2008 New Year's Message - Given at the Lexington Nichiren Temple, 1/6/2008
On New Year's Day, my wife Sandra and I were at a party given by a friend of ours. I overheard a conversation where someone said they thought New Year's was a strange holiday. Unfortunately I didn't stop to ask why they thought this way. I was probably on my way to the kitchen to get another bowl of Hoppin' John.
Hearing that comment started me thinking about how most days seem very much the same. We usually wake up in the same house, with the same people and sometimes the same animals. We do pretty much the same things from day to day: go to work, buy groceries, eat, clean, exercise, and work in the yard. Sometimes we even forget what day of the week, or day of the month it is. I know I need this, so I have a reminder on my watch. It tells me that today is Sunday the 6th.
Going into a New Year is a big deal. We wonder what happened to the old one. Where did all that time go? We try to remember what happened in the last year. Actually we could do this any day of the year. "Wow, think of everything that happened since the last June 24th." New Years always gets our attention.
I'm starting to look at the New Year holiday as a celebration of change. "Out with the old, in with the new." It's a way of acknowledging that things are always changing even though it doesn't seem like they're changing.
We who hear the Buddha's Dharma know all about change. It's no surprise to us to hear that everything around us is changing. More importantly, we know that we ourselves are changing.
We are not afraid of change. We want to change. We know we can change. We want to be better, happier, wiser, more compassionate, less deluded, less attached, less miserable. We do not accept that misery and suffering are something we must just endure so that maybe we can get a better life after this one. We know that our difficulties can be changed into blessings. We don't always know how.
The Buddha teaches in the Lotus Sutra:
I am always thinking
How can I cause all living beings
To enter into the unsurpassed way
And quickly become Buddhas themselves?
So we know that it is not just us by ourselves who are working to become enlightened. There is the Buddha, infinitely wise, infinitely compassionate, infinitely and effortlessly powerful who is also working to help us become enlightened.
Two weeks ago, one of our temple members asked, "What part of us becomes a Buddha?" Is it our body? Is it our mind? Is it whatever we are accustomed to calling "I"? Is it our property? Is it our reputation? Is it our name?
Many people have come up with theories and descriptions of what it is that becomes a Buddha. Mind. Consciousness. Subtle Consciousness. Very Subtle Consciousness. Emptiness. Our original face. One hand clapping. In my experience all of these can be clues, but none of them is really satisfactory. This is a question whose answer we need to discover for ourselves.
Nichiren Shonin wrote in his letter to Myomitsu Shonin: "Be aware that it is hard for us to chant the sacred title, Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, unless the spirit of the Ever-Present Buddha enters into our bodies."
Here is the best clue I have found. As you recite, Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, pay attention to what is chanting. Is it your breath? Your muscles? Your thoughts? Probably not, especially if like me you find yourself thinking about other things as you are chanting. Are you chanting the Odaimoku or is it chanting you? My guess now is that whatever it is that's chanting the Odaimoku, that is what is going to become a Buddha, or is already the Buddha.
In that same letter, Nichiren Shonin also wrote: "If you chant the Sutra as it instructs, your mind will be straightened." What did he mean by straightened? Right before that sentence he wrote, "Trees do not grow straight, but by cutting them straight they become useful." So as our minds become straightened through the practice of the Wonderful Dharma, they become useful. Useful for what though?
In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha teaches,
I am now joyful and fearless
I have laid aside all expedient teachings
I will expound only unsurpassed enlightenment
To Bodhisattvas
Once the Buddha started teaching the Lotus Sutra, he no longer taught people about ending their own suffering, or about how to know perfectly the causes and conditions of all things. All the people hearing the Buddha's teaching, meaning us, are Bodhisattvas. Later in the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha describes these Bodhisattvas, again meaning us, in more detail:
"Those who receive the Dharma by faith after hearing it from the Buddha, from the One Honored by all the World, who strenuously seek the knowledge of all things, the wisdom of the Buddha, the self-originating wisdom, the wisdom to be obtained without teachers, and the insight and powers and fearlessness of the Tathagata, who give peace to innumerable living beings out of their compassion towards them, and who benefit gods and humans, that is to say, who save all living beings, are called people of the Great Vehicle."
So this is us: We are Bodhisattvas. We are not concerned with our own suffering, although we need to be reminded of that frequently. This is why the Buddha is always thinking: mai ji sa ze nen.
We can know all about causes and conditions, about emptiness and dependent origination and supernatural powers and how to attract others and the eight emancipations and the ten powers of the Buddha and detailed descriptions of each of the three thousand realms. But that's not the point. That's not what the Buddha is teaching us as Bodhisattvas. The point is how do we use whatever it is we know, however much or little that is, how do we use that to save all living beings?
Realizing that we are Bodhisattvas, here then is the answer to how we transform difficulties into blessings. We develop the habit of asking, "How can I use this situation as a way to benefit all beings?" We can ask this if the situation is joy or suffering, or happiness or depression. Can I use this situation as a way to give other beings a chance to help me, as a chance for them to develop, or maybe even discover their nature as a Bodhisattva? Can I use this situation as a way of showing the world that we who practice the Lotus Sutra know how to do things differently? That in the midst of all our human fears and greed and ignorance, we know how things are going to turn out, that we all are going to become Buddhas, whether we realize it or not.
As we celebrate this change into the New Year, let us remind ourselves and each other of our true identities as Bodhisattvas who hear the Buddha teaching the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sutra. Let us dedicate ourselves to creating a peaceful world through the right teaching of the Lotus Sutra. And let us strive to welcome whatever difficulties lie in our path, and transform those difficulties into blessings for us and all beings.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo
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