Hi Everybody,
We're exploring the meaning of the mantra that we chant in our daily daimoku, nam myoho renge kyo and we're talking about the various meanings of myoho, and we've talked about examples from music and painting. If we think about ourselves, then ho refers to all the elements in our physical make up that can be observed with our senses, so that includes of course our appearance, the way we happen to stand and walk and talk, the way we gesture with our hands, and the various facial expressions we use to communicate. All the elements in fact that enable someone to recognise us as who we are, even from some considerable distance away. But what is quite clear is that so many of those external physical attributes, those gestures and movements, the expression in our eyes for example, and the tone and modulation of our voice, the animation in the face and the postures of the body, are also an expression of our inner life, our myo. These two aspects of ourself are so clearly inextricably interwoven.
As we continue with our daily practice and seek to strengthen the vitality of the myo or spiritual aspect of our lives, it can have a very considerable manifest effect upon our physical persona, the general expression on our face for example, the light in our eyes, our tone of voice, our readiness to smile and greet others warmly and generously. The more active our inner spiritual life, the more readily it becomes apparent in our external appearance.
That's quite a big thought so I think we'll leave it there for today, to enable you to do a bit of rumination on that thought. We do want to greet others warmly and generously don't we? And we do want to have a persona that is vital and alive. Chanting nam myoho renge kyo is a genuine way of achieving those goals.
See you next time.
William
PS The Case for Buddhism, is available on Amazon and as a download on Kindle.
Wednesday 27 January 2016
Monday 18 January 2016
my buddhist blog number 120
Hi everybody,
Had wonderful news from Italy this week where one of my books, The Reluctant Buddhist, or Il Buddista Rilutante as it is called in Italian has sold over 5500 copies in the past year which just blows me away, that it has touched so many people's lives. Don't know how to express my gratitude.
But here we are in this Approaching the Practice chapter launching into a slightly more detailed and yet wholly practical account of the meanings locked up in these characters nam myoho renge kyo. Not one that carries us off into the deeper realms of Buddhist philosophy perhaps, in case we get lost without trace, but one that might serve as a working reference, bearing in mind that if it stimulates you to know more, you can seek out one of the references in the bibliography. So, goggles on, here we go.
Nam. The word nam comes from the Sanskrit word namas and although it is commonly tranlated as, to devote one's life to, it has a multiplicity of overlapping meanings. Perhaps the most important among these meanings are ' to summon up,' or ' to awaken,' or, ' to draw forth,' or ' to make great effort.'
Why is knowing about these other meanings so helpful? Because they express subtle differences in our life state or state of mind when we are chanting at different times. When we are faced with a major challenge for example we may be thinking about summoning up or making great effort to draw out this inner resource rather than just awakening.
Myoho
Myoho is seen to describe the profound relationship between the very essence of life, or the life force that is inherent throughout the universe, and the literally millions of physical forms in which that life force is manifest or expressed at any given time. As Nichiren Daishonin defines that idea,
' Myo is the name given to the mystic nature of life, and ho to its manifestations.'
Thus in the Buddhist tradition, everything that exists, both sentient and insentient, is an expression in some way of that life force, and is subject to the eternal rhythm of life, formation, continuation, decline and disintegration. Everything but everything is subject to that process of change or impermanence as it is so often described in Buddhism.
So myoho is made up of two elements, myo which refers to the unseen or the spiritual element which is beleived to be inherent in all things, and ho, which refers to the physical manifestation that we can observe with our senses. In Buddhism all things, all phenomena, have a myo aspect and a ho aspect. They are the two different but inseparable aspects of all life, ' two but not two' as Buddhism often expresses it, as inextricably interlinked as the two sides of a sheet of paper.
Thus the ho aspect of a painting for example, is made up of the canvas and the paint that is spread across it. The myo aspect is the feeling or the emotion or the creative energy within the artist as he applies the paint in a particular way, and the emotional impact on us as we view it. Music similarly has a clearly recognisable ho aspect in the arrangement of the black and white strokes or the notes on the page, and the physical vibrations in the air caused by the instruments as they interpret them. The profound myo aspect is the effect the music has upon our emotions and feelings as we receive the sounds produced by the instruments in that particular way. As Shakespeare expressed it so pithily in Much Ado About Nothing, it is wholly inexplicable that a sequence of sounds produced on violin strings made out of the guts of a sheep...can move our hearts so readily to tears!
