When I view the situation in this world, I find rich people and I find poor people. There are families in which man and wife live happily together, in others there are always quarrels. There are homes in which the members all enjoy good health and a happy life. There are homes full of sick people. There are healthy people and there are unhealthy people. Why is this?
No occidental philosophy has been able to account for this. It has been explained only by the Buddhist philosophy of the Orient. Its conclusion is that our life is eternal and that we may die in this world, but we must be reborn in this world again. Just as a man who lived yesterday lives today too, a person who lives in his present life will have to be reborn. Just as we must recognize the existence of our next life we must recognize our past life. This is the basis of the Oriental Buddhist Philosophy. Whether you know it or not, it is the fact of life.
Therefore a person who is healthy today gave cause in his past life for his present good health. A person who is rich today gave cause for it in his past life. This is the Buddhist explanation of the fact that there are people who are noble and humble, rich and poor, happy and unhappy. If any one of you here is poor or suffering because of lack of money, it means that you, according to Buddhism, were a burglar in your past life. I think there are many ex-burglars here now. ‘Not me. It must be my neighbor,’ you might say. But then you tell yourself there isn’t much you can do about this life. But you can be a rich man in your next life and have a good husband or have a good child.
For that, you must do good deeds now to make sure that your next life will be what you want. This is the basis of Buddhist theory.
But just think for a moment. Everyone wants to overcome his destiny. A poor man, no matter how foolish, would not think that he should be content with his status. A sick man would not say that he is content being sick. He wants to be cured; he wants to be healthy. A poor man wants to be a rich man. This is quite natural. Yet the law preached by the Buddha is inexorable.
It holds that you cannot change your life now; you must wait until your next reincarnation. This is a problem indeed, isn’t it? But if this is the only solution Buddhism can offer, then I would not like to be a Buddhist. No thanks, because I couldn’t tell if I could have it my way in my next life.
But the Buddhist law of Nichiren Daishonin is better than that of the Buddha. That’s the reason why we shout; ‘We are not the pupils of the Buddha. Buddha’s law is of no use. It’s got to be Daishonin’s Buddhist law’. Daishonin said; ‘I am making thing called The Gohonzon. If you recite “Nam MyoHo Renge Kyo” in front of this Gohonzon, I will endow you with the condition you failed to create in your past life, enabling you to overcome your destiny instantly.’ This is a wonderful thing for which we must be grateful.
If there is a poor man among you, all you must do is to believe in this Gohonzon and carry out Shakubuku in earnest. Then you will have the good luck with which you did not come in this world.
When I hold a question and answer session in at Taiseki ji, I hear many questions. The two simplest ones are how a poor man can become rich and how a man suffering from tuberculosis can be cured. A man in the primary stage of tuberculosis can definitely be cured. I think there are many people who want to have a lot of money. But they can’t get money by wishing, I think. I want you to become rich by having a firm faith in the Gohonzon. How about it? Do you mind that?
Suppose the Tokyo University Hospital invented a medicine that would be sure to make you rich if only you had it injected into you between the hours of six and seven in the morning, I am sure everyone would get up early in the morning and go to the hospital. And they would get the shots even though they might have to wait for one or two hours. And if the medicine was so effective that if you continue to take it for one year you would make hundreds of thousands of yen, and if you continued this for two years you would make millions of yen, and for three years so many more millions of yen, and if a doctor could really do this, then I would think there would be a long line of people in front of his clinic. You too would go there, I am sure.
Now, you can get the same result without having to go to the Tokyo University Hospital but by sitting in your own home for only thirty minutes in the morning. You don’t have to spend a single yen for the train or tram fare. The only thing that you would need would be candles and incense sticks. Isn’t this a cheap investment? People who don’t do this, I say, are fools. Do it in the morning and in the evening. Don’t ever doubt the Gohonzon. Keep faith. If you doubt, it will be no good.
If you do as I tell you, and if things don’t work out as you want by the time I come back to Niigata next time, then you may come up here and beat me and kick me as much as you want. With this promise, I conclude my talk for tonight.
Source: K. Murata, Japan’s New Buddhism (New York and Tokyo: Walker/Weather hill, 1969), pp 108-10.
No comments:
Post a Comment