This concludes the series of reprints. I hope you have enjoyed them. After a week of R&R, new Phantom City blogs will appear.
January 30, 2004
Five Surreal Moments
Have you ever had an unusual experience while chanting or connected to your Buddhist practice? I think we’ve all had them. It’s very rare to hear anomalies associated with our chanting or practice discussed at district meetings. However, when talking to our close Buddhist friends in a relaxed atmosphere, there are occasions when the weird and unexplained are discussed, and we all have a laugh or feel amazed. I learned early on to avoid discussion of the anomalous or strange with my more tight-assed leaders.
Today I want to share with you a small sampling of my own experiences. I will also share with you one experience that wasn’t anomalous, but just plain bizarre. As a challenge to all you readers out there I’d like to request that you write me and share your story. Sign your letter any way you want, we just want to hear your close encounters of the curious kind.
1. The Big Download
It was the summer of 1974. I was young, inexperienced at the practice, and filled with anticipation. I took my small wooden altar into an apple orchard behind my parent’s house and began to chant daimoku. Within a few minutes, the characters on the Gohonzon began to undulate until all I saw was Nam-myoho-renge-kyo down the center. Light seemed to radiate from the Gohonzon.
Totally enraptured by the experience, my mind began to speak with the Gohonzon. I began to ask questions. “What is Buddhism? What is the Gohonzon? What does Nam-myoho-renge-kyo mean?” I asked.
Time stood still for me. The answers to my questions seem to flood my mind, coming directly from the Gohonzon. In hindsight, the most likely explanation was the reflection of my own life and mind from the Gohonzon, like sunlight bouncing off a mirror. Whatever happened that day, my life was altered in the most amazing way. It was my first samadhi or fusion with the Gohonzon? Maybe it was my youthful imagination running wild.
2. A Creepy Koan: What is the Sound of No One Chanting?
In 1977, I was the toban (youth division security chief) for the Chicago Community Center on Foster Avenue. I was responsible for providing young men’s division security from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM seven days a week. If a shift was unfilled or there was a problem, I would have to cover it. I knew every inch of the Community Center. Having spent untold nights there, I was familiar with every smell, sound, and rhythm both inside and outside the center.
One night after everyone was long gone and the doors were locked, around 11:00 PM, my partner and I heard chanting coming from the Gohonzon room. Since our reception desk was right next to the Gohonzon room, we both got up and looked inside through the small window. No one was there. The chanting stopped when we opened the door. It was perfectly quiet. A few minutes after we sat down, the chanting started again. The voices were deeply resonant and it was impossible to tell if it was daimoku or gongyo because the sound was so obscure, but it definitely was chanting. Was it an auditory hallucination experienced by two people? I mentioned my experience to our men’s division senior leader and he just rolled his eyes wondering what I had been smoking. Unfortunately, nothing.
3. 3D Gohonzon
I’ve had some interesting experiences while chanting to the Gohonzon that defy logical explanation. On more than one occasion, while deeply praying and focusing on the Gohonzon, the characters seemed to become bolder, the white background became whiter, and the letters seemed to grow larger and smaller. To some visionary types, this kind of experience might seem like child’s play. The center characters of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo seemed to rise off the paper like a 3D image. The first time it happened I thought that it might have been a severe case of eyestrain. But there were other times when the Gohonzon seemed to come alive, or perhaps I animated it with my mind. Most likely, this is an optical illusion from viewing the black and white contrast of the characters in vastly different sizes. Who knows?
One time, in the late 90s, I began morning gongyo and after a few minutes, I saw a small character on the bottom left side of the Gohonzon travel up to the “myoho” character near the top center, where it fused into myoho, as if it were a drop of black ink traveling upwards – against gravity. I shook my head in disbelief. Did I have some bug playing around on my Gohonzon? I checked the face of the Gohonzon carefully – no bugs. I remember one time at the Chicago Community Center when it was invaded by big cockroaches, and they seemed to like the butsudan and Joju Gohonzon inscribed by Nittatsu Shonin, but I digress. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before or since. I chalked it up to a silly anomaly that made no sense – it just was.
4. Out of Body – Not Out of My Mind
I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that I’ve never had out of body experiences. I have, both before and after becoming a Buddhist. The most unusual and accidental experience that I had in this regard occurred about two months after I joined. I was just learning gongyo and was doing pretty well. We were performing evening prayers and I had it down. I remember looking at the words in the sutra book and being right in rhythm with the group. The next thing I realized was that I was looking down on myself from outside my body. This lasted just a few moments – long enough for me to become startled and then I was back in my body. Cool, I thought. Such an experience where I just left my body without intention or warning never happened to me again. Granted, there had been a number of meetings where I would have loved to have an out-of-body experience.
5. Chasing VP Izumi Through O’Hare Airport
This experience is anomalous not because it has any metaphysical implications, but because it was so bizarre. In 1981, Chicago hosted the first World Peace Grand Culture Festival and the opening of Myogyoji Temple. President Ikeda and Nikken came and every other muckity-muck cho that could get to Chicago was there. There were about 60 priests and their staff. There were hundreds of SGI and SGI-USA big shots and wanna be’s. Included in this compound cluster-fuck was SGI VP Izumi. Most long time members know who Mr. Izumi is – he’s written a book and is prominently featured in the Human Revolution. He’s a rather imposing man. First, he’s completely bald and doesn’t smile much. I’m guessing, but I put him at about 5’9” and about 300 pounds, give or take 50 pounds (to the plus side.)
My assignment for this movement was co-security chief for Nikken and the priestly entourage. I was responsible for making sure everyone and their momma was safe. That’s a whole other story, my friends. I had the uncomfortable and dubious fortune of keeping an eye on Mr. Izumi after the temple opening. I didn’t speak Japanese and he didn’t speak English. It was quite clear to me that he wasn’t interested in making “eternal friends” with any of us youth division. It’s not that he didn’t like us, but he had that look about him that silently screamed, “don’t bother me, boy.”
When Nikken and his entourage of priests were departing O’Hare Airport, the whole super-cho team wanted to see him off. Nikken never had it so good. He had a battalion of people kissing his royal ass all the way to the tarmac. It was madness. President Ikeda and his wife along with a half dozen other security people were passed through a security checkpoint a few minutes before Mr. Izumi and myself were stopped and made to go through security. When we got through, PI was way far ahead of us. Mr. Izumi was at least 60-70 years old and smoked like a chimney, but that didn’t stop him from running at full speed to try and catch PI and Nikken. I was astonished at how fast a 300 pound, chain smoking. 65-year-old man could run. I felt like I was in Spain running with the bulls.
When we finally caught up with PI, he was bowing feverishly to Nikken, saying good-bye. I would just like to say for the record that it was my direct experience that the SGI and especially president Ikeda extended the greatest courtesy and respect to those ungrateful priests. Every morning PI would greet Nikken with deep bows and every night he would do the same. Here at the airport, he did the same, bowing like an oil derrick.
Even to this day, whenever I need a chuckle, I think of Mr. Izumi running like a charging bull to be with PI and say bon voyage to that ungrateful high priest Nikken. To me, that was the most surreal moment of all.
So my friends, do you have any surreal experience that you could share with your fellow readers? If so, blow some minds.
Posted by ChuckA at January 30, 2004 06:48 PM
Comments
Chuck! I love your X-Files postings!
It was early in my practice -- maybe a year or two into chanting -- and I was unemployed. I had been chanting for a job. One night, fairly late -- I tend to be a night owl -- I was chanting softly in my living room. I don't remember what I was thinking because I wasn't thinking about anything. I was not paying attention in front of the Gohonzon. I was just chanting.
The floor fell away. The walls fell away. I was suspended in the air in a non-place in a non-time.
I thought, "Gee, I'm suspended in the air." Immediately, I found myself again on the carpet in my familiar LA condo.
I can't tell you how many times I've tried to re-create this experience of "suspended voidness." The only way to get there seems to be through inadvertent and sincere non-trying. Arrrgh!
Sometimes, when I conclude my gongyo prayers, I feel a "frisson," a chill down my back. Yes, this is possibly ridiculous spookiness, I'll grant you.
Also -- and this is *so* Los Angeleez -- I went to a hypnotherapist (Elsa) who said she could do a "past-life regression" for me. I was awake the whole time, I swear. Whether the incidents and themes witnessed in my "regression" were objectively true or were merely metaphors dredged from my unconscious, I don't know. (And what would be the difference?)
During a regression, Elsa asked, "What do you see?"
"A Gohonzon," I said, but it was unlike any Gohonzon that I had seen in my current lifetime. The kanji characters were all there, making a recognizable Gohonzon, and I felt friendly and amicable toward it, although I had never seen such a scroll in all my (current) life.
Generally, I sense that I met the Gohonzon long ago, before my current incarnation.
But who can know? I feel these things and know them intuitively with utter certainty. But I cannot say that I know any objective truth about these subjective matters.
Thanks for reading.
Lisa J.
Posted by: Lisa J. at January 31, 2004 08:36 AM
Lisa:
That was an amazing experience! It almost sounded like a lucid dream.
Doesn't that always seem to be the case? That when we are just fused into our meditation and not expecting anything - a remarkable experience unfolds for us? No matter how hard we try and recreate the mood the exact concentration or situation, a repeat experience alludes us. I think that the viable repetition of experience is what gave to the formalization of many meditative and occult practices like divination.
Because experience seems to be random, that is why substantiating ESP or psychic power is so elusive. I know that a number of readers and people with a skeptical bent point to the lack of proof that such things are real, but that's because they are trying to substantiate kutai phenomena with ketai hard logic. The same such logic applied by these skeptics has proven to be baseless when looking at the quantum world where things don't behave the way they do in our mundane physical reality.
I hope a lot of other readers will come forward to offer their own unique experiences.
Charles
Posted by: charles at January 31, 2004 06:11 PM
In 1976, in San Diego, there were nightly toso’s ( I believe from 10 until 11pm) at the Pt. Loma Community Center. After our almost nightly district meetings, we usually drove from Escondido to Pt. Loma to chant.
The chanting at these sessions was powerful. Most of us had just left discussion meetings and were full of commitment to create world peace with our own lives.