Enough for today.
Next episode we'll deal a little bit more with myoho and then move on to renge.
See you then.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and on Kindle.
Had wonderful news from Italy this week where one of my books, The Reluctant Buddhist, or Il Buddista Rilutante as it is called in Italian has sold over 5500 copies in the past year which just blows me away, that it has touched so many people's lives. Don't know how to express my gratitude.
But here we are in this Approaching the Practice chapter launching into a slightly more detailed and yet wholly practical account of the meanings locked up in these characters nam myoho renge kyo. Not one that carries us off into the deeper realms of Buddhist philosophy perhaps, in case we get lost without trace, but one that might serve as a working reference, bearing in mind that if it stimulates you to know more, you can seek out one of the references in the bibliography. So, goggles on, here we go.
Nam. The word nam comes from the Sanskrit word namas and although it is commonly tranlated as, to devote one's life to, it has a multiplicity of overlapping meanings. Perhaps the most important among these meanings are ' to summon up,' or ' to awaken,' or, ' to draw forth,' or ' to make great effort.'
Why is knowing about these other meanings so helpful? Because they express subtle differences in our life state or state of mind when we are chanting at different times. When we are faced with a major challenge for example we may be thinking about summoning up or making great effort to draw out this inner resource rather than just awakening.
Myoho
Myoho is seen to describe the profound relationship between the very essence of life, or the life force that is inherent throughout the universe, and the literally millions of physical forms in which that life force is manifest or expressed at any given time. As Nichiren Daishonin defines that idea,
' Myo is the name given to the mystic nature of life, and ho to its manifestations.'
Thus in the Buddhist tradition, everything that exists, both sentient and insentient, is an expression in some way of that life force, and is subject to the eternal rhythm of life, formation, continuation, decline and disintegration. Everything but everything is subject to that process of change or impermanence as it is so often described in Buddhism.
So myoho is made up of two elements, myo which refers to the unseen or the spiritual element which is beleived to be inherent in all things, and ho, which refers to the physical manifestation that we can observe with our senses. In Buddhism all things, all phenomena, have a myo aspect and a ho aspect. They are the two different but inseparable aspects of all life, ' two but not two' as Buddhism often expresses it, as inextricably interlinked as the two sides of a sheet of paper.
Thus the ho aspect of a painting for example, is made up of the canvas and the paint that is spread across it. The myo aspect is the feeling or the emotion or the creative energy within the artist as he applies the paint in a particular way, and the emotional impact on us as we view it. Music similarly has a clearly recognisable ho aspect in the arrangement of the black and white strokes or the notes on the page, and the physical vibrations in the air caused by the instruments as they interpret them. The profound myo aspect is the effect the music has upon our emotions and feelings as we receive the sounds produced by the instruments in that particular way. As Shakespeare expressed it so pithily in Much Ado About Nothing, it is wholly inexplicable that a sequence of sounds produced on violin strings made out of the guts of a sheep...can move our hearts so readily to tears!
Enough for today.
Next episode we'll deal a little bit more with myoho and then move on to renge.
See you then.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and on Kindle.
Sunday 10 January 2016
my buddhist blog number 119
Hi Everybody,
We're charging on with the Approaching the Practice chapter, and we've reached the point where we dive into the meaning of the mantra itself, nam myoho renge kyo. So here goes.
Since the chanting of the phrase nam myoho renge kyo is central to the practice of Nichiren Buddhism, and the process of change we are seeking, where does it come from and what does it mean?
Most of the phrase comes from the Lotus Sutra itself. Myoho renge kyo is the title of the Lotus Sutra as written in classical Japanese. To be precise, it is written in the Chinese pictograms that the Japanese adopted as their own, in order to create their own written language. The five characters used to write this phrase mean literally, ' The Mystic Law of the Lotus Sutra.' The word mystic here carries with it the sense of the ultimate or the highest teaching that hasn't previously been revealed.
The key word Nam that is placed in front of the title is what you might call the committal word. It comes from the ancient language of Sanskrit and means, among other things, ' to devote one's life.'
So a straightforward literal trnaslation of Nam myoho renge kyo' might be ' I devote my life to the mystic law of the Lotus Sutra.'
