Sitting reading William Woollard’s book Buddhism and the Science of Happiness, he talks about the way western society has become addicted to wealth and is dominated by the pursuit of money and power. This is at the expense of fairness, sharing and compassion. We have become, to all intents and purposes, what we earn or own rather than who we really are as a person.
A society that has sacrificed so much to material wealth that it has forgotten the human heart and the best of human aspirations, degenerates into something compassionless, doctrinaire, ignorant and ultra-conservative. When this happens, fundamental solutions to the issues of that society become impossible. If we protect the truth and are resolute, we are capable of creating peace and prosperity, and the truth that we should be protecting has to be high and great.
The great truth of Nichiren Buddhism, the thing that we must do our utmost to protect, involves ethics and the very best of human nature. At the very heart of this lies our duty to protect the truth of life, the truth that we are all one with the universe, and that every single human thought contains the entirety of universal life.
The sooner we realise that this addiction is destroying our human nature, the sooner we can start to right the injustices in society. Failure to take steps to redress the balance of wealth will result in more of the kind of riots we saw across the country last year. We all knock the bankers for their greed and avarice, but we are all to blame to a greater or lesser extent and we must do better.
My dear old friend Billy Brown had a favourite saying, ‘that everyone had a right to his opinion’. He was generally joking, but sometimes he meant it. My view is rather different, in that I believe that everyone has a right to their own opinion, whether it matches mine, or not.
There are times when we need to be reminded of the important things in life. When distractions come along it’s all too easy to get side tracked and let our practice slip. It isn’t that we forget, it’s just that sometimes life can get in the way, albeit temporarily.
When experiencing failure or disappointment, frustration or illness, we tend to lose confidence and let fear overtake us. 
When you devote yourself to achieving your goals, you will not be bothered by shallow criticism. 
Death does not discriminate, it strips us of everything.
Sometimes the World of Tranquillity can be a true blessing, a lull after a period of intense effort.
When you make a difficult decision for all the right reasons, stick to that decision. 
We must never underestimate the power the mind has over our bodies. If we can remain positive, with high life-energy and in one of the higher worlds, our bodies will respond positively and heal themselves all the quicker. If we allow negativity to creep in, the battle will be all the harder and healing will simply take longer.
Have you ever had a problem or situation that has been there for a while, but you can’t drum up the enthusiasm to fix? I know you have, we all have. 
The Search For Enlightenment 
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