The story of my path to Buddhahood through the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin
07 Dec 2013 Leave a comment
in Buddhism Tags: Challenges, Daisaku Ikeda, Determination, Effort, Self Improvement, Strength
There is no self-improvement without effort.
Without taking action, happiness will never come, no matter how long you wait. A life without peaks and valleys is a fairy tale. Reality is strict, because it is a win or lose struggle.
This is the way it is for human beings. Therefore, you should not allow yourselves to be battered about by reality but rather willingly rise to its challenges and use them as opportunities to train and strengthen yourselves.
~ Daisaku Ikeda
06 Dec 2013 5 Comments
in Buddhism Tags: Cause And Effect, Challenges, Food, HCRV, Lessons, Mistakes, Point Of View, Practice, Teaching
So the HCRV diet is going rather well. I’m hoping to get over to Thailand next summer for the inaugural Thai Fruit Festival, but situations may not conspire to make that possible. Never the less, I am trying to make the causes to see it through to fruition.
I have to be careful, however, not to evangelise about the diet too much, even though the benefits are incredible.
It’s easy to sit here, in the quiet of my living room, and pontificate about eating a vegan diet, when I only have myself to consider. Being able to do so real life family situations is so different from the theory, but it does give you a really good measure of how much you want to make the change.
When you read some of the topics on my blog, and think ‘I could never be like that’ or ‘I would like to give that a try, but I just can’t see it working for me’ remember that I’m only human too, and that even though I do try my very hardest to practice what I preach, it doesn’t work all the time.
The trick, if that’s what you would like to call it, is not to give up completely just because you have a slip up. Learn from the slip, in this case seeing things from another’s viewpoint, and be determined to try harder next time. You will get there in the end.
05 Dec 2013 2 Comments
in Buddhism Tags: Birth, Buddhahood, Death, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, Nichiren Buddhism, Nichiren Daishonin, Practice, Prayer, Religion, Sickness, Wisdom Courage and Compassion
Religion must teach us an “attitude to life”. To live a life of true human dignity is certainly difficult.
Life is change; it is continuous change. Nothing is constant. The four sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death are an eternal theme that no one can escape.
Amid harsh reality, people yearn from the depths of their beings to live with dignity and for their lives to have meaning, and they make efforts toward that end. The product of these human yearnings, these prayers, is religion. Religion was born from prayer.
What is Nichiren’s response to these prayers of human beings? What attitude toward life does he teach? The answer, in short, is the principle of attaining Buddhahood in this lifetime.
What is needed to attain Buddhahood in this lifetime? Wisdom, Courage and Compassion and that comes from sustained, diligent practice.
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
04 Dec 2013 2 Comments
in Buddhism Tags: Energy, Heaven, Hell-State, Life-Energy, Life-State, Negative, Positive, Ten Worlds
There are two types of people in this world, and no not those who say ‘There are two types of people’ and those who don’t. The two types are those who are Radiators and those who are Drains.
A Radiator is the kind of person who leaves you feeling more energetic and enthused, after you meet or speak to them, than before. They radiate positive energy and are happy to share their life-energies with others. They appear to have a permanent smile on their faces, as though they know something others do not. In fact they do, they know that the secret path to a happy life is to pass on their happiness to others.
Drains are the complete opposite. They have the unfortunate knack of being able to sap energy and enthusiasm from other people, leaving them feeling unhappy or flat. When you meet one, and there are plenty around, the conversation is hard work, they are negative about things when you ask about how they are. In fact, you probably walk away wishing you hadn’t met them in the first place.
Our life-state can dictate whether we are a Radiator or a Drain if we let it, but concentrating on the positive side of life can change all that. When we are in Heaven we tend to Radiate energy to other people, when we are in Hell we Drain energy from others.
So think of all the good things in your life, walk around with a smile and a cheerful disposition, be a Radiator and see how people react positively towards you.
We all know a Drain when we meet one, and if you don’t, then it’s you.