But that is really just the beginning. Many volumes have been written to explain the depths of meaning locked up this simple sounding mantra. That is partly because in the Buddhist tradition, the title given to each sutra is seen not only to be immensely important but is seen to embody the entire teaching that it contains. As Nichiren Daishonin explains to us in one of his letters, using the analogy of the name of Japan;
' Included within the two characters representing Japan is all that is within the country's 66 provinces: the people and the animals, the rice paddies and the other fields, those of high and low status, the nobles and the commoners...similarly included within the title or daimoku of Nam myoho renge kyo is the entire sutra consisting of all eight volumes, twenty eight chapters, and 69,384 characters without the omission of a single character...'
Moreover, since Chinese is an incomparably concise language, in which each character can be used to express an immense range of different though related meanings, these 5 basic characters combine to convey a veritable universe of ideas. In much the same way that in the world of Physics for example, the simple-seeming equation e=mc2 sums up within its five characters the complex relationship between energy and matter, across the entire vastness of the Universe.
That's an interesting thought isnt it, the compression of vast meaning into such a small space.!
anyway that's it for today.
See you next week.
Best wishes,
william
PS hope you made some really strong determinations!!
We're charging on with the Approaching the Practice chapter, and we've reached the point where we dive into the meaning of the mantra itself, nam myoho renge kyo. So here goes.
Since the chanting of the phrase nam myoho renge kyo is central to the practice of Nichiren Buddhism, and the process of change we are seeking, where does it come from and what does it mean?
Most of the phrase comes from the Lotus Sutra itself. Myoho renge kyo is the title of the Lotus Sutra as written in classical Japanese. To be precise, it is written in the Chinese pictograms that the Japanese adopted as their own, in order to create their own written language. The five characters used to write this phrase mean literally, ' The Mystic Law of the Lotus Sutra.' The word mystic here carries with it the sense of the ultimate or the highest teaching that hasn't previously been revealed.
The key word Nam that is placed in front of the title is what you might call the committal word. It comes from the ancient language of Sanskrit and means, among other things, ' to devote one's life.'
So a straightforward literal trnaslation of Nam myoho renge kyo' might be ' I devote my life to the mystic law of the Lotus Sutra.'
But that is really just the beginning. Many volumes have been written to explain the depths of meaning locked up this simple sounding mantra. That is partly because in the Buddhist tradition, the title given to each sutra is seen not only to be immensely important but is seen to embody the entire teaching that it contains. As Nichiren Daishonin explains to us in one of his letters, using the analogy of the name of Japan;
' Included within the two characters representing Japan is all that is within the country's 66 provinces: the people and the animals, the rice paddies and the other fields, those of high and low status, the nobles and the commoners...similarly included within the title or daimoku of Nam myoho renge kyo is the entire sutra consisting of all eight volumes, twenty eight chapters, and 69,384 characters without the omission of a single character...'
Moreover, since Chinese is an incomparably concise language, in which each character can be used to express an immense range of different though related meanings, these 5 basic characters combine to convey a veritable universe of ideas. In much the same way that in the world of Physics for example, the simple-seeming equation e=mc2 sums up within its five characters the complex relationship between energy and matter, across the entire vastness of the Universe.
That's an interesting thought isnt it, the compression of vast meaning into such a small space.!
anyway that's it for today.
See you next week.
Best wishes,
william
PS hope you made some really strong determinations!!
Saturday 2 January 2016
my buddhist blog number 118
Hi Everybody,
First episode in 2016! We're about 20 pages from the end of TCFB. Wonder if I should start blogging the new book? Perhaps that's tempting fate. Better wait until it has been published. Anyway...wishing everybody a creative, fulfilling, energetic New year, bringing a strong and stable sense of well-being into your life.
We're working our way through the chapter on Approaching the practice, and we've reached a sub heading that goes...
Not a question of blind faith.
A fundamentally important point about the central practice of chanting nam myoho renge kyo is that you don't have to understand what this mantra means theoretically when you begin to chant. The understanding will grow and deeepen as your experience of the practice grows. You certainly don't have to hang onto the many layers of meaning locked up in the characters as you chant. It's not an intellectual process in that way. Nor is it a feeling one, in the sense that you should experience some sort of emotional response. You simply chant nam myoho renge kyo in a steady rhythm, as loudly or as quietly as you choose, or as the environment allows, freeing the mind off from any particular concerns, relaxed, listening to the rhythm in the voice, feelin gthe slight vibration in the body. The key thing is to enjoy it, enjoy the moment for what it is.
