The purpose for, and the reason behind my Buddhist Practice is to bring me closer to Buddhahood, each and every day.
That is to say, to emulate, as closely as possible, the Buddha himself in the way he was able to see life and all things in a pure clarity.
Siddhārtha Gautama was a man, albeit a prince, who forsaking his life of comfort and position, went out into the world to meditate on the causes of, and ways to reduce or remove, the suffering of life.
In Nichiren Buddhism we learn about the Ten Worlds, from Hell to Buddhahood.
The Buddha state originates from the very depths of life, called the amala consciousness, meaning the fundamentally pure life force or consciousness. The function of the Buddha state is to bring out the positive side of the other nine worlds.
This principle of the Ten Worlds shows that the Buddha state is a naturally occurring condition of life in every living being. The purpose of Buddhist practice is to enable us to cause the Buddha state to appear; to have it working strongly in us.
In Nichiren Buddhism, therefore, the Buddha is not some perfect, ideal being, but is rather an ordinary person living in rhythm with the law of the universe, taking wise, courageous and compassionate action for the benefit of others, through the functioning of the nine worlds in daily life.
The more I practice, the closer I come to Buddhahood, a very positive thought for today.
Today would have been my Dad’s 87th birthday.
Every day, twice a day, I chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. You see it on the headline banner of my blog and I mention it often. I thought it would be beneficial for me to revisit the meaning and I would like to share it with you. This explanation and definition comes from the 
Life is a rollercoaster at the best of times, so the ups and downs shouldn’t be a surprise. But just like a real rollercoaster, they can still make you scream at times.
We all have a mental view of where we are going in life, what we would like our future to look like, a set of challenges that we must face if we are to achieve our goal. Each day, maybe even each second of each day, that view changes, usually just a little, sometimes quite a lot.
If you ride a bicycle on UK roads, you’ll know how lovely it can be to find yourself on a stretch of nice smooth new tarmac. The lumps and bumps of our older repaired roads really can rattle your bones, so the new surface is a real treat.
Sorting out our life can be a bit like solving a Rubik’s cube, each aspect is like one of the faces, separate but all connected. We work to get one face, let’s say Blue sorted out. On it’s own that task is pretty easy and we complete it quite quickly. So we move on to to the Red face, again it’s pretty easy, in isolation, so we get it sorted and we feel a satisfaction in that. But then we turn the cube back to the Blue side, and it’s all messed up again, because it is connected to the Red side.
A man was offered the chance to visit Heaven and Hell. Upon entering Hell he was greeted by the sight of an infinitely long room filled with tables laden with the finest of foods, meat, fruit, wine and all manner of delicacies. But around the tables sat groups of starving people, crying out in their hunger. He realised that each person was holding a spoon, but the spoons were so long that they were unable to feed themselves.
Sometimes we become involved in other people’s problems, whether we want to be, or not. At times like this, Wisdom, Courage and Compassion are needed, but in a slightly different way than when we have problems of our own. I have needed to have the Wisdom to step back from the problem, and look at it in a dispassionate way.
The Search For Enlightenment 
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