03 Dec 2013 Leave a comment
in Buddhism Tags: Challenges, Changes, Chanting, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, Point Of View, Practice
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 conquer if we are to find our utopia.
Each day, maybe even each second of each day, that view changes, usually just a little, sometimes quite a lot.
In a way, we can look at this from the view of a swimmer who is trying to swim against the flow of a river or a tide. He or she can swim at a constant pace, from their own viewpoint, a set number of strokes per minute, but their progress, from the viewpoint of an observer on the bank or the shore may be anything but constant.
It all depends on the strength of the current. If the current is flowing slower than the swimmer, the swimmer moves forward, if it is flowing faster than the swimmer, the swimmer moves backwards. Unsurprisingly, if the two are the same, the swimmer stays in exactly the same place.
Now we know that rivers and tides change, hourly, daily, in fact all the time. In order for the swimmer to know how fast to swim in order to make his or her desired progress they need to have a constant unchanging point on which to focus, a pole in the river, or a landmark on the shore, a point against which they can measure that progress.
Our situation in life changes in a similar way, so when we are striving towards our goals, we may think we are ‘swimming’ fast enough, think that we are making progress, when in fact, from another viewpoint, we are going nowhere, or even going backwards.
So what can we use as our ‘pole in the river’, our landmark by which we can measure our progress? Something that is constant, no matter what else changes around us. The answer, for me at least, is my practice. It is unchanging, it is strong and resilient and is always in the same place, no matter what else may be going on around me.
My practice gives me a great view of my progress. No matter what the challenge, when I chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, my perspective on things is focussed on a wider view of the situation rather than just my own viewpoint. So I know whether I am ‘swimming’ fast enough to reach my goal, or whether I need to put in more effort to achieve my aims.
02 Dec 2013 2 Comments
in Buddhism Tags: Balance, Books, Diet, Evidence, HCRV, Integrity, Point Of View, Reading, Trust, Truth, Vegan, Vegetarian
This China Study book is really getting under my skin. Having already rid my diet of meat and fish many years ago, I have turned from Vegetarian to Vegan in the past few weeks, hence adding dairy and any animal derived products to my list of ‘banned’ substances. However, having put effort into researching the pros of such a diet, I need to investigate the alternate view.
I have found a few interesting counter-arguments on the internet, belittling the research of Dr Graham or citing other research that appears to reverse the findings used in the book. There is one difference between Dr Graham and his detractors however, they all seem to have some agenda or are trying to sell something.
I am trying to keep an open mind, despite reading evidence that overturns almost everything I have ever been taught about diet and nutrition. I would like to be able to present the truth, but it seems that it comes in a number of various hues.
You may have read my posts about the book. If you would like to read the other viewpoints I suggest you Google (other search providers are available) ‘china study myth’ and take your pick of the articles available.
From my own point of view? Well I didn’t start my HCRV diet because of the book, I fell into the book because of the diet. I feel that the example of Freelee and DurianRiders health and fitness lends at least as much evidence to back the diet as does the book.
I guess it’s a bit like not walking under a ladder, just in case you end up with some unfortunate outcome. Maybe it’s far more complicated than I’m describing, but with all the horror stories surrounding the food industry, I’m sticking to fruit and veg for now.
01 Dec 2013 Leave a comment
in Buddhism Tags: Books, Happiness, Human Revolution, Learning, Reading, Self Improvement, Wisdom
Apart from my usual daily cycling workout, I’ve spent most of the day with my nose in a book, again. I’m not going to go into details, as I did yesterday, but the more I read, the more convinced I am that everyone should do likewise, so they can make up their own minds about the issues. You can get a taste of the topics covered by following this link.
Reading is a dialogue with ourselves, it is self-reflection, which cultivates profound humanity. Reading is essential to our self development. It expands and enriches the personality like a seed that germinates after a long time and sends forth a multitude of blossom-laden branches.
People who can say of a book ‘this changed my life’ truly understand the meaning of inner happiness. Reading that sparks inner revolution is urgently needed to help us escape drowning in the rapidly advancing information society.