Our unity of purpose came from the inside out. We were a tribe, almost primitive in our idealistic energy and compassion. The leaders just had to get in front or get out of the way. We had heroin addicts sitting beside business people, hippies and military guys. What we had in common transcended the costumes.
One night, because of early exams the next morning, we decided not to attend but to chant at home at the same time. We had no mind altering drugs, not even alcohol at the time. While chanting, we both heard the voices and distinctive bell of the Pt Loma Center. When we stopped and asked each other about it, the chanting stopped. But when we began chanting, we were once more included in the whole aural experience.
Very strange and wonderful memory.
I'm enjoying your thoughts and experiences more than I can say. Thank you. Patty Musgrove
Posted by: Patty Musgrove at February 1, 2004 02:30 PM
Patty:
I'm so happy you shared your experience. One of the things that makes your experience so amazing is that it was both of you hearing the bell and chanting. What is so interesting to me is that when I read it, I actually felt your experience and emotion - don't know how that's possible, but it was as if I was there too.
Also, the time you speak of and the ichinen of so many highly energetic youth really brought me back to that wonderful time where we were exuding daimoku power. It was so true that the energy level was so awesome that leaders had to lead or move out of the way.
Thank you so much for a drugless trip down memory lane and reminding me of that great time.
Charles
Posted by: Charles at February 1, 2004 06:17 PM
When I read about all these outlandish experiences with chanting & the Gohonzon – walls falling away, endless depths within the piece of paper, characters moving, out of body experiences, mysterious voices chanting in adjoining rooms -- I wonder, what have I been missing! No one who knows me could accuse me of having an under active imagination, but I’m afraid I have nothing spectacular to report – just a few garden-variety hallucinations, that’s all. Nothing yet to make me rub my eyes. How hum drum!
The current SGI Gohonzon is fairly straight and orderly as Gohonzons go (all the characters are in “marching order”, as one commentator put it), but I must give the Nichikan credit: he did Nam Myoho Renge Kyo with great flourish, sending tails of sumi ink from the 6 (7?) characters right across a number of the other characters (those to our left, or rather, to its right, or rather, left… or is it right?). Quite often as I chant, I see those tails ever-so-softly lift and fall, like streamers in a gentle breeze. To my mind, there is nothing especially strange about this: stare at anything long enough, and it will appear to shift. I see little faces all over the Gohonzon: in the lower part of Taho, there is a definite face with narrowed eyes (though not particularly menacing – maybe those are prescription glasses he’s wearing). Sometimes he seems to have a cigar in his mouth; sometimes it’s his black tongue (again, not so sinister as it sounds). In the lower part of the Shakyamuni figure, there is a face with what looks like a strong chin or Grecian nose; same with Bodhisattva Boundless Practices. See them? Face-recognition seems to be built into our DNA: even a new-born baby will return a smile to the image of a smiley-face. Then down there is Nichikan’s seal, which looks very much like a man fishing in a pond. Sometimes I see his fishing pole dipping up and down ever so slightly, and even hear the water rippling. Then there are all these stick figures (crosses with two legs) all over the Gohonzon: sometimes they seem to bound across the paper, like a cave-painting of a hunt. Then the wheel that is Kishimojin’s head starts to turn…
The two Sanskrit characters on either side have always appealed to me: Earthly Desires are Enlightenment, and The Sufferings of Birth and Death are Nirvana. The other day I saw them come together, join hands, and do a jig all over my Butsudan. All the other characters in the Ceremony of the Air cheered and clapped. Then they started to spin round the great tower of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, faster, faster, until they were a blur…
No one ever accused me of having an under active imagination…
Brian Campbell
Posted by: Brian Campbell at February 2, 2004 06:57 AM
P.S. Rereading (a few hours later) what I just posted, I realize that in my first paragraph I should have written, in place of "characters moving", "characters changing position all over the scroll" or something of that sort. I stand corrected (by myself).
Posted by: Brian Campbell at February 2, 2004 05:23 PM
Brian:
Thanks for the letter. Yes, you do have a vibrant imagination. I especially like your image of the Bodhisattvas joining hands.
Charles
Posted by: Charles Atkins at February 2, 2004 09:14 PM
Well, I haven't had any out-of-body experiences while chanting, without the help of psychedelics, but here's a couple of surreal experiences.
While on Tozan (pilgrimage) in November, 1988, we were on a bus to a meeting in Taito Ward, Tokyo, in the middle of the day. The bus stopped in traffic, and a young man came out of the side door of a restaurant, with an apron on, and began to dance. He did a little dance for us, then the traffic cleared and the bus moved on.
On the same pilgrimage, our flight from Seattle to Tokyo was delayed 24 hours due to mechanical problems. We missed a meeting with President Ikeda due to the delay.
One day in Tokyo we were given free time and another man (Gene) in our group and I went for a walk. We went to a restaurant off the beaten path, and Gene ordered for me (he spoke Japanese). Then we walked around and found Buddhist temples on nearly every block. They were small, dark and tucked into alleys or between larger buildings. Most of them seemed to be occupied by only one or two people, and in spite of being rather gloomy inside, provided a respite from the busy streets of Tokyo.
At the same time we were on our walk, a special tour of the Soka Gakkai Headquarters in Shinjuku was arranged for our group, because we had missed the meeting with President Ikeda. Everyone had returned to the hotel except Gene and me. The tour was leaving in 30 minutes, so everyone gathered in one hotel room and quietly chanted for Gene and me to return in time for the tour.
For some reason Gene became anxious and wanted to return to the hotel and we did, unaware of the tour. When we walked into the hotel room where everyone was waiting for us, everyone cheered.
As we were leaving the Headquarters after the tour, we ran into Vice President Tsuji. It was five o'clock and he was walking home from work. He broke into an impromptu lecture on how Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo is related to various parts of the body.
One morning in about 1972 I was answering the phone at the San Francisco Community Center in Daly City. It is a beautiful site. It sits on a cliff above the Pacific Ocean, and is often wrapped in thick fog. But on a clear morning it is a magical experience.
I had a grave shift job and I had been awake for a long time. I was feeling very discouraged in general. At about 9:00, Lynn Rachuy, then San Francisco Vice-Headquarters chief, walked in. (He had a great car, a Lincoln Continental with suicide doors).
Mr. Rachuy walked past my desk and as he did, he looked at me and said only, “Everything will be fine,” and walked back to his office.
A few years ago I returned to the Community Center, which SGI-USA had since sold to a Korean Church. In 1974, President Ikeda opened a park on half of a steep hillside next to the Community Center. The youth division planted pine trees in this little park.
I asked someone standing outside the Church if I could look around, and they said yes. I walked to the park and the trees were now 25 feet tall. In a recent storm, the bare portion of the hillside had slid to the bottom, taking one house and part of another one with it.
The side with the trees had not slid at all, saving the Church from the same fate as the houses. This is not so mystical, but an example of foresight, I guess.
Posted by: John Fletcher at February 4, 2004 08:54 PM
John:
Excellent! If you've read my book, you'd know that it's based on Mr. Tsuji's "discovery" and revelation of daimoku corresponding to the different parts of our body. How fortunate for you to have that experience. When Modern Buddhist Healing was published, I sent a copy to him through the offices of the Executive Director of SGI Publications. Mr. Tsuji was 83 and amazed that his guidance on overcoming illness had helped me (and others, I'm sure). His son translated the book for him - the key parts - and read them to his father. I was so moved when he sent a message to me expressing his thanks and appreciation. "He was so happy," said the executive director.
Based on your opening remarks about psychedelics, perhaps you will enjoy my upcoming Samsara blog on samadhi states of consciousness and psychedelics-psychotropic substances.
Thanks so much for the moving letter.
Charles
Posted by: Charles at February 5, 2004 06:53 PM
Hi Charles,
I like this question. I know Buddhism is about personal change over time, but I really love the amazing experiences too. Hey, who doesn't need some magic in their life from time to time?
Before I tell my experience, I want to say that I get a lot from your writings. I received Gohonzon in 1978. Practiced off and on for about 7 years. Got burned out and fed up with the extreme demands on time and boundaries (by that I mean I was getting embarrassed of doing door to door shakubuku). The "Onward Buddhist Soldiers" mindset was not really in tune with who I am either; I don't like the militaristic fighting metaphor, whether its Christian or Buddhist.
I recently started chanting again, found my Gohonzon and am working on making the deep connection that was overlooked way back when I was desperate for help and lacking self-awareness.
When I started chanting again, about 2 1/2 months ago (after a hiatus of about 18 years), I had come to a point of now being able to discern my inner states much more clearly (thanks to a lot of personal work over the years). What I immediately recognized this time was a feeling of increased "life force", and an alleviation of the emotional negativity I was stuck in, a positive change that I didn't have to struggle to maintain. That was my first month; now I have to put forth a little more effort. ;)
Now, on to the amazing experience:
Even though I was fairly unable back then to register events of a subtle nature, or to appreciate cumulative inner change, there is a particularly mind-boggling (for me) experience that I treasure. I think its a great indicator of the Universal connection that Nam Myoho Renge Kyo taps into. Of course, in my mundane affairs, I forget that connection, but this experience is a great reminder.
Here's what happened:
My ex-husband and I were house sitting at a friend's place out in the country. We were doing evening gongyo. During Daimoku, I noticed a very cute bright green moth fluttering around, maybe 5 feet away from us. As I was chanting, I was filled with a loving feeling for this moth (that’s not unusual for me...I really like bugs and animals). Anyway, the moth was so cute, fluttering in that goofy way that moths have; I wanted so deeply for this moth to know the loving feelings I had welling up. So, I directed my Daimoku at the moth, that somehow that moth could feel my "good vibes".
Lo and behold, the moth then fluttered over to me and landed on my nose. I nudged my then-husband to check this out! As we watched, (yeah, I was cross-eyed from watching the end of my nose), the moth walked around in circles on my nose for quite awhile; maybe 3 or so minutes? Then, he/she fluttered off and onto my shoulder where she/he sat and hung-out for a few minutes more. Then the moth fluttered off and out the window.
We kept chanting, softly, the whole time and just looked at each other in amazement afterward.
This was just so perfect an experience for me...it connects with my feeling for tiny miraculous living creatures, and my love of silliness.
So that's my experience--thanks for this forum!
