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Friday

31st July

THE benefits that are obtained through struggling for kosen-rufu are enormous. Worldly happiness is fleeting. However, the good fortune one acquires by taking action for the sake of Buddhism is eternal. I hope you will all advance with deep pride and confidence.


WHEN one gazes into the chasm between life and death, status, fame and wealth count for absolutely nothing. All that remains is one’s bare self stripped of all external adornment. Only through Buddhism can we arrange our lives on this essential level.


BECAUSE we have decided to embrace faith in the Daishonin’s Buddhism, we must always move forward. And if we are going to move forward, it is much more enjoyable if we do so with pride and confidence. It is better to live with firm determination than to spend one’s life filled with fear and insecurity.


BIRDS, for example, have their own language, their own speech. People do not understand it, but other birds do. In the same way, the language of gongyo and chanting daimoku reaches the Gohonzon and the realism of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas of the three existences and the ten directions. We might call it the language of the realms of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. That is why the voice of gongyo and daimoku are directed to the Gohonzon, whether we understand it or not, reaches all the Buddhas, bodhisattvas and heavenly deities.


BE a man of right, never of might.
Be a leader of the people, never the tool of authority.
Be the friend of the masses, never the slave of wealth.
Be a wise man of good, never a cunning evil one.

NOTE: Visit http://nichirendaishoningosho.blogspot.com/ for Nichiren Daishonin's gosho, A Gift of Rice.