Someone asked me: "are you still chanting, and doing Gongyo? If yes, are you still getting "benefits"?"
Thanks for asking that question, you made me reflect a little. In short the answer to me is yes we can practice seperate from the Gakkai and No! we cannot practice separate from other loving people who share our common goals.
I am still chanting daimoku (though not as much as I did when I was active), and I still occasionally recite the sutra. It is almost always on my mind and I try to live it in my actions.
However, I no longer evaluate my life on whether or not I'm receiving divine protection or not. Nichiren once said something to the effect that "even if the Gods were to abandon me I would not give up my path." I really believe that we should act in a certain matter regardless of whether it produces immediate benefit or not, and that if we do we benefit inside even if the "outside" doesn't immediately reflect that.
What matters are; "what kind of causes I'm making, how accurate and strait my thinking is, whether I have self control and behave like a complete human being, and how I deal with my fellow human beings and the environment."
I find that if I behave right and make the right thoughts, decisions, and actions; I get better reactions, environments and consequences. That is causality. Causal thinking is the opposite of magical thinking and generates better results for everybody.
I'm not anti-Gakkai (or particularly anti-Nichiren Shoshu) but simply want to see them honestly. That involve quite a bit of self reflection because I'm not proud of everything I did before I woke up to what I was doing. Like Nichiren says "he is like a drunk person who on awakening realizes he has killed his father and savaged his mother, what is he to do?" I haven't done anything so bad literally, but being dishonest, twisted or fanatical is a bad path like being drunk -- and dishonors the path and teachers one would claim to be following.
I think that if participating in an organization is only causing confusion, one should first step away from the confusion and conflict, then study what is causing that confusion and conflict (not who), what the truth of the matters involved are, and then try to help those in the organization to see what they are doing wrong and why. If they refuse to listen, or even attack one for ones opinions, then it is time to step away. The Buddha did this. Shakyamuni saw a fight among his disciples, and according to legend went to live with the rogue elephant he'd calmed earlier when that elephant had been sent to kill him. The two got along quite nicely and the disciples eventually came to ask him why he wasn't among them and to see that they were making a grave error by playing religious politics and fighting over nonsense.
The Buddha dwells among us anywhere where people practice to become enlightened and we too can "walk with the elephants if we need to." This doesn't mean abandoning the Gakkai (or NST) or the community of friends. It does mean abandoning the "ways" and "means" of conflict. That is not always so easy, there are many conflicts in the world, and a person needs to be engaged in this world. However, with the sword of relentless truth-seeking and mastery of principles, teachings and wisdom, we can make a difference.
That means learning what the Gakkai has to teach, mastering the lessons of the Buddhism behind those teachings, and if necessary moving on.
Posted by cholte at August 24, 2006 09:06 PM