Cindy
Posted by: cindy gilchrist at February 24, 2004 06:48 PM
March 07, 2004
Just Say Know to Prayer
Prayer is a universally potent phenomenon. Repeating daimoku and the Lotus Sutra is the basis of Nichiren Buddhism. Chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo has been described as the greatest happiness in this world and the only earthly memory we will have after death. But how many of us realize that all prayer, even daimoku, contains both good and evil. Have we not been encouraged to chant for the defeat and suffering of Nikken and the priesthood? How about the censure of those who supposedly slander the SGI? Wasn’t Nichiren upset that the government didn’t summon him to the war council and ask him to pray for the defeat of the Mongols? I find it suspicious that the Mongols were turned back and destroyed by the divine winds termed the kamikaze. I think he might have prayed for their defeat anyway – but that’s just an opinion. Prayer can cure and it can kill. Prayer can bring fortune and misfortune. “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.” St Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
When my mom recovered from cancer, my aunt scolded me for bragging about the efficacy of my daimoku. “How do know it wasn’t my prayers?” she asked. She was a catholic and the idea that a Christian’s prayers might have power was a reality that I refused to admit back then. Ideas of the impotency of others’ prayers – that other religions had lost their power to save people from unhappiness filled my head, leaving no room for the truth which I later learned through study, listening, and deeper personal prayer. The reality is that all prayer is answered - the well intended, the curse, and the selfishly moronic. A Japanese Buddhist parable explains the irony of two warring factions praying for each other’s ruination.
“A monk said to Kegon, “The loyal army builds an altar to the Heavenly Kings, and seeks victory; the rebel army also builds an altar to the Heavenly Kings and seeks for victory; which prayer do they answer?” Kegon replied, “Heaven’s rain drops its dews, and does not choose the flourishing and declining.”
In his book, “Be Careful What You Pray For…You Just May Get It,” Dr. Larry Dossey describes the power of prayer to help and to harm. How does the SGI or Nichiren Shoshu member who has been taught that their practice is the one and only correct way explain the benefits of a world full of non-chanters? How does the fundamentalist Christian, the Muslim, or anyone else for that matter, reconcile the fact that the prayers of all types of faiths are answered? Some will deny that any prayers other than one’s from their sect are answered. Some will explain that answered prayers for non-believers are the work of the devil. Some might say that it was karma and not the work of prayer.
It seems important that we acknowledge that all kinds of prayers can be answered. Granted, we are not talking about achieving the state of perfect enlightenment here – we are talking about our individual prayers resonating with a mysterious arbitrating force of the universe that allows our hopes and desires to become reality. I suspect that we Nichiren Buddhists are somewhat ignorant of prayer, even though we talk about it and trumpet daimoku as the only way to liberation, awakening, and Buddhahood. If you were to ask an SGI member or leader how prayer works, why it works, and the reason why non-chanters and people of other traditions receive answers to their prayers and benefits, our explanation would be more cloudy than an Oregon winter. If all we know is what someone has told us, or what we have read, or our opinion is limited to personal experience only, we do not have an objective, truth seeking attitude. We are ill informed.
So where does that leave daimoku and other forms of prayer? Is one form of prayer superior and the other types inferior or even karmically dangerous? Can prayer be graded like olive oil, eggs, or tea? I found president Ikeda’s suggestion that there should be prayer competition between different faiths very interesting. Spindrift, a non-profit research group out of Arlington Heights, Illinois is world famous for their scientific study of prayer. On numerous occasions, I have put out challenges to the hierarchy of the SGI to have our contention that daimoku is the best medicine, put to scientific scrutiny. There are many ways to test prayer and healing and these clinical trials are being conducted at universities all over the world – many with fascinating results on prayers ability to boost the immune system. The effects of meditation on the mind and emotions is also being studied at MIT and other leading universities, thanks in large part to the consideration of the Dalai Lama, who offered up his mediation masters for test subjects since 1990. Why don’t we do this too? Are we afraid that science may prove something different than what we’ve been taught? Why don’t we formulate and engage in positive prayer competitions with other religions for the betterment of the planet? There are many things we could do.
My hope for the future of Buddhism is that we share our practice with scientists in controlled studies and put our dogma, myths and claims to scrutiny. Being able to distinguish inferior, middling, and superior is a characteristic of wisdom. I’m all for truth and wisdom, even if it refutes what I had been certain of for most of my life. Saying you’re the best is not the same as proving it.
Posted by ChuckA at March 7, 2004 06:29 PM
CommentsCharles,
You make me think of what Kierkegaard wrote, something to the effect that (& I’m quoting from a twenty-five-year-old-memory … ), “If a savage prays with all his passion and infinite resignation to a stone, then he is praying to God, whereas if Christian prays in empty formality with an empty heart to the so-called true “God”, he is praying to a stone… Truth is subjectivity.” Another way of saying what William Blake said, “The fool sees not the same tree as the wise man sees.”
The efficacy of a prayer is dependent upon the passion and quality of faith of the individual doing the prayer at least as much as on the formula itself, and passion & quality of faith are impossible to measure “scientifically.” The power and influence of subjectivity Nichiren is exquisitely aware of in “On Attaining Buddhahood in the Lifetime”, and willfully blind to in other goshos, where he argues that his formula beats all others all the time. This contradiction I’ll be exploring on the community blog at further length, when time permits. (Right now, unfortunately, it doesn’t…)
Posted by: Brian Campbell at March 8, 2004 06:16 AM
you may find this interesting;
http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/001305.html
Posted by: robert sanchez at March 8, 2004 06:20 PM
I think that "On Attaining Buddhahood is a disputed gosho, isn't it? It is certainly one of my faves, and I couldn't care less if it's a pious forgery. Anyway, I think all prayer works because we are in fact hooked up to the big whatever, and we are in fact little microcosms - therefore, when we send our vibes out, we get a vibe in return. I always had my prayers answered when I was young. I thought I had a special relationship with God - now I realize it was just fortune. Thanks for an interesting post, Charles. I also hope that the future will bring more study of how prayer works. Best for the week, Byrd in LA
Posted by: Byrd Ehlmann at March 8, 2004 08:57 PM
Somewhere I read that "On Attaining Buddhahood in this Lifetime" is disputed too, but there is no dispute that it is one of everyone's faves... profound, warm, consistent in tone with the best of N's goshos...forgery or not, no ordinary mind could have come up with that one, & it doesn't seem "pious" to me. Now, Sandaihiho-sho, also found on this website -- that one I'd bet comes straight from the pious forge -- what a frigid little machination that one is! It's whole purpose seems to be to give an official sanction to a couple of doctrines that would do nothing for anybody, "true" or "false" though they be... Billed as "hotly disputed", let scholars blow their hot air over it all they want, it'll never come to life for me...
Posted by: Brian Campbell at March 9, 2004 04:40 AM
Hello Charles.
It is also possible that if one prays for something bad to happen to another person, one could experience the thing he/she is praying for.
Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine who's a long time practitioner of Nichiren's Buddhism.
Before she had started her practice, my friend, Toshi (name changed to protect privacy), was married to a man who abused her physically and mentally. Upon being introduced to the Law, her seniors in faith told her she could chant for anything she wanted and her prayers would be answered.
Toshi, wanting to give N. Buddhism a good try, decided to chant for her abusive husband to drop dead.
After chanting for a while, she noticed things started happening; but they were happening to her, not her husband. Toshi started to become very ill, sad, depressed. She was quite desperate.
Not knowing what to do, she called her seniors and they immediately went to her house and found her in bed crying her eyes out. Toshi then told them what was happening to her. Her friends asked her if she'd been chanting and what her prayers were for. She explained to them that she was chanting for her husband to drop dead.
Upon hearing this they told that that's why she was experiencing all these bad things. She was creating an evil cause and was therefore receiving an evil effect. Her intentions were negative and she was thereby creating negative karma and experiencing the consequences of it.
The seniors advised her to change her prayer to something positive, so Toshi started chanting for her husband's happiness. Her illness started to clear up, she got her car fixed and the insurance company paid for it, she was happy again, and her abusive husband asked for a an amicable divorce.
In essence, Toshi learned that this is a causal universe. And that we get whatever we put out there.
So, yes, it is possible to pray for bad things to happen to those you dislike. But those things could happen to you and/or the other person; but I could be that you would not like what where your life goes or the person you become as a result.
Peace & love,
Eddie
Posted by: Eddie Rios at March 10, 2004 06:30 PM
Hi Charles
Enjoy your thoughts
your comments on Kierkegaard are so relevant for me.
I now enjoy chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. This is very effective for me in so many ways.
However when I was brought up many years ago in the Catholic religion I then found that praying to the Virgin Mary with the "Memo rare" was very effective. ( Remember O most gracious Virgin Mary etc.) Later my faith got completely undermined by my intellect. The Catholic Church's arrogant attitude (We know what's right for you) with too many other issues to list here, just didn't stand up to my critical analysis.
Now after searching through a number of faiths for about half a century I am now a devoted admirer and follower of Nichiren thanks to the proselytizing of SGI. (a little too pushy for me but my curiosity overcame my resistance)
I'm now happy to report that although my critical analysis of SGI has revealed flaws, again including the arrogant attitude (We know what's right for you), I'm now keen to stick to SGI and help the org to get onto the right track. I'm sure that SGI (when appropriately modified) will be the most viable vehicle to achieve world kosen-rufu. I do not like to be involved with an outfit that is led by a charismatic guru however on the other hand I must give credit for the effectiveness of his leadership (thanks so much to PI for getting the true Dharma to me - I've got the message - read between the lines and follow the Dharma not the person)
For what its worth, here's my specification of modifications required to convert SGI into an effective kosen-rufu vehicle:
(1) I can understand SGI projecting the guru image to the ten million fanatical Japanese Komeito supporters (now that's another story) but let's insist on SGI keeping the monthly graphic magazine in Japan - please! Sending this magazine with an average of 50 narcissistic images of PI per issue to the Western world is like shooting yourself in the foot - why do they do it?
(2) Having unwisely got involved with the Fuji school's deceit (by the way thanks so much to Nikken for pulling down the gross Taiseki-ji temple) let's insist on SGI 'fessing up' about the obvious, the forged transfer docs, the dodgy Dai-Gohonzon and convoluted crap about Nichiren being regarded as the 'True Buddha' at Shakyamuni's expense.
