Recently I have discovered and begun studying the series in the Living Buddhism journal of SGI entitled “Buddhism 101”. I was late in figuring out it was even there and had to scrounge for back issues to replace those I had already given away to guests at meetings, a common custom in SGI.
The series outlines various subjects in classical Buddhism such as the birth of Shakyamuni, the beginnings of Buddhism, Dependant Origination, the four noble truths, the eight fold path and more. These are subjects that we Nichiren Buddhists in the Soka Gakkai maybe understand less than our scholarly counterparts. It’s wonderful to have these articles explain historical Buddhist doctrine in a language familiar to me.
Something has begun to occur to me however, that our Buddhism contains an element that is new, utterly new, to the history of Buddhism. It’s something that NSA/SGI has suffered considerable criticism from. It is the practice of chanting for stuff.
It’s funny how this turns some people off, often those who are not Buddhist themselves, rather have a preconceived notion of what Buddhism is suppose to be, which is usually non-materialistic, for starters. Usually their preconceptions include vegetarianism, robed dress and hairlessness.
I know it sounds funny when put this way, but it’s true. Many, if not most of us have been asked, when discussing our Buddhist faith, “oh, you must be really peaceful” (glad you didn’t see me the other day on the highway when that jerk cut me off!) or “you don’t eat meat, right? Can you eat fish then?”.
But this other thing, the “chanting for stuff” thing, many people really don’t like that. It insults their thinly constructed idea of monks living in remote temples ringing bells and lighting incense. People often don’t like having long-established ideas threatened, even those ideas that maybe aren’t really that important to them to begin with.
But yeah - we chant for stuff. This used to be a big advertising tool - “you can chant for ANYTHING you want!”. Cars, girlfriends or boyfriends, even drugs. The guy who shakabuku’d me (introduced me) way back when once shared with me that the first thing he chanted for was more pot. He even recalled how for a while he did get more pot, and great pot to boot!
In this modern chaotic world, this age of mappo, the age of decline when older forms of Buddhism are said not to be effective any longer, there has to be some connection between us who live in this age and the truth of Buddhism which promises to save all people. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Nichiren himself would understand chanting for that new Hummer II, but those of us who have continued our Nichiren Buddhist practice of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo understand that the “hook” is really a marketing tool we use on ourselves to connect us to our own Buddha nature, that part of us that is connected to the mystic law.
Getting stuff is really only the beginning, we all do our human revolution, over and over and over again. And so yes, there is this brand new Buddhism of the current age, the Buddhism of chanting for stuff. To those scholarly types, you won’t find it in the Pali Cannon, but it’s real, and it works. It’s not about the stuff, but hey we’re all materialistic in our modern society and if that gets us to chant towards attaining enlightenment, that can’t be bad or wrong.
What is hard to explain, even to myself, is that most Soka Gakkai Buddhists weren’t even interested in Buddhism when they were introduced. I know I wasn’t. It was the chanting itself that lured us in and the promise of all that “stuff” that kept us going. Many, like myself, have had to back-track and study the basics of Buddhism to be able to dialog effectively with others. In the olden days of NSA (Nichiren Shoshu of America) we understood very little about Buddhist theology and history, but we had real faith based on actual experience. We were, and still are Buddhists marching to a different drummer.
So maybe were are creating a new Buddhism, and maybe it won’t suit everyone. But it’s wonderful, and it’s real. It’s a lot of work, but among other things we get great stuff.
D. Shimoda