Kosen-Rufu Gongyo Karaoke

This is the chant we do for the Soka Gakkai, Nichiren Buddhist practice. The power is in the words, mixed with faith, and a little thing we call "The Mystic" Law. Chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and find out for yourself. Put down those magic sticks boys and girls, this is the real elevated divine shit. Go for it. Change your karma today, this lifetime, not the next. 

~~ Eso Terry Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo is the answer, no matter the question

 

Global Citizen is the bases of Nichirin Buddhism.

This morning I posted my live thoughts on "Morning Buddhist Thoughts" on being a global citizen. The definition of a global citizen is:

Global citizenship is a form of transnationality, specifically the idea that one's identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader global class of "humanity". This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives their nationality or other, more local identities, but that such identities are given "second place" to their membership in a global community. Extended, the idea leads to questions about the state of global society in the age of globalization.

There you have it in a nutshell what I believe being a Nichiren Buddhist stands for, epesecially the line "a broader global class of 'humanity'".  No national politics can justify the starvation of one human being for power.  We see this everywhere today.  Let's fix this brothers and sisters.  Let's chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo together and fight for a better world where the value of life is the number one goal of the world. 

Here is the Nichiren Writing I quoted this morning: 

People have varied tastes. Some prefer good and some prefer evil. 

There are many kinds of people. But thought they differ from one another in such ways, once they enter into the Lotus Sutra, they all become like a single person in body and a single person in mind. This is just like the myriad different rivers that, when they flow into the ocean, all take on a uniformly salty flavor, or like the many kinds of birds that, whey they approach Mount Sumeru, all assume the same (golden) hue.

(WND 1042) 

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Ten Demon Daughters

 

ten demon daughters ［十羅刹女］ ( jū-rasetsu-nyo): Also, ten rākshasa daughters, ten rākshasīs, or ten demonesses. The Sanskrit word rākshasa means demon, and rākshasī, female demon. The ten demon daughters appear in the “Dhāranī” (twenty-sixth) chapter of the Lotus Sutra and are described as protectors of those who uphold the sutra. They are Lambā, Vilambā, Kūtadantī (Crooked Teeth), Pushpadantī (Flowery Teeth), Makutadantī (Black Teeth), Keshinī (Much Hair), Achalā (Insatiable), Mālādhārī (Necklace Bearer), Kuntī, and Sarvasattvojohārī (Stealer of the Vital Spirit of All Living Beings). (Note: In his translation of the Lotus Sutra, Kumārajīva rendered into Chinese the meanings of the Sanskrit names of seven demon daughters, but transliterated the remaining three.) In the “Dharanī” chapter, these ten demon daughters, along with Mother of Demon Children, vow to shield and guard the sutra’s votaries. They speak to the Buddha in unison, saying, “If there are those who fail to heed our spells and trouble and disrupt the preachers of the Law, their heads will split into seven pieces like the branches of the arjaka tree.”

three bodies

 

three bodies: Three kinds of body a Buddha may possess. A concept set forth in Mahayana Buddhism to organize different views of the Buddha appearing in the sutras. The three bodies are as follows: (1) The Dharma body, or body of the Law. This is the fundamental truth, or Law, to which a Buddha is enlightened. (2) The reward body (sambhoga-kāya), obtained as the reward of completing bodhisattva practices and acquiring the Buddha wisdom. Unlike the Dharma body, which is immaterial, the reward body is thought of as an actual body, although one that is transcendent and imperceptible to ordinary people. (3) The manifested body (nirmāna-kāya), or the physical form that a Buddha assumes in this world in order to save the people. Generally, a Buddha was held to possess one of the three bodies. In other words, the three bodies represented three different types of Buddhas—the Buddha of the Dharma body, the Buddha of the reward body, and the Buddha of the manifested body.

On the basis of the Lotus Sutra and the principle of three thousand realms in a single moment of life derived from it, T’ien-t’ai (538–597) maintained that the three bodies are not separate entities but three integral aspects of a single Buddha. From this point of view, the Dharma body indicates the essential property of a Buddha, which is the truth or Law to which the Buddha is enlightened. The reward body indicates the wisdom, or the spiritual property of a Buddha, which enables the Buddha to perceive the truth. It is called reward body because a Buddha’s wisdom is considered the reward derived from ceaseless effort and discipline. The manifested body indicates compassionate actions, or the physical property of a Buddha. It is the body with which a Buddha carries out compassionate actions to lead people to enlightenment, or those actions themselves. In discussing the passage in the “Life Span” (sixteenth) chapter of the Lotus Sutra that reads, “You must listen carefully and hear of the Thus Come One’s secret and his transcendental powers,” T’ien-t’ai, in The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra, interpreted “secret” to mean that a single Buddha possesses all three bodies and that all three bodies are found within a single Buddha.

An Extrordinary Home Visit

Jack Smith's life was in the dumps, his car in the shop, job to be cut, and wife has left him. Jimmy Onit is a men's leader, he chants with Jack Smith and everything changes. 