(3) Let's insist on SGI concentrating on the Dharma and not the guru
(4) Let's insist on SGI concentrating their resources on DOING good rather than LOOKING good.
Regards
Ivan
Posted by: Ivan Skavinsky at March 16, 2004 12:01 PM
Prayers cannot be used to hurt others. That is the most fundamental error of new SGI doctrine. What ever happened to praying for the happiness of people you dislike? The prayer vigils of SGI to try to eliminate NST have been fruitless. Actually, they have bore fruit, but in the form of misfortune in SGI. I challenge anybody to read the experiences in any world tribune for the past 5 years and see what sgi considers to be benefit nowadays. I find myself getting depressed when I read the sad life stories of the SGI members.
Remember the old days, when the experience used to be "My boss didn't like me and was out to fire me. So I prayed for the happiness of my boss and one day he told me he was sorry and not only did I not get fired, but I got a raise!"
Nowadays, the same experience reads, "My boss always hated me, and one day when I came to work, my paycheck was on my desk with a notice I had been fired. I was crushed. Later that day I read president Ikeda's guidance "Confidence in oneself is itself Buddhism." Then it hit me- I have no self-confidence, and that's why I have failed so often. I still haven't found a job but I am happy because I have a renewed sense of self-esteem."
If SGI would focus more on it's own problems and not be so obsessed with their "neighbor's wealth" most of their problems would disappear overnight.
Joe
Posted by: JS at March 16, 2004 07:17 PM
Ivan:
I was very impressed by your comments, especially that you have reasoned out the essential truth of the matter. Your decision to go with the SGI is one I applaud.
Your ideas for improving the SGI are thought provoking. Some other suggestions might be:
1. Downsize staff by, lets say, 70-90%. Corporate loyalty can skew your perspective - especially when your livelihood depends on it. Start at the very top. With so much ichinen and fortune, finding a new job in the private sector should pose no problem.
2. Present the whole picture of Buddhism - not just our narrow slice (which is supposed to be all encompassing). It doesn't make us look too enlightened if we can ace the Advanced Exam and have decades of practice and study under our belt but not be able to pass a university exam on Eastern religion.
3. Lets get a full accounting of finances and keep it open. For my purposes, that must begin in Japan. In particular, we must know PI's net worth. If he is one of the wealthiest people in all of Asia (as is alleged), this was made from a captive market of 12 million. No one should become wealthy like that. No One.
Charles
Posted by: Charles at March 17, 2004 12:24 AM
Joe:
Thanks so much for your insightful letter. I agree with many of your points. However, it is my contention that if prayer can do good things, it can surely harm. There is much evidence, both mythological, anecdotal and scientific (studies with bacteria and plants) to support the negative impact of prayer and curses. I for one can attest to the fact that praying for the harm of Nikken and NST will bring forth unhappiness - not good fortune - in the life of the pray-er. I will be writing a blog on this very subject soon.
Thanks for reading - thanks for the insights.
Charles
Posted by: Charles at March 17, 2004 12:32 AM
Hi Charles,
I respectfully disagree that the use of Daimoku can be used for evil purposes against others, and have the expected result. I think that cause and effect would be negated if one were to be able to create a negative cause in ones own life, and somehow get that to transfer as a negative effect in others. At least according to Buddhism, that would be akin to counting your neighbors wealth (or perhaps a reverse of that concept).
If cause and effect is not constant, and predictable as the Daishonin taught, then I guess we are all pretty much at the mercy of others who may stick pins in a voodoo doll with our name on it. I'm convinced this cannot work, and this has been evidenced very convincingly in the SGIs own prayer vigils that seem to have severely backfired on them.
I remember one specific case, when the SGI held an "emergency" session to pray for Nikkens trip to NY to fail. That very week, Ikeda was reported to be in the hospital with an apparently serious illness (of course nobody ever really found out exactly what that illness was, since so many were "protecting" him).
Can you give any concrete examples of what specific prayers people have prayed that have successfully caused harm to others?
Many Thanks
Joe
Posted by: JS at March 17, 2004 06:22 PM
Joe:
You make great points. Negative prayer is as old as humanity. The Kahunas of Hawaii offer many certifiable incidents of their "death prayer." Then there is Moses blasting the Egyptians, if there's any credibility to that. Then there are my own experiences. I suggest a book mentioned in the article called "Be Careful What You Pray For...You Just Might Get It," by Dr. Larry Dossey. It might not convince you, but it is pretty persuasive.
If you are correct that negative prayer shows up as negative effect in the life of the pray-er, doesn't it stand to reason that prayer can have a negative effect. By way of extension if it can have a negative effect on the pray-er, it might also be possible to have a negative effect on its intended.
Thank you very much for the exchange. I really respect your opinion.
Charles
Posted by: Charles at March 17, 2004 08:26 PM
January 12, 2004
Dharma Rain
The Lotus Sutra is a great source for inspiration. The message of Buddha cuts across sectarian lines. Inclusion and liberation are its message. Prior to the Lotus Sutra, spiritual aspirants and those weary of rebirth sought to escape the wheel of samsara. Nirvana was elsewhere. Extinction was the goal. But the truth is, we are the eternal wheel of life, and there is no cessation of birth and death. We learn that our life has Buddhahood.
Those who take refuge in the Lotus Sutra are never lost. When we read it, write it, recite it, expound it, and uphold it in spirit, we are directly connected to the Mystic Law of the universe. The voice of Buddha speaks directly to each one of us. Daimoku enables our heart to beat as one with the Buddha. We are going to the same inexhaustible source as Nichiren. All are welcome. The Lotus Sutra has many lessons to teach. I find comfort in knowing that all of us, regardless of capability, status, health, defilement, intelligence or achievement, are equal before the Lotus Sutra.
The Buddha’s voice is like the bursting thunder of a powerful spring storm. The Dharma rain falls everywhere refreshing life. It washes away our hopelessness, despair, and pain. Each person takes from it the exact portion of enrichment and hope they need to grow. Some are robust. Some have nearly withered. Some refuse any more moisture. Let me share with you some stanzas that have inspired me at crucial moments. There’s hope for all of us - not just empty expectation, but a tangible promise of liberation and enlightenment. All we need to do to manifest the benefits of the Law is honor and revere the Lotus Sutra in practice and spirit. The people of the world are waiting for the Lotus Sutra. We must become scholars – in our own right – to share this magnificent sutra with all who will listen. Thanks to Nichiren, we know that the essence of the Lotus Sutra is Dharma rain of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
The fifth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, “Parable of Medicinal Herbs” teaches the all-inclusive mercy and compassion of the Buddha, who is the father of all living beings.
“I cause the Dharma rain to rain on all equally
never lax or neglectful.
When all the various living beings
hear my Law,
they receive it according to their power,
dwelling in their different environments.” Page 103
The Dharma rain saturates every place in the world and nourishes all beings in perfect measure in accord to their innate capacity. We are directly connected with this Law like the rain inside the storm cloud. To uphold the Lotus Sutra is what counts – not sectarian concerns or position. We uphold the Lotus Sutra with our prayer and spirit. One is perfectly connected to the essence of Buddhism wherever they are. Regardless of our personal circumstances, problems, or understanding, upholding the Lotus Sutra to the degree we are capable pleases Shakyamuni and all other Buddhas as stated elsewhere in the sutra. The benefits of upholding the Lotus Sutra are beyond description. Some might be tempted to equate promoting Gakkai activities as the exclusive and proper way of upholding the Lotus Sutra – it is only one way. The “Emerging From the Earth” chapter of the Lotus Sutra speaks of solitary bodhisattvas appearing at the behest of Shakyamuni. Upholding the Lotus Sutra means faith, prayer, and devotion as a human being directly connected to the Buddha. In the end, that connection is all that matters.
“The equality of the Buddha’s preaching
is like a single flavor,
but depending upon the nature of the living being,
the way in which it is received is uniform,
just as the various plants and trees
each receive the moisture in a different manner.” Page 104
Because we are all different, our movement of spreading the daimoku of the Lotus Sutra has many facets, many voices, and countless ideas. At the core, there is nothing that separates us. We are all children of the Buddha dancing in the Dharma rain.
Posted by ChuckA at January 12, 2004 06:19 PM
Comments
January 20, 2004
Be Not Compliant
February marks my thirtieth year of Buddhist faith, practice, and study. For the first ten years, I ran at breakneck speed, assimilating every bit of experience possible, challenging every aspect of my life. The second ten years I probed the depths of chanting, faith, and fusing with the Gohonzon. The third ten years I concentrated on study – not just skimming through our publications or even our own Buddhism – but exhaustive, comprehensive research. Now that a new decade of practice is about to dawn for me, I found myself confronted with some perplexing questions and feelings. Let me explain.
As an NSA member, I learned seven major ideas along with numerous supportive ones. These tenets were engraved into the very fabric of my life.
1. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the Mystic Law of the universe.
2. The Gohonzon is absolute – it is our faith that is relative
3. Nichiren Daishonin is the true Buddha of Mappo
4. We believers of (NSA/SGI) are the Bodhisattvas of the Earth
5. President Ikeda is my/our master in life
6. We should protect the priesthood with our lives
7. The Soka Gakkai is more important than my own life
We youth division were taught to be fearless like the lion king. Because the teachings of Nichiren were so far superior to anything I had ever encountered, I accepted and assimilated all doctrine, dogma, organizational directives, and personal guidance without much question or pause. For me it was always chant first, practice first, and study first. I never thought to question first.
Now, at the end of my second decade, I have developed serious concerns and questions about our motives, our means, and, yes, concerns about our core doctrines. In the past, when these “red-flags” would pop up, I would mentally squelch them because that meant that I had doubts. Wasn’t I supposed to be practicing doubt free faith? Wasn’t doubt free faith the key to attaining Buddhahood according to Shakyamuni and Nichiren?
