Chanting Growers Group (2013-∞)

[Babbabud]

Nam myoho renge kyo

 

[Stan G.]

Nam myoho renge kyo

 

[Stan G.]

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

 

[Stan G.]

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

 

[Payaso]

Howdy Stan and greetings to all the group!

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo!

We are still here and still growing!

 

[easyDaimoku]

Just cranked out a strong morning gongyo!

Nam myoho renge kyo!!

 

[Weird]

Now I entrust it to you. You must accept, uphold, read, recite, and broadly propagate this Law, causing all living beings everywhere to hear and understand it. Why? Because the thus come one has great pity and compassion. He is in no way stingy or begrudging, nor has he any fear. He is able to bestow on living beings the wisdom of the Buddha, the wisdom of the thus come one, the wisdom that comes of itself. The thus come one is a great giver of gifts to all living beings. You for your part should respond by studying this Law of the thus come one. You must not be stingy or begrudging!

“In future ages if there are good men and good women who p.320have faith in the wisdom of the thus come one, you should preach and expound the Lotus Sutra for them, so that others may hear and understand it. For in this way you can cause them to gain the buddha wisdom. If there are living beings who do not believe and accept it, you should use some of the other profound doctrines of the thus come one to teach, benefit, and bring joy to them. If you do all this, then you will have repaid the debt of gratitude that you owe to the buddhas.”

---> https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/lsoc/Content/22

 

[Stan G.]

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

 

[Weird]

Propagating the Law at the Appropriate Time


Background
I HAVE received the horseload of polished rice that you sent.
All affairs whatsoever depend on the time. We speak of “blossoms in the spring, the moon in autumn” because those are the things that are appropriate to the time.
In the case of the Buddha, he appeared in the world for the sake of the Lotus Sutra, but for the first forty and more years of his teaching life he did not expound it. The reason, as explained in the sutra itself, was that “the time to preach so had not yet come.”1
In summer we may be pleased to receive a heavily padded jacket, and in winter to receive a sheer summer robe, but how much more delightful to receive a padded jacket in winter, or a sheer robe in summer! Money may be welcome when we are hungry, and an imperial gift when we are thirsty, but can never compare to food in time of hunger or drink in time of thirst. The boy who gave the Buddha a pie made of mud and attained Buddhahood thereby,2 and the person who offered a jewel but fell into hell instead,3 are illustrations of this principle.
I, Nichiren, was born in this country of Japan, have never deceived others, never stolen, or committed any sort of offense. I am a teacher of the Law in this latter age of few offenses. But in the time of a ruler who favors civil affairs, the military arts will be neglected. And those who live for love have no liking for persons of strict morals. Because, born in an age that puts its faith in the Nembutsu, Zen, True Word, and Precepts teachings, I propagate the Lotus Sutra, I am hated by the ruler and high ministers and by the common people. And so in the end I live in the mountains. What plans, I wonder, do the heavenly deities have for me?
Snow piles up five feet deep, blocking the mountain trails that are deserted to begin with, and no one comes to visit. My clothes are thin and hardly keep out the cold, my food supplies are exhausted, and it would seem that my life must come to an end. At such a moment, to receive a gift like yours, one that has saved my life, is an occasion for both joy and lamentation. Just when I had resigned myself to the thought of starvation, your gift came like oil added to a lamp that could hardly last much longer. How wonderful, how welcome, how generous the heart of the giver! Surely it must have been the design of Shakyamuni Buddha and the Lotus Sutra.

---> http://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-2/Content/319

 

[Payaso]

That's a lot of rice!

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo!

 

[Stan G.]

May world peace be discovered by all beings!
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

 

[Weird]

IN the letter you sent by messenger, you say that you used to recite one chapter of the Lotus Sutra every day, completing the entire sutra in the space of twenty-eight days, but that now you read the “Medicine King” chapter1 once a day. You ask if you should simply read each chapter in turn, as you were originally doing.
As for the Lotus Sutra, one may recite the entire sutra of twenty-eight chapters in eight volumes every day; or one may recite only one volume, or one chapter, or one verse, or one phrase, or one word; or one may simply chant the daimoku, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, only once a day, or chant it only once in the course of a lifetime; or hear someone else chant it only once in a lifetime and rejoice in the hearing, or rejoice in hearing the voice of someone else rejoice in the hearing, and so on in this manner to the fiftieth hearer.2 And if one were to be at the end, even if one’s faith were weak and one’s sense of rejoicing diluted like the frailty of a child of two or three, or the inability of a cow or horse to distinguish before from after, the blessings one would gain would be a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, million times greater than those gained by persons of keen faculties and superior wisdom who study other sutras, persons such as Shāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, Manjushrī, and Maitreya, who had committed to memory the entire texts of the various sutras.


But to return to your question. As I said before, though no chapter of the Lotus Sutra is negligible, among the entire twenty-eight chapters, the “Expedient Means” chapter and the “Life Span” chapter are particularly outstanding. The remaining chapters are all in a sense the branches and leaves of these two chapters. Therefore, for your regular recitation, I recommend that you practice reading the prose sections of the “Expedient Means” and “Life Span” chapters. In addition, it might be well if you wrote out separate copies of these sections. The remaining twenty-six chapters are like the shadow that follows one’s body or the value inherent in a jewel. If you recite the “Life Span” and “Expedient Means” chapters, then the remaining chapters will naturally be included even though you do not recite them. It is true that the “Medicine King” and “Devadatta” chapters9 deal specifically with women’s attainment of Buddhahood or rebirth in the pure land. But the “Devadatta” chapter is a branch and leaf of the “Expedient Means” chapter, and the “Medicine King” chapter is a branch and leaf of the “Expedient Means” and the “Life Span” chapters.10 Therefore, you should regularly recite these two chapters, the “Expedient Means” and “Life Span” chapters. As for the remaining chapters, you may turn to them from time to time when you have a moment of leisure.

---> http://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/9

 

[Stan G.]

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

 

[Stan G.]

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Followed by Melty hash rips!

 

[Babbabud]

Nam myoho renge kyo

 

[Weird]

A wise person, while dwelling in security, anticipates danger; a perverse one, while dwelling amid danger, takes security for granted. A great fire fears even a small quantity of water, and a large tree may have its branches broken by even a small bird. What a wise person fears is slander of the great vehicle. It was on this account that Bodhisattva Vasubandhu declared that he would cut out his tongue,4 Bodhisattva Ashvaghosha implored that his own head be cut off,5 and the Great Teacher Chi-tsang made a bridge of his own body.6 The Tripitaka Master Hsüan-tsang traveled to the sacred land of India to discern [which teaching represents the truth], the Tripitaka Master Pu-k’ung likewise returned to India to resolve his doubts,7 and the Great Teacher Dengyō sought confirmation in China. Did not these men act this way in order to protect the true meaning of the sutras and treatises?

---> http://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-1/Content/72

 

[easyDaimoku]

to each of you wonderful Bodhisattva's of the earth:

It's so amazing we're all Treasure Towers! Thus Come Ones of Original Enlightenment!

Totally felt it this morning after chanting in front of my Gohonzon!!

 

[Stan G.]

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Then cheers, you mother lovers!

 

[Stan G.]

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

 

[Stan G.]

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Silent contemplation of this Lotus Sutra, will produce immediate results. Chanting this sutra, one must surely attain Buddhahood relatively quickly!