Bodhisattva Never Disparaging

 

In the twentieth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni illustrates the story of Bodhisattva Never Disparaging. The chapter describes this bodhisattva as having lived in the Middle Day of the Law after the death of a Buddha named Awesome Sound King, at a time when arrogant monks held great authority and power. Never Disparaging venerated all people, repeating the phrase “I have profound reverence for you, I would never dare treat you with disparagement or arrogance. Why? Because you will all practice the bodhisattva way and will then be able to attain buddhahood.”
  Monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen mocked him and attacked him with staves and stones. Bodhisattva Never Disparaging, however, persevered in his practice and achieved purification of his six senses through the benefit of the Lotus Sutra. When the arrogant clerics and laypersons who had treated Never Disparaging with ridicule and contempt heard his preaching and saw that he had purified his senses, they all took faith in him and became his followers. But due to their past offenses of treating him with animosity, they did not encounter a Buddha, hear of the Law, or see the community of monks for two hundred million kalpas. For a thousand kalpas, they underwent great suffering in the Avīchi hell. After they had finished paying for their offenses, they again encountered Bodhisattva Never Disparaging and received instruction from him in attaining supreme perfect enlightenment.
  This story illustrates the principle of attaining enlightenment through a reverse relationship, or the connection established with the correct teaching through rejecting or slandering it. It illustrates the great power of the Lotus Sutra to save even those who oppose or slander it. Shakyamuni identifies Bodhisattva Never Disparaging as himself in a past existence and reveals that those who disparaged him are present in the assembly of the Lotus Sutra on Eagle Peak. Shakyamuni further states that these people are now at the stage of practice where they will never regress in their pursuit of supreme perfect enlightenment. He then urges that the Lotus Sutra be single-mindedly embraced and propagated after his death.

Medicine King

Medicine King ［薬王菩薩］ ( Bhaishajyarāja;  Yakuō-bosatsu): A bodhisattva said to possess the power to cure physical and mental diseases. The Sanskrit bhaishajya means curativeness, medicine, or remedy; rāja means king. According to the Meditation on the Two Bodhisattvas Medicine King and Medicine Superior Sutra, in the remote past, in the Middle Day of the Law of a Buddha named Lapis Lazuli Brightness, Bodhisattva Medicine King was a rich man named Constellation Light. He heard the teaching of the Buddha wisdom from the monk Sun Repository. Rejoicing, he presented beneficial medicines as an offering to Sun Repository and his fellow monks, and vowed that when he attained Buddhahood all those who heard his name would be cured of illness. Constellation Light had a younger brother Lightning Glow, who also offered beneficial medicines to Sun Repository and others, vowing to attain Buddhahood. The people praised the two brothers, calling the elder brother Medicine King and the younger brother Medicine Superior. Constellation Light and Lightning Glow, the sutra says, were reborn respectively as Bodhisattva Medicine King and Bodhisattva Medicine Superior and will in the future attain enlightenment as the Buddhas Pure Eye and Pure Storehouse.
  Bodhisattva Medicine King also figures prominently in the Lotus Sutra. The “Teacher of the Law” (tenth) chapter is addressed to Bodhisattva Medicine King. In the “Encouraging Devotion” (thirteenth) chapter, he and Bodhisattva Great Joy of Preaching lead the host of bodhisattvas in vowing to propagate the sutra in the evil age after Shakyamuni’s death. The “Medicine King” (twenty-third) chapter describes the austerities he performed in a previous lifetime as a bodhisattva named Gladly Seen by All Living Beings, or simply Gladly Seen. In the remote past, Bodhisattva Gladly Seen heard the Lotus Sutra from the Buddha Sun Moon Pure Bright Virtue. As a result, he mastered a form of meditation that enabled him to manifest any physical form. In gratitude, Gladly Seen entered this meditation and caused flowers and incense to rain down from the heavens as an offering to the Buddha Sun Moon Pure Bright Virtue and the Lotus Sutra, but he felt dissatisfied with this offering and decided that it would be more meaningful to offer his own body. After steeping himself in scents and fragrances for twelve hundred years, he anointed his body with fragrant oil and set himself ablaze in the presence of the Buddha.
  The blaze illuminated worlds equal in number to the sands of eighty million Ganges Rivers, and the Buddhas within them praised his act as the supreme offering. His body burned for twelve hundred years, and after it was consumed, he was reborn in the land of Sun Moon Pure Bright Virtue Buddha, whom he found at the point of entering nirvana. The Buddha transferred his teachings to Bodhisattva Gladly Seen and then died. Gladly Seen cremated the Buddha’s body and built eighty-four thousand stupas to enshrine his ashes, to which he then made offerings. Not satisfied, he proceeded to burn his arms as a further offering for seventy-two thousand years. All the bodhisattvas, gods, people, and other beings he had converted grieved to see him without arms, but he declared to them that having offered his own flesh, he would surely attain Buddhahood, whereupon his arms were restored. Later he was reborn as Bodhisattva Medicine King. The “King Wonderful Adornment” (twentyseventh) chapter says that the bodhisattvas Medicine King and Medicine Superior are reincarnations of Pure Storehouse and Pure Eye who converted their father, King Wonderful Adornment, to the correct teaching.
  The Biography of the Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai Chih-che of the Sui Dynasty by Chang-an states that T’ien-t’ai (538–597) was a reincarnation of Bodhisattva Medicine King because he had attained a great awakening through the “Medicine King” chapter of the Lotus Sutra.