Reading is far more than simple intellectual ornamentation, it is a battle for the establishment and preservation of the self, a ceaseless challenge that keeps us young and vigorous.
30 Nov 2013 Leave a comment
in Buddhism Tags: Cancer, Diabetes, HCRV, Healing, Health, Illness, Knowledge, Lies, Obesity
What if there was a way to stop you, your children, your family, your friends from developing cancer? What if, having already been diagnosed with cancer, there was a way to stop the tumour from developing further?
What if you knew that both of these have been known since the 80’s, but nothing has been done about it? Would you want to know more, so you could use the information?
Well the answers to these and many, many other questions are in the book The China Study and I would urge everyone to read it. I wrote about this last weekend, having read about how the diet also prevents and reverses coronary heart disease, but the revelations just keep coming.
I have to admit that I stumbled across the book via Freelee and DurianRiders excellent Facebook and YouTube channels whilst trying to find a sustainable diet to help me continue my weight loss program. But I could never have imagined that I would ever find such a life changing source of information.
Reading the book makes me sad, happy, angry and above all, determined to help more people find out the truth about what they are eating, and what it is doing to them.
There is an old saying, ‘you are what you eat’ and nothing could be closer to the truth. Sadly the saying, ‘you are what you think you are eating’ does not come close to the same truth. We are all told that fat is bad for us, that we should limit the amount we eat. Nobody ever told me, or you I imagine, that it’s not just fat that can harm us, but the animal protein that often accompanies it, in steaks, burgers, chicken, bacon, the list goes on and on.
The book covers many, many studies, experiments and surveys carried out all around the world. One of them, however, makes you really sit up and listen. Experiments on rats, carried out in India had found that animals exposed to a potent carcinogen aflatoxin, a mould found on peanuts, developed liver cancer in the same way humans exposed to the same chemical do.
So what, I hear you say, but there’s an amazing twist. The rats were split into two groups. Half were fed on a diet containing 20% protein, the other half 5% protein. The first group all developed liver cancer, but of the second group NOT ONE developed cancer. When allied to a survey undertaken in the Philippines, where aflatoxin is common, which found that the children of the wealthiest families were far more prone to liver cancer for exactly the same reason, because they consumed more protein, because their families could afford meat.
So again, I urge you to at least investigate this for yourself. There are many reasons for becoming a vegan, but I cannot think of a single one that can be more important than protecting yourself, and those you love, from a potentially life threatening illness like cancer.
I realise that this is rather off topic for a blog about Buddhism, but using Wisdom, Courage and Compassion is encouraged in my faith, and I feel I am employing all three in this post.
29 Nov 2013 Leave a comment
in Buddhism Tags: Buddhahood, Daisaku Ikeda, Faith, Happiness, Life-State, Nichiren Buddhism
There is an expansive life-state of profound, secure happiness, that transcends any material or social advantage.
It is called faith; it is called the life-state of Buddhahood.
As Nichiren reminds us:
“It is the heart that is important.”
It is in the heart of faith that Buddhahood resides and boundless and immeasurable happiness shines forth. Happiness is not something located far away.
We must realise that it exists within our own lives. Nichiren Buddhism teaches this and shows us how to attain indestructible happiness.
~ Daisaku Ikeda
28 Nov 2013 2 Comments
in Buddhism Tags: Bodhisattva, Challenges, Changes, Commitment, Goals, Happiness, Teaching
Sometimes we need to wipe the slate clean, take a deep breath, and start anew. With my decision to change career, this might just be the perfect time to do so. Having new goals, new horizons and renewed vigour is just the ticket.
I know that some people fear change, are loath to relinquish all the effort put into a particular path, even if that path may be taking them in the wrong direction. I am not one of those people, I embrace change.
Setting sail on a new career, I intend to make the most of each and every day, and when change does arrive, I will enjoy the excitement of being reborn into a new and exciting experience.
The Search For Enlightenment 
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