The Search For Enlightenment

A few people have asked how chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo actually works, how it raises my life-energy and puts me in a higher life-state, irrespective of the circumstances.

So how can chanting the title of The Lotus Sutra, without the need for reading or studying it, help me make contact with my Buddha nature?

Well chanting whilst keeping a problem or question in mind brings forth a certain clarity of thought, which has, on occasion, provided solutions or at least peace of mind.

So why don’t we need to understand The Lotus Sutra, chapter and verse, in order to benefit from it’s wisdom? Well, apart from the fact that we do study the major principles that it encompasses, there are a fair number of similarities with complex things in life.

I imagine you have taken painkillers like ibuprofen, a highly complex molecule that took many years to perfect, test and approve. Unless you are a pharmacist or a pharmaceutical chemist, I doubt that you have the slightest idea of how the shape of the molecule blocks the pain receptors in your nervous system. But the tablets work, whether you know, or whether you don’t.

Another good example is the humble motor car. You can drive from Land’s End to John O’Groats without having any knowledge of how an internal combustion engine works or how the friction linings of the brake pads slow the car by turning the kinetic energy into heat in the brake disks.

My point is, that some very clever people have spent many, many years developing complicated medicines or machines. Being able to benefit from them is simple, simply because they are so well thought out. So it is with The Lotus Sutra and chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Shakyamuni Buddha and Nichiren Daishonin spent many, many years perfecting the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren Buddhism.

The benefit of chanting can be ours simply by chanting the title, studying the sutra is not necessary, but is certainly enlightening.