Regarding matters of doctrine, I do believe that Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the Mystic Law of the universe, and I also believe that the Gohonzon is the mandala to quicken our attainment of Buddhahood, even though Nichiren wrote that all one had to do is chant. I also believe that Nichiren was a great man – a Buddha. But what honorific titles and achievements were added posthumously? No matter what the truth is, it will not affect my faith in the Lotus Sutra or my mission to propagate Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Call me a late boomer, but I became conflicted when I could find no reference by Nichiren himself, in his writings that he inscribed the Dai-Gohonzon or that he is the true Buddha, we his followers claim him to be. He never made that claim, to my knowledge. I was told that he did not do so because of the time he was living in. If someone can show me the exact line and verse from the Gosho or the orally transmitted teachings where Nichiren states that he is the true Buddha, I will feel much better. In Nichiren’s writings, he stressed that we should rely on the scriptures and not on the commentaries of others. For this reason, it is vital that I read his own words stating that He inscribed the Dai-Gohonzon and that He is the true Buddha of Mappo. The words and opinions of successors will not do!
It’s not like I haven’t deeply studied the Lotus Sutra and Gosho – I have. I know that Shakyamuni revealed that He was the Buddha and the next Buddha would be his disciple, Maitreya (Ajita). I suppose that some experts might conjecture that Shakyamuni was saying Maitreya was the next Buddha to appear in this world – from his disciples, then and there – not really the next Buddha to actually appear. Nowhere in the Lotus Sutra have I read that Bodhisattva Superior Practices was actually the true Buddha – it isn’t even implied. Shakyamuni simply stated that the next Buddha to succeed him was Maitreya, some 5,670 million years later. That’s not exactly the fifth five hundred year period after his death. Obviously, we pick what we need to prove our case and play down the rest. It is in the commentaries of the Nichiren Shoshu tradition and later the Soka Gakkai that asserts that Nichiren is the true Buddha and that he inscribed the Dai-Gohonzon.
It is very troubling for me to have served Nichiren Buddhism for thirty years and be conflicted in this fundamental way. What other teachings seem to be on shaky ground? I am also troubled about the Buddhism of the Sowing and the Buddhism of the Harvest as taught in the SGI. We contradict ourselves. In the Lotus Sutra, it is stated that the Bodhisattvas of the Earth were taught by Shakyamuni in the remote past and have a connection with the Lotus Sutra. In the Gosho, Nichiren asserts that those who embrace his teachings have a connection to it from the remote past. However, in study material from the SGI-USA study committee issued just a couple of years ago, they were still asserting that we have no connection to this teaching and discovered it for the first time in this life, which even contradicts President Ikeda’s own statements in the Selected Lectures on the Gosho, our study material for the advanced examination. The Nichiren Shoshu priesthood told us that we could no longer call ourselves Bodhisattvas of the Earth because that was arrogant and we do not have a connection to the Gohonzon except for the first time in this life. We in the SGI were then forced to refer to ourselves as “followers or the Bodhisattvas of the Earth.” Someone is full of sacred cow crap up to their Ajna chakra.
What does it matter? This is the point I’ve reached: I just don’t know if Nichiren inscribed the Dai-Gohonzon and if He is the true Buddha of Mappo. All I do know for sure is that chanting makes me feel great and that I’m a Buddha. What bothers me is that I just believed all the legends and doctrines without question. Does that make me a gullible fool, a victim, or Bodhisattva-Buddha who finally learned the truth after agonizing over his faith?
Regarding the other tenets listed above, I do believe that President Ikeda has been my master in life – I just don’t agree with everything he says or does. For example, I would like to know how he earns his money. Are his many writings donated to the SGI or does he write his works, sell them to a captive audience of millions, have them endlessly publicized in our papers and magazines, and then earn royalties? Does he draw a responsible salary? Is he wealthy from his writings or position? No one really knows. I would be crushed in spirit if my hero, President Ikeda, were getting rich from Buddhism. We’ve accused Nikken and the priests of living the high life and yet we have done nothing in the way of our own financial disclosure. We deserve to know if our devotion is pure or if we’re a bunch of suckers. Members have always been forbidden from using the organization to enrich themselves – and no one should. This applies especially to the top guy who we’ve placed our complete trust in.
As far as protecting the priesthood with our lives – well, I guess that went down the crapper. However, we seem to have invested an insane amount of effort and time in trying to win back a few members here in the US that stayed with the priests. In my area here in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, about 160 mi. south of Chicago, there are about four or five elderly Japanese women who staunchly remain temple members. They have received visits from an SGI vice president, a reformist priest, Mr. Williams, and many others. What I have noticed is this: if you stayed with the temple, the SGI will go to great lengths to win you back. If you are a long practicing member in the SGI who has a serious problem with the organization, tough shit, you’re on your own. At least that’s how I see it.
The final point that the Soka Gakkai is more important than my own life is a trick concept. We begin to border on cult status when we use the Lotus Sutra or dharma of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo interchangeably with the Soka Gakkai. I believe that the Mystic Law is my life and vise-versa. The Soka Gakkai is supposed to be the vehicle for transmitting the Law and giving a framework to our Buddhist movement. SGI is a living thing, because we give it life – not the other way around. I would gladly give my life for a noble cause – whether it’s defending my family, my pets, my country, my religion, or even a stranger. Yes, the SGI and the Buddhist movement are important. I would give my life for the Mystic Law without hesitation. I just don’t want to be fooled, lied to, or deceived in the name of faith. My personal vow is to work tirelessly, in my own way, to spread the Mystic Law throughout the world. My promise to you and the Buddha is to expose unscrupulous people that would exploit our Buddhism for their own selfish gain or distort the teachings of the Buddha to control the minds of the faithful.
What I have learned as I approach my third decade is this: Doubt free faith means doubt free faith in the Lotus Sutra. It does not mean to look the other way at organizational injustices and improprieties. It does not mean blindly accepting doctrine derived from priestly or lay commentaries. It means trusting the words of the Buddha Himself. Knowing that, I approach my third decade with deep appreciation for the wisdom of the Buddha and the Mystic Law he left behind for us. Today, I can honestly state that I am happier and more fortunate than at any other time in my life. How is this possible if I seem to have veered from the supposed mainstream? It’s because I am directly connected to Mystic Law. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s this: Ask the big questions. Go directly to the Lotus Sutra and the Gosho. Don’t be mindlessly compliant.
Posted by ChuckA at January 20, 2004 06:43 PM
Comments
Hi Chuck,
I’ve read all of what you’ve got here with great interest. In “SGI, My Writing and Me” you proclaimed President Ikeda your mentor; here he is your master. Well, it seems, for good reason, the Daishonin is your real dharma-master. Ikeda is arguably the most authoritative contemporary interpreter of Nichiren Buddhism, particularly Buddhism according to SGI (which is largely, but certainly not completely, according to him). It is impossible to have a genuine mentor-disciple relationship with someone with whom one doesn’t have personal contact on a regular basis. When SGI makes the claim that Ikeda is our mentor and urges us to follow the example of this living being whom we (or most of us) haven’t met and don’t know so much about beyond a carefully orchestrated public persona… well, I take that with not just a grain of salt, but a shaker. As Lisa puts it, as far as we know Ikeda is a meritorious man. As far as we know. Financially he is as you say mysterious. And if the books he writes are written by committee, just who is this dharma master? Michelangelo with all his assistants was not just an artist but an artistic industry; but all the work these assistants did was in accordance with his directives and vision. (So was Rodin.) That’s the way I see Ikeda. His books and dialogues are lofty and distinguished, and his “generic” guidances are frequently powerful, but sometimes off the mark, due to questionable translation and context as much as any other reason. The Japanese members certainly have a warmer relationship with him than we do on this side of the ocean and in this culture. Here, well, the PR leaves something to be desired.
Anyway, I know who my mentor is: a personal friend, a thirty-year member of SGI, who introduced me to this Buddhism, with whom I talk or visit at least once a week, who still deeply impresses me with the strength of his faith, penetration of his wisdom and warmth as a friend, and yet who I’m sure would profess to have learned a lot from me as well… I feel very lucky to have him. As for personages like Ikeda, Toda, etc., they’re textbook teachers, sources of information, inspiration, etc. … but not the only writers and personalities I am inspired by or draw from. (And needless to say, that’s the same with you…)
I appreciate your confession that after all these years of intensive practice and study, you find the Nichiren as True Buddha and inscriber of some especially authoritative Dai-gohonzon questionable doctrines. That saves time. The way I see it (it was my friend/mentor who put it this way, actually… ) Shakyamuni created the blueprint, and Nichiren added his personal twist, creating the particularly effective template we have available to us now. To learn what this template is and how to use it to our greatest advantage, the Lotus Sutra and Goshos are the obvious primary study sources … Most of us simply don’t have the time to study much beyond that, however wonderful it would be to acquire the stupendous knowledge of Buddhist texts and practices that Nichiren obviously had.
It’s always interesting to read your blogs & articles. You have a dedicated reader…
Brian Campbell
Posted by: Brian Campbell at January 21, 2004 06:29 AM
Brian:
Thanks for your amazingly articulate and intelligent letter. Thanks for pointing out my earlier reference to PI as mentor and in this article as master. It's true that he is far away and my contact and communication with PI has been modest to say the least. I do feel a very strong connection with PI. He appeared to me in a dream before I joined and at other crucial times throughout my practice. I suppose there's another essay for Samsara, but I digress. I had the unique opportunity to be close to PI when he came to Chicago in 1980 & 1981. He has also written to me before regarding my book and career. In my heart, I am always rooting for PI and optimistic that history will reveal his greatness. On the other hand, I am concerned with his over exposure and his rhapsodes screwing up what he is trying to do. I want to believe that he draws a reasonable salary, comparable to any high level CEO. I pray that his writing or writing by committee contribution to our movement is altruistic and not capitalistic. I also pray that what he has built with the SGI isn't going to be passed on to his son like an inheritance. I once read where PI was totally opposed to hereditary rule. We shall see. I'm hoping for the best and would really be hurt if we were all just played like a pack of cards.
Anyway - thanks so much for the letter and reading my stuff. Peace
Charles Atkins
Posted by: Charles at January 21, 2004 08:50 PM
Charles, I greatly enjoyed this piece, not least because I see so many parallels in our Buddhist lives. Yesterday, January 26, marked the 30th anniversary of the day I received my first Gohonzon, so you and I began our practice of this Buddhism within a month or so of each other.
Your description of your journey compliments mine in many ways. There are a lot of different thoughts and paths and instances of timing, to be sure, but it does indeed seem that we've meandered through similar forests, and seem to be converging on a shared destination.
