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Chanting Growers Group (2013-∞)

Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
"World-Honored One, it is not long since you attained Buddhahood, and yet you have been able to carry out this great meritorious undertaking! We ourselves have faith in the Buddha, believing that he preaches in accordance with what is a appropriate, that the words spoken by the Buddha are never false, and that the Buddha's knowledge is in all cases penetrating and comprehensive. Nevertheless, in the period after the Buddha has entered extinction, if bodhisattvas who have just begun to aspire to enlightenment should hear these words, they will perhaps not believe or accept them but will be led to commit the crime of rejecting the Law. Therefore, World-Honored One, we beg you to explain so we may put aside our doubts, and so that, in future ages when good men hear this matter, they will not entertain doubts!
At that time the bodhisattva Maitreya, wishing to state his meaning once more, spoke in verse form, saying:
In the past the Buddha departed from the Shakya clan,
left his household, and near Gaya
set under the bodhi tree.
Little time has passed since then,
yet these sons of the Buddha
are immeasurable in number!
Already for a long time they have practiced the Buddha way,
dwelling in transcendental powers and the power of wisdom,
skillfully learning the bodhisattva way,
unsoiled by worldly things
like the lotus flower in the water.
Emerging from the earth,
all display a reverent and respectful mind,
standing in the presence of the World-Honored One.
This is difficult to fathom -
How can one believe it?
The Buddha attained the way very recently,
yet those he has helped to gain success are so many!
We beg you to dispel the doubts of the assembly,
to make distinctions and explain the truth of the matter.
It is though a young man
just turned twenty-five
were to point to a hundred year old man
with gray hair and wrinkled face
and say, I sired him!'
And the old man were to say, 'This is my father!'
The father youthful, the son old -
no one in the world could believe this!
World-Honored One, your case is similar.
Only very recently you attained the way.
These bodhisattvas
are firm in will, in no way timid or immature.
For measurable kalpas
they have been practicing the bodhisattva way.
They are clever at difficult questions and answers,
their minds know no fear.
They have firmly cultivated a persevering mind,
upright in dignity and virtue.
They are praised by the Buddhas of the ten directions
as able and adept at preaching distinctions.
They have no wish to remain among the crowd
but constantly favor a state of meditation,
and in order to seek the Buddha way
they have been dwelling in the space under the earth.
This we have heard from the Buddha
and have no doubts in the matter.
But for the sake of future ages we beg the Buddha
to explain and bring about understanding.
If with regard to this sutra
one should harbor doubt and fail to believe,
he will fall at once into the evil paths.
So we beg you now to explain.
These immeasurable bodhisattvas -
how in such a short time
did you teach them, cause them to have aspiring minds,
and to dwell in the stage of no regression?
​
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Emerging from the Earth




---> https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/lsoc/Content/15
 
Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran


I WAS very happy to receive the letter written by the priest Hōki.1
The joy we feel at the beginning of spring is like the blossoms that open on the trees or the plants that spring up in the mountains. I, as well as others, am filled with joy. I have duly received the gifts noted in your list, namely, one sack of rice, one sack of salt, thirty slabs of steamed rice cake, and one sack of taros.
Here in the remote mountains the snow falls for three days at a time, until it is over ten feet deep in the garden. The valleys turn into peaks, and the peaks seem to be laddering up to the sky. Birds and deer gather around my hermitage, but no woodcutters or herdsmen venture into the mountains. My clothes are thin, my food supplies exhausted. Nights I am no better off than the cold-suffering bird, and in the daytime I think constantly of going down to the village. The sound of voices reciting the sutra has ceased, my religious meditations grow thin, and I grieve to think that, should I falter in my practice in this present existence, I must go on suffering for major world system dust particle kalpas or for numberless major world system dust particle kalpas. But with these gifts of yours my life has been restored, and I am delighted to think that we may soon meet in person.
In the past, when the Buddha was still an ordinary mortal, in a turbulent age troubled by the five impurities he nourished the starving votaries of the Lotus Sutra and thereby was able to attain Buddhahood.2 And if the words of the Lotus Sutra are true, then because of the merit [you have gained by your gifts], there can be no doubt that your deceased father has already achieved Buddhahood.
Your late brother Gorō too has by now journeyed to the pure land of Eagle Peak, where your father is patting him on the head. Just thinking of this, I find I cannot hold back my tears.
With my deep respect,
Nichiren

The twentieth day of the first month
Reply to Ueno

[To Hōki]: I am sorry to trouble you, but may I ask you to read this letter to Ueno and make sure he understands the contents.
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The Beginning of Spring




---> https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-2/Content/352
 
Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
I HAVE heard that you are suffering from illness. Is this true? The impermanence of this world is such that even the healthy cannot remain forever, let alone those who are ill. Thoughtful persons should therefore prepare their minds for the life to come. Yet one cannot prepare one’s mind for the next life by one’s own efforts alone. Only on the basis of the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, the original teacher of all living beings, can one do so.
The Buddha’s teachings, however, are various, perhaps because people’s minds also differ greatly. In any event, Shakyamuni Buddha taught for no more than fifty years. Among the teachings he expounded during the first forty and more years, we find the Flower Garland Sutra, which says, “The mind, the Buddha, and all living beings—these three things are without distinction”; the Āgama sutras, which set forth the principles of suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self; the Great Collection Sutra, which asserts the interpenetration of the defiled aspect and the pure aspect;1 the Larger Wisdom Sutra, which teaches mutual identification and nonduality; and the Two-Volumed, Meditation, and Amida sutras, which emphasize rebirth in the Land of Perfect Bliss. All of these teachings were expounded specifically for the purpose of saving all living beings in the Former, Middle, and Latter Days of the Law.
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Encouragement to a Sick Person


---> https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/10
 
Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
Be resolved to summon forth the great power of faith, and chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with the prayer that your faith will be steadfast and correct at the moment of death. Never seek any other way to inherit the ultimate Law of life and death, and manifest it in your life. Only then will you realize that earthly desires are enlightenment, and that the sufferings of birth and death are nirvana. Even embracing the Lotus Sutra would be useless without the heritage of faith.
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---> https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/29



The Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life
 
easyDaimoku

easyDaimoku

Member
Veteran
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo! I’m always chanting for PTD, Bud and Mrs.Babba and your families allllll the time. Banging pots and celebrating 7pm clapping with all of you!! Wooooooo! Mugi Washin!
 
Babbabud

Babbabud

Bodhisattva of the Earth
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Awesome to see you

Awesome to see you

easyDaimoku said:
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo! I’m always chanting for PTD, Bud and Mrs.Babba and your families allllll the time. Banging pots and celebrating 7pm clapping with all of you!! Wooooooo! Mugi Washin!
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Great to have you stop in !!!


Nam myoho renge kyo
 
Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
And daimoku represents the cause and condition that permits not only us but all living beings to proceed directly to the place of enlightenment.
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We may wonder whether, without reciting the sutra, it is possible simply through the meditation of the mind-ground9 alone to attain Buddhahood. The fact is that the meditation on three thousand realms in a single moment of life and the method of meditation known as threefold contemplation in a single mind are contained within the five characters Myoho-renge-kyo. And these five characters, Myoho-renge-kyo, are also contained within the single life of each of us. Thus T’ien-t’ai’s commentary states: “This Myoho-renge-kyo represents the depths of the secret storehouse of the original state, the enlightenment attained by the Thus Come Ones of the three existences.”10
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The Doctrine of Three Thousand Realms in a Single Moment of Life

---> https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-2/Content/180
 
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