals what is there in what we do ...

it takes faith to a whole other level...
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