I'm rambling, I know, but I wanted to let you know how very familiar your story is to me, even though I've never heard it before.
Cheers to you, my friend.
Andy Hanlen
Posted by: Andy Hanlen at January 28, 2004 12:33 AM
Andy:
I believe that there are a lot of Andy and Charles bodhisattva-Buddha types out there, wondering what to do. One would have to have their head buried up their ass all the way to their shoulders not to see the contradictions and feel somewhat conflicted. Things need to change and hopefully they will - maybe not in our time frame, but too many good, clear thinking people will start to ask the big questions and there won't be the good answer for them. I do see an exodus of many thirty year plus people if things don't change.
Andy, I must say - you rock.
Charles
Posted by: Charles at January 28, 2004 05:47 PM
Dear Charles,
Hope all is well. Here are a few rushed thoughts. I have been rummaging over this article for a long time, ever since you published it. I appreciate the cogent way you ask questions, and the way you clearly are able to track the route of your doubts. What a great gift. I tell my students that if they have the ability to track the true questions they're asking, they are well on the way to becoming great artists.
You say you don't know whether Nichiren Daishonin is the veritable Buddha or not, whether he is mostly a bodhisattva or another Buddha of the caliber of Shakyamuni. Obviously, none of us know. We can only get this information via faith, which is so subjective and to try to prove it to non-believer or a chronic doubter is a task I wouldn't engage in. Besides I get bored with religious arguments. One thing however sticks in my mind. If Nichiren is not the original Buddha of Kuon Ganjo then the whole idea of enlightenment in this life time goes down the drain. If you recall, Shakyamuni's Buddhism is the Buddhism of Harvest, ours is the Buddhism of sowing. Obviously the whole thing gets complex, but I have found the concept of "from this moment on" really works in practice. We rally don't have to worry about the past. And the Gosho says: "Even the two Buddhas, Shakyamuni and Taho, are the functions of Myoho-renge-kyo who appeared to bestow its blessings upon mankind." And: "Shakyamuni is thought to have possessed the three virtues of sovereign, teacher and parent for the sake of us common mortals, but on the contrary, it is the common mortal who endowed him with the three virtues."
Of course the issue of us having met the Gohonzon in the past or not is thorny. I believe we did, I recall an experience coming back from Washington, DC in plane full of Buddhists and suddenly awakening to the feeling I had been with those people for many lifetimes. And then, the experience I had when I first saw the Dai-Gohonzon, seeing clearly that Nam-Myoho-renge-kyo is the universe and everything in it. Or chanting afterwards and actually feeling in my entire being that "there is no greater happiness than chanting Nam-Myoho-renge-kyo.
I don't know where I am going with this, but I wanted to share these thoughts with you. As I am in a hurry, please check spelling if you publish it, there is nothing I hate more than being thought of as a careless speller.
Be well,
Julian
Posted by: Julian Semilian at March 12, 2004 02:06 AM
December 23, 2003
Holy Vimanas, Atman
Welcome to samsara. The wheel of life turns not only on earth but also in the skies. Few things will brand you as a flake on the lunatic fringe quicker than discussing UFOs – or as they used to call them in ancient India, vimanas. Since some people already regard me as an eccentric, I thought it fitting for me to explore the subject from a Buddhist point-of-view. Granted, you don’t hear the Dalai Lama or president Ikeda lecturing on the relationship between UFOs/vimanas, Buddhist-Vedic history, and contemporary society, but that’s because they have a greater sense of decorum than I do. I like to stir up the pot and see what floats to the top.
The subject of UFOs is not an underreported subject. Just type UFOs in your search engine and do a search. There are tens of thousands of sites, thousands of books, and millions of words on the subject. Still, there is no definitive scientific proof that is being shared with the general public. There have been millions of individual sightings since the dawn of man. There have been modern day encounters where mysterious craft have been sighted around military installations. Commercial pilots have been witness. Even astronauts have reported strange lights while orbiting the earth, but there’s still no smoking laser.
Then we have personal experiences and alien abductions. People who’ve had such experiences and share them are generally dismissed. Because of public ridicule, many people just keep their mouth shut. And of course, there are some people who make claims just to get attention – I deem these folk stranger than any experience they describe. Weighing all of that, I am coming out of the highly classified closet to confess that I have had some close encounters with UFOs. Go ahead, have your Amazing Randi laugh, but I believe I’ll have the last one. Of course, encounters with UFOs are not exactly the kind of subject you give as an experience at a discussion meeting, so my friends, you’re hearing it here for the first time.
Of my encounters, there have been three major events and several other mysterious ones. I can only comment on two of them. The first was in 1959, when I was eight years old. My parents and brother had gone into town late one Saturday afternoon. I was playing in my room when I heard a friendly male voice calling me, “Chuckie, Chuckie.” I went to see who was calling me. I checked the front door but no one was there. I went into our new addition to the south facing window, got on my tiptoes and pulled myself up to look outside. The sun was setting. To the west of our house about one hundred feet away I saw a ten foot diameter silver disc slowly turning, moving parallel to the house. I was transfixed. This was no childhood hallucination. Since it was summer, our screened window was up. The only sound was a hum, like my Lionel train transformer. It was moving at about the same speed a child would ride their bike. There were black symbols about a foot high on its midsection that I never saw before. There was a bank of windows just above the midsection. I have since discovered the origin of those symbols on the craft. It didn’t stop – it just meandered through our yard, over the road, down the valley, then the craft lazily rose over the trees and out of sight. The whole experience lasted only a couple of minutes. When my parents and brother got home, I told them what happened. My parents laughed and rolled their eyes. My older brother mocked me. I was never the same.
The second major experience occurred in July 1974, five months after receiving my Gohonzon. A friend and fellow member and I were on the beach in our hometown, gazing at the stars, when we saw what we thought was a star begin to accelerate and zigzag through the sky, going from north to south at tremendous speed. I had flown on commercial jet and had watched them from the ground at high altitude going at their cruising speed of 600 mph – those objects we were watching had to be traveling at several thousand miles mph. It quickly disappeared over the southern horizon, but when it came back there were two stars that zigzagged, came to a dead stop, and accelerated at tremendous speed. We instantly realized that what we were seeing was no earthly aircraft and no natural atmospheric phenomena. What we were seeing was intelligently controlled, although its movements were baffling. Rapid acceleration, dead stop, 90-degree turn, acceleration in a straight line, and more zigzag. I knew enough about physics to understand that no human being could take the G forces of those turns. We watched those objects until the morning light dissipated the stars. It was an unforgettable experience.
Why do I tell you this? I do so because of our own Buddhist history. I remember reading the accounts of Tatsunokuchi and wondering what really happened there that early morning of September 12th. At meetings when we discussed this event that was defined as Nichiren’s hoshaku-kempon, or discarding the transient and revealing the true, the explanation was given that because Nichiren was the true Buddha of mappo, and so in tune with the universe, that a miraculous event occurred. We were told and it has been written in our study material that a meteor or comet happened to appear at the exact moment needed to thwart the execution. President Ikeda has discussed this subject and based on what he heard from astronomers was that at that particular time in 1271, based on their scientific calculations, a meteor shower occurred. How convenient. Yet, it only makes sense that we in the SGI would regard this historic event as a perfectly timed astronomic event. What is the other option? ET? Rama riding to the rescue on his flaming chariot? Many people already regard us as extremists, so if we were to say that seminal event was something other than a meteor or comet, we would be classifying ourselves as another UFO cult.
However, I have been studying this subject of September 12th, 1271 since I joined and have come up with some other ideas. In the Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin there is a Gosho titled “The Actions of the Votary of the Lotus Sutra.” If you read this account told by Nichiren closely, you might wonder at our simplistic explanation of a meteor arriving at the defining moment of Mahayana Buddhism.
“Finally we came to a place that I knew must be the site of my execution. Indeed, the soldiers stopped and began to mill around in excitement. Saemon-no-jo, in tears, said, “These are your last moments!” I replied, “You don’t understand! What great greater joy could there be? Don’t you remember what you have promised? I had no sooner said this when a brilliant orb as bright as the moon burst forth from the direction of Enoshima, shooting across the sky from southeast to northwest. It was just before dawn and still too dark to see anyone’s face. But the radiant object clearly illuminated everyone like bright moon light. The executioner fell on his face blinded. The soldiers were filled with panic.” Page 767.
I find this whole scene fascinating on a variety of levels. At Myogyoji temple in the Chicago area, there are lithographs on the wall depicting the life of Nichiren and some are devoted to the Tatsunokuchi persecution. There are subtitles below the pictures that explain the scenes being depicted. These subtitles describe strange cloud formations and mighty flashes of lightening in the sky, immediately prior to the event, as well as the ground shaking and fabrics spontaneously starting on fire. The temple lithographs also state that the executioner’s sword was broken in three places before he could behead the Daishonin.
We have presented this story in a variety of ways in our publications. In the movie, The Human Revolution, the Daishonin was chanting daimoku. In another account he began to recite the verse section of the Jig-gage. In the aforementioned Gosho, he was speaking his last words to Shijo Kingo. What I find fascinating is that the object in question was bright enough to illuminate the faces of everyone. If a meteor or comet was big enough and close enough to light up everyone’s face, there would have been a major cataclysm. A meteor also doesn’t explain the other strange events of the earth shaking, and fabrics igniting. How would a meteor break a samurai sword in three places? How strange is it for the bravest warriors in the world to run away like frightened children? What is metaphoric? What is actual reporting of events without mythological embellishment? What was that object? It is easiest to say that it was a meteor and leave it at that, because if it was not a meteor, comet, or some natural atmospheric disturbance, the explanation may be more in line with the abundance of aerial phenomena reported in India both before and during Shakyamuni’s lifetime. That would be too kutai for us in the SGI, the reigning Lords of Ketai.
"The so-called 'Rama Empire' of Northern India and Pakistan developed at least fifteen thousand years ago on the Indian sub-continent and was a nation of many large, sophisticated cities, many of which are still to be found in the deserts of Pakistan, northern, and western India. Rama...was ruled by 'enlightened Priest-Kings' who governed the cities.