If you are thinking about what other more valuable things you could be doing with your time, then it's probably better that you go off and do them!
But that having been said Buddhism clearly teaches that anything resembling blind faith is not an acceptable basis for practice. Does it work? Does it enhance how I feel about myself and my life and the way I handle my relationships? Nichiren argues constantly that it's up to us to pose these questions to ourselves. Take nothing on purely on trust he tells us, however interesting however seemngly powerful and profound the teaching. Unless it actually enables us to do something better with our lives, overcome problems more readily, feel a greater sense of self confidence in our own abilities, a greater sense well-being, more focused and more capable of achieving what we are seeking for our lives...then what is it for?
As we have seen, in Buddhism, the word ' faith' is realted not to some external power or force, but to the strength of our belief in ourselves, in our own capacities, in our inner resources of courage and compassion and wisdom, and our ability to make use of them in our daily lives.
We may indeed take up the practice because we come to value some quality that we see in the practitioners we meet, or because we are attracted by what we are told about the promise of change embodied in the practice. But in the long run, we are only likely to continue the practice with real commitment when we become aware that it is truly beneficial in the entirety of our life.
It is too demanding a practice to continue on the basis of someone else's belief, or someone else's promises. That is certainly true in my own experience. I began slowly, and it was something of a struggle for several months. But as I became aware of thos profound sense of well-being that ran right through my life, I started getting up an hour earlier each morning, wherever I was, at home or on location, so that I could fit in at least 45 minutes or so of chanting, to launch me positively into the day.
I'm still doing just that!!
Enough for today.
See you next week.
Have a great weekend.
William
PS TCFB is available in paperback from Amazon or as a download on Kindle.
First episode in 2016! We're about 20 pages from the end of TCFB. Wonder if I should start blogging the new book? Perhaps that's tempting fate. Better wait until it has been published. Anyway...wishing everybody a creative, fulfilling, energetic New year, bringing a strong and stable sense of well-being into your life.
We're working our way through the chapter on Approaching the practice, and we've reached a sub heading that goes...
Not a question of blind faith.
A fundamentally important point about the central practice of chanting nam myoho renge kyo is that you don't have to understand what this mantra means theoretically when you begin to chant. The understanding will grow and deeepen as your experience of the practice grows. You certainly don't have to hang onto the many layers of meaning locked up in the characters as you chant. It's not an intellectual process in that way. Nor is it a feeling one, in the sense that you should experience some sort of emotional response. You simply chant nam myoho renge kyo in a steady rhythm, as loudly or as quietly as you choose, or as the environment allows, freeing the mind off from any particular concerns, relaxed, listening to the rhythm in the voice, feelin gthe slight vibration in the body. The key thing is to enjoy it, enjoy the moment for what it is.
If you are thinking about what other more valuable things you could be doing with your time, then it's probably better that you go off and do them!
But that having been said Buddhism clearly teaches that anything resembling blind faith is not an acceptable basis for practice. Does it work? Does it enhance how I feel about myself and my life and the way I handle my relationships? Nichiren argues constantly that it's up to us to pose these questions to ourselves. Take nothing on purely on trust he tells us, however interesting however seemngly powerful and profound the teaching. Unless it actually enables us to do something better with our lives, overcome problems more readily, feel a greater sense of self confidence in our own abilities, a greater sense well-being, more focused and more capable of achieving what we are seeking for our lives...then what is it for?
As we have seen, in Buddhism, the word ' faith' is realted not to some external power or force, but to the strength of our belief in ourselves, in our own capacities, in our inner resources of courage and compassion and wisdom, and our ability to make use of them in our daily lives.
We may indeed take up the practice because we come to value some quality that we see in the practitioners we meet, or because we are attracted by what we are told about the promise of change embodied in the practice. But in the long run, we are only likely to continue the practice with real commitment when we become aware that it is truly beneficial in the entirety of our life.
It is too demanding a practice to continue on the basis of someone else's belief, or someone else's promises. That is certainly true in my own experience. I began slowly, and it was something of a struggle for several months. But as I became aware of thos profound sense of well-being that ran right through my life, I started getting up an hour earlier each morning, wherever I was, at home or on location, so that I could fit in at least 45 minutes or so of chanting, to launch me positively into the day.
I'm still doing just that!!
Enough for today.
See you next week.
Have a great weekend.
William
PS TCFB is available in paperback from Amazon or as a download on Kindle.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)