BECOME MASTER OF YOUR MIND

THE MYSTIC NATURE OF OUR LIVES – “BECOME THE MASTER OF YOUR MIND RATHER THAN LET YOUR MIND MASTER YOU”

It is the heart that is important, writes Nichiren Daishonin. Our heart, our mind, is truly wondrous and unfathomable. We can expand and deepen the inner realm of our spirit infinitely and boundlessly.

Like the elation of soaring freely through the vast blue heavens, the heart can feel immense and untrammeled joy. Like the clear, bright sunshine illuminating all things, the heart can embrace those who are suffering with warmth and compassion. And like a lion of justice, the heart can also at times tremble with righteous anger and defeat evil. Indeed, our heart or mind is constantly changing, like scenes in a drama or like an unfolding panorama. And nothing is more wondrous than its ability to manifest the world of Buddhahood. Even people weighed down by delusion and suffering can bring forth in the depths of their lives the state of buddhahood that is one with the universe. This momentous drama of transformation is the greatest of all wonders.

Buddhism finds supreme nobility and the potential for great change in all human beings. In “On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime”, the Daishonin therefore concludes that when we thoroughly polish our lives through chanting the daimoku of Myoho-renge-kyo, it is possible for us to tap the life-state of Buddhahood no matter how steeped in delusion we may be, and to transform even the most impure and evil into a pure land.

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NICHIREN BUDDHISM : CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES

BASIC CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES OF NICHIREN BUDDHISM

TEN WORLDS

The prime concern of Buddhism is our life-condition, the joy or suffering we experience at each moment. This is always seen as an interaction between external conditions and inner tendencies; the same conditions (the same workplace, for example) that might be experienced by one person as unremitting misery may be a source of exhilarating challenge and satisfaction for another. Strengthening our inner state so that we are able to resist and even transform the most difficult and negative conditions is the purpose of Buddhist practice.

Based on his reading of the Lotus Sutra, the sixth-century Chinese Budhhist T’ien T’ai developed a system that classifies human experience into ten states or “worlds”. The concept was adopted and elaborated by Nichiren Daishonin, who stressed the inner, subjective nature of these worlds.

Each of us proposes the potential for all ten worlds and we shift from one world to other according to our life state and our interaction with the environment.

The ten Worlds, in order from the least to the most desirable, are :

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