"The seven greatest capital cities of Rama were known in classical Hindu texts as 'The Seven Rishi Cities'. According to ancient Indian texts, the people had flying machines which were called 'vimanas'. The ancient Indian epic describes a vimana as a double- deck, circular aircraft with portholes and a dome, much as we would imagine a flying saucer. It flew with the "speed of the wind" and gave forth a 'melodious sound'.
D. Hatcher Childress, "Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology"
The Anti-Gravity Handbook
Okay, so you don’t accept any kind of kutai explanation – understandable. But this Gosho has more goodies to offer. Immediately after the failed execution, when they didn’t know what to do with the Daishonin, he was taken to the residence of Homma Rokuro Saemon to await further orders. After reciting the Lifespan chapter of the Lotus Sutra, he gave a lecture to soldiers in the garden, and spoke directly to the “Thirty-three heavenly gods.” The Daishonin produced another totally baffling, supernatural event.
“Then, as though in reply, a large star bright as the Morning Star fell from the sky and hung in the plum tree in front of me. The soldiers, astounded, jumped down from the veranda, fell on their faces in the garden, or ran behind the house. Immediately the sky clouded over, and a fierce wind started up, raging so violently that the whole island of Enoshima seemed to roar. The sky shook, echoing with a sound like pounding drums.” Page 769.
What the hell happened here?! Another meteor? Perhaps it was a flaming, giant Japanese killer bee? To believe that, we would need to apply the same kind of logic the Warren Commission used when analyzing the trajectory of the bullets that killed John F. Kennedy. Supernatural? That wouldn’t conform with our ketai approach to rational Buddhism. There must be a logical explanation. Later on in that Gosho, after Nichiren was released from exile, the government officials went against his admonition of having heretical priests pray for rain. While instructing his disciples another peculiar event occurred.
“I had not finished speaking when a great gale began to blow. Houses of every size, Buddhist halls and pagodas, old trees, and government buildings all were swept up into the air or toppled to the ground. A huge shining object flew through the sky, and the earth was strewn with beams and rafters.” Page 776
Another meteor in response to the Daishonin’s voice and state of mind at the exact crucial moment? What could it be? The fact that the Tatsunokuchi persecution and the events surrounding it are so crucial to the Daishonin’s Buddhism is reason enough to closely examine it and the history of Buddhism as a whole. We cannot dismiss seemingly supernatural events as unexplained natural phenomena while disregarding a Buddhist history replete with amazing events. We have a bad record of regarding actual events as metaphoric and accepting metaphors as facts. We also find it easier to relegate curious events like the object at Tatsunokuchi to meteors, even though doing so is an argument more flimsy than a rice cracker. The fact is that we just don’t know what zoomed overhead on those execution grounds. Why can’t we just say we don’t know instead of asserting as fact what is truly ambiguous, apparently supernatural, and inconsistent with reason and anecdotal evidence? The problem with our logic is that on closer examination, the comforting words of natural phenomena don’t hold up. If such an event as a brilliant object flying through the sky at the precise moment of spiritual import were a one time deal, than such an explanation would be reasonable, but such events have occurred many times in Buddhist and Vedic history. Legend has it that when Shakyamuni died daylight turned into complete darkness and a number of brilliant objects arced through the sky. Myth? Legend? Metaphor? You decide. There is a lot of documentary evidence to indicate, as the Lotus Sutra states, that this threefold world is not what it appears to be.
Oh, those ancients with their wild imaginations. Flying chariots that blazed like the sun, ancient astronauts, and gods descending to earth to mingle with the population – what fanciful storytellers those ancient people were – an they were everywhere throughout the world in all cultures. Imagine, the holy texts of the Brahmin, Hindu, and Buddhist religions rooted in the idea of gods flying through the skies in machines that could “shock and awe,” kill with lasers and nuclear weaponry, or travel to distant worlds throughout the universe.
"Birds croaked madly...the very elements seemed disturbed. The sun seemed to waver in the heavens. The earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of this weapon. Elephants burst into flame and ran to and fro in a frenzy...over a vast area, other animals crumpled to the ground and died. From all points of the compass the arrows of flame rained continuously and fiercely."
"Gurkha, flying in his swift and powerful Vimana, hurled against the three cities of the Vrishnis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as the thousand suns rose in all its splendour...An iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.... The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. The hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without apparent cause, and the birds turned white.... After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected.... To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves..."
- The Mahabharata
Strange lights in the sky have been around since primitive man first drew them on the walls of caves along with the prized beasts that they hunted. Most of these lights in the sky, displaying seemingly intelligent movement have rational explanations. Some of these sightings can be categorized as the planet Venus, various types of atmospheric disturbances, swap gas, ball lightening, or the flaming flatulence erupting out of a diehard skeptic’s ass. However, all of the aerial sightings from antiquity to now cannot be explained away by natural occurrence. There is great irony in our advanced scientific perspective. One, we’re not advanced; and two, we lack historical perspective that is not grounded in ketai logic.
December 18th 2003 marks the 100 anniversary of the Wright Brothers' historic flight. It seems that we’ve come a long way in one century. We’ve put men on the moon, landed probes on Mars, photographed distant planets, and built an international space station. But in the scheme of biological time, we’re not that far removed from the apes. Just a few hundred years ago, the official Church doctrine taught that the earth was the center of the universe and that the earth revolved around the sun. Only a year or two ago the Pope apologized for the Church’s persecution of Galileo for contradicting that literalist Biblical dogma. In fact, our point of view - scientific, social, and religious is constantly changing. The age and nature of the universe is still being hotly debated. Some scientists believe the universe is 14 billion years old, beginning with the big bang, and the age of the universe increases or decreases by billions of years, depending on the latest discoveries. Some scientists still believe in the steady-state theory where the universe is without beginning or end. The deeper we look back in time the more mysterious the universe becomes. We speculate on the size and shape of the universe but we can’t say with any certainty what our own human history before 6000 BCE was all about.
Think of the possibilities. There are more than 200 billion (some say 400 billion) stars in our own galaxy, in a universe of countless galaxies, and physicists theorize the distinct probability of parallel universes and dimensions to our own. In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha clearly describes countless Buddha lands scattered throughout the cosmos in numbers beyond calculation.
Authors and philosophers have been trying to make the ancient astronaut connection for decades with little success. The world religions have left behind writings and myths to record the wonder of our origins that have become obscured in the mists of prehistory. When the matter of God, gods, and angels is looked at carefully, for some the evidence points to actual beings from another realm with spiritual and mental powers far beyond the common person, as well as technologies that enable them to traverse the skies in a blaze of glory and even destroy. If there is a higher-level civilization observing or behind the human race, what patience they must have. Our species, even though we have the ability to fly to the moon, build computers, and blow ourselves to smithereens, are possessed of the infamous monkey mind. I’m not sure that we could handle the truth.
My opinion on these matters is so far from conventional thought as to seem ridiculous to some “rational” thinking intellects, and would probably need an entire book to convey. Therefore, I will briefly summarize some of these ideas here and wrap this up, perhaps to leave something to explore for another day.
I offer no conclusions, just questions and speculation. I find it ironic that Nichiren attained his first enlightenment while praying before the statue of bodhisattva Kokuzo – the bodhisattva of infinite space – how does Kokuzo get around? I find it compelling that the Buddha taught that there were trillions of Buddha worlds spread throughout the universe – that’s a lot of advanced beings and an infinite amount of time to advance. I find that it fascinating that Taho Buddha (Many Treasures) appeared where the Lotus Sutra was being preached from in India, coming from the land of Treasure Purity, “an immeasurable thousand, ten thousand, million, asamkhyas of worlds to the east.” Even if he’s just a metaphor, I’m sure he didn’t take the Concorde.
The universe is infinitely vast and utterly mysterious. The powers of the mind, both local and nonlocal are beyond adequate description – this is an aspect of myoho. In our own Buddhist cannon, it is stated that there were many Buddhas that preceded Shakyamuni and that human life has existed here on this earth for a lot longer than the prevailing theories. A book titled Forbidden Archeology, delves into many anomalies in our ideas on the origins of humankind such as human footprints embedded into rock with dinosaurs, and machined metal and jewelry more than 100 million years old. And there is so much more that it makes a person wonder how long we’ve really been here.
The adage that “there is nothing new under the sun,” is, for me, truth personified. What if humanity were not a new phenomena, having just lumbered out of the trees and into caves a mere million or two years ago, but had reached an advanced state of development more than 200 million years ago? What if periodic catastrophes, both natural and man made, brought civilization to its knees and we had to start over again, not once, but many times?
One of the legends of the vimanas is that the craft were controlled by nonlocal thought and could respond instantaneously, oscillating between the third and fourth dimensions, similar to particles in the quantum world that change form from wave to particle. Now you see them – now you don’t. There is so much that we do not know. We cannot cure the common cold and yet scientists say with silly certainty that the universe is a certain age and configuration. Maybe we don’t know a damn thing.
What happened at Tatsunokuchi will never be known for sure at our present stage of development. I believe the day is coming when there will be a paradigm shift toward the nonlocal mind where the answers to our own history and the mysteries of the universe are known. This revelation may be devastating to monotheism and capitalists everywhere. I believe that the Buddha knew all of these things. The dharma of Myoho-renge-kyo that he left behind, is a tool for us to one day transform ourselves from a species that is trying to save itself from destruction to one that can manifest the six supernatural powers; to travel anywhere at will, know past lives, know all thoughts and the truth of existence.
I don’t expect anyone to agree with what I have written. I also make no apologies. This world of space-time we share, in my opinion, is not what it appears to be – not by a long shot. I’m not into conspiracy theories nor am I a science fiction buff. I don’t even watch Star Trek. I’m just a Buddhist writer who has seen some things and dares to share his opinion. One may believe that the truth is out there, but it’s really inside us, if we just look deep enough. Samsara is here, and it’s out there too. Even aliens have the ten worlds. How cool is that?
Posted by ChuckA at December 23, 2003 08:30 PM
Comments
Interesting article there, Charles. Most likely the very reason that UFO's etc. are underreported is simply because there is no way for our relatively primitive capacity for understanding of these things to explore them on a level greater than that of fanciful conjecture. As humans we have not yet reached a level of existence that can widely handle the threats of living in the mundane world without constant menace of conflict, loss, and self-destructive pursuits lurking. I applaud your intellectually curious yet grounded perspective.
Posted by: Michelle at December 24, 2003 02:56 AM
This is to tell you how much I enjoyed your last piece of writing. What is necessary, and what you are doing, is expanding the language (left to rot in such unimaginative disarray by SGI-USA) of Buddhism. It is much more fun to chant and think of interplanetary travel than the worn out Gakkai mottoes-- which do nothing but constrict one's faith in front of the Gohonzon. As faith is so much connected to the imagination, you are doing us a great service by your word explorations. I am also thrilled that you took time to look into and explore the possibilities of the event that occurred at Nichiren's Daishonin's near beheading.
I have been thinking a lot in the last few years about something that you brought out in your piece: that we only imagine this is the modern world and there is very little left to discover. Most of us assume, for
instance, that just because Freud and Jung roamed the unconscious a bit, they have found all there is to know and the rest of us are slaves to that (now institutionalized) knowledge. That same argument was made many times in the Gakkai - that the way to kosen-rufu was already paved by the big three and we were to remain mere arm raising followers, when there is so much more to explore and find out. So, thanks for opening a path.
Best wishes and happy New Year,
Julian
Posted by: Julian at December 31, 2003 12:03 AM
January 05, 2004
Remember the Future
ESP. Everyone has the capacity for it -- some more than others. Most folks have had a personal glimpse. People want more of it, but usually for the wrong reasons. Extra Sensory Perception is generally random and highly elusive – kind of like catching lightening in a bottle. One can see that the birth of myriad forms of divination was a natural attempt to harness the advantage of knowing the future and what is obscure. Chanting must somehow make us more sensitive to these universal potentials. How many of us have looked into the eyes of a senior leader, then had our faith and life condition micro-analyzed? I’m guilty of this myself. Chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo (upholding the Lotus Sutra, et al.) is the greatest form of extra sensory exercise in the world, so says the Lotus Sutra in chapter nineteen, “Benefits of the Teacher of the Law.” I still remember the late, great, Ted Osaki talking about chanting a lifetime and getting to the point where you can “remember the future.” I liked that.
The skeptics call ESP “flim flam.” Buddhism teaches us not to seek such powers for their own sake, but ascribe such mysterious potentials as psychic enhancements from the realm of the six supernatural powers, attained through assiduous practice. As with any power, there are natural mediating forces in the universe to turn back the foolish and spiritually or ethically flawed – ask any serious practitioner of the occult or advanced yogis. I agree with Ram Dass in his classic book, “Be Here Now,” when he states that when one gives up the greedy desire to have such powers, they come in abundance, all by themselves. However, sometimes people just have the power naturally.
For example, my great grandfather, Isaac Wilson Atkins, born in 1844, was the best dowser in Southern Indiana, near the Kentucky border. He would use a forked willow rod to locate precious water sources for farmers and settlers. Water meant survival and there were no geologists or modern scientific equipment to find the sources. This responsibility fell upon the dowser. Of course, the dowser used all of his skill to survey the landscape, and then he let his dowsing rod narrow the possibilities. Not only could Isaac find the water, but he could tell how deep in was too. When he had made his selection, his sons would dig the well. My grandfather told me that he and his brothers constantly tested Isaac by putting ten plates around their table with either a gold or silver piece under one to try and fool him. He never missed. How was that possible? Although dowsing is a form of divination, it involves a high degree of sensitivity. ESP is a magnification of the six senses, coming into resonance, even for a brief moment, with the eighth level of consciousness – alaya vijnana, the realm of ku.
What are ESP and its companion powers like telepathy, clairvoyance, remote viewing, and so on? It is impractical to give a scientific, ketai explanation to phenomena that are kutai in origin. ESP is a frequency in the energy field of ku that constantly flows inside us, but also seems to exist independent of the local mind. Our brain filters out this nonlocal current of information like a radio plays only the frequency on which it is set. But occasionally that information crosses over like an FM radio and may pick up an overlapping signal. Personal or familial danger has proved to be the most common and powerful signal that comes through to the conscious mind. When survival is at stake, we are often warned. People who are about to develop critical illness are frequently alerted in a dream. Mothers are so connected to their children they often can feel if something is wrong even when they far away. Identical twins have been reported to know each other’s thoughts and feelings as naturally as their own, even at great distances – in fact, there have been many cases where one twin was injured the other also felt the pain.
ESP is generally random and inconsequential. We may receive a phone call, get a letter, or so happen to meet someone just when we were thinking about them. Sometimes, we get a feeling without any rhyme or reason to go a different route only to learn that by doing so we avoided a bad accident or missed big delays. I vividly remember coming to a stop at a four-way intersection when a little voice inside me said, “move to the right.” I ignored the voice and a driver from behind plowed into me, causing a three-car collision. I pay a lot more attention to those kinds of messages now.
Each of us is already endowed with a fully developed capacity to know, see, feel, hear, and influence things at a distance. We have the ability to travel anywhere in the mind-spirit body – especially when dreaming. Aldous Huxley called this condition of higher sensory perception “The Mind at Large.” Larry Dossey called it “nonlocal mind,” and Chinese Buddhism called it alaya-vijnana or karma storehouse – the eighth of the nine levels of consciousness. This fundamental energy of existence interpenetrates all beings, life and all matter to the quantum level. The psychic energy of ku – abreast of chu and physically manifest in ke, extends throughout the ten directions of space and three realms of past, present, and future. ESP, the prodigal child of kutai even transcends duality and space-time.
If we have this telepathic receiver in our life as an original endowment, then why don’t we have broad access to these powers? Who can say for sure? There are some interesting theories such as those of certain esoteric Kabala inspired magicians who suggest that this power was literally “turned off” by a higher race of beings thought to be the creative force behind humanity and religion – kind of like a cosmic FCC punishing us for abusing “the power” by pretty much wiping out a once thriving civilization way back when. Some link our lack of easy access ESP to the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. One reason we don’t largely have this power is because we are irresponsible and infected by the three poisons of greed, anger, and foolishness.
Personally, I believe we once had full access to this power but it has become dormant, an aeon or two ago. Further, easy access ESP has been rare because it was not necessary for our overall survival as a species, up until now that is. In other words, our heightened senses had been enough to get us to the top of the food chain here in samsara. However, with the growing danger of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction possessed by evil lunatics, this latent capacity for ESP and remote viewing may need to become more active to catch, thwart, and subdue the bad guys. This, I believe is the inevitable future of our species, more so than better killing gadgets, bigger lies, increased subterfuge, or more soldiers.
What does this have to do with faith? As Nichiren Buddhists, we don’t need to be concerning ourselves with such esoteric, ambiguous, and legendary powers to be happy. Chanting daimoku, doing gongyo, study, and encouraging others is the primary role we should be fulfilling as bodhisattva-Buddhas in mappo. But why remain ignorant of our amazing Buddhist heritage just because it doesn’t conform well to past/current study department emphasis? Although I fully embrace the practice and our mission to widely declare and propagate Nam-myoho-renge-kyo throughout the world, I frequently get bored with the endless concentration on strictly mundane practicalities. Life is more than a succession of meetings and repeating the same study topics month after month, year after year, decade after decade. It’s also fun to study and ponder the great mysteries of Buddhism. At meetings I often feel like an old 60s acidhead who stumbled into an “Up With People” event. We should be able to have meetings where we openly and intelligently discuss topics like ESP, telepathy, spirit travel, supernatural phenomena, life after death, and so on. I find ESP no more esoteric than reincarnation. Some may argue that such topics have nothing to do with people’s happiness (even though such powers were highly coveted in ancient India and were possessed by the Buddha and his Ten Major Disciples). I think our problem is that even though the topic of supernatural powers is replete throughout the Lotus Sutra and Shakyamuni’s Buddhism, we don’t have any expertise in this line of study because we have concentrated on the Ten Worlds, Ichinen-Sanzen, Esho-Funi, and the organization momentum building lessons taught in The Human Revolution.
No, subjects like ESP have nothing to do with faith and happiness as defined by the SGI, but I know they’re important. If granted an opportunity, I believe the members would have a lot of fun with such subjects and it would all work out well in the end. Personally, I don’t want to be a compartmentalized, ticky-tacky, Borg collective Buddhist, who only thinks of the next meeting or campaign without giving consideration to depths of Buddhism.
We should be in tune with all aspects of our great Buddhism, including the truly mysterious and mind blowing, like ESP. If chanting can arouse these dormant powers and insights inside our life and this helps us to further the Buddha dharma, I believe that’s a very good thing. I pray that we don’t become so secular that we completely bury our mystical heritage like historical revisionists obscure and twist facts. Fortunately the Lotus Sutra is in the public domain and available for anyone to read. You don’t need some study committee to interpret it for you – you can make up your own mind. We are unique, divine beings. It’s not just a theory when someone say’s that “you have the Buddha nature” – it’s truth. With the Buddha nature are a host of powers and perceptions – whether you chose to discover them or not. I choose to explore the unknown. I choose to learn.
Posted by ChuckA at January 5, 2004 06:45 PM | TrackBack
Comments
Charles -- fascinating stuff. I remember a lecture at Tibet House in NYC about Tsong Khapa and his "supernatural" abilities. People gathered to hear a dharma talk but instead of giving a talk, Tsong Khapa enabled each person to hear what all the other people were thinking. It was apparently quite illuminating for all involved.
Also, I seem to recall that in early Buddhist literature, practitioners are cautioned about showing off their supernatural abilities. ("Don't levitate just to impress your girlfriend," maybe?) So, apparently, the development of such abilities was fairly common.
It seems like Tibetan Buddhists are more into exploring this whole realm (lucid dreaming, etc.) than Nichiren Buddhists. I asked my mentor (whom I'll call "T") about this once and he said that even though we don't talk about "supernatural powers" in SGI, they are part of Nichiren's basic understanding of Buddhism.
Also, funny thing, even though I haven't physically seen or talked to T in more than a year, I "see" him smiling at me in his particular way, and I hear his voice as clearly as if he were standing in front of me. I hasten to add that this is not a "media mentor" relationship -- T and I spoke regularly (in person) over several years. I think, though, that SGI appeals to a level of "supernaturalism" when SGI leaders assert that members can develop this same type of mentor relationship with Daisaku Ikeda, whom most members have never met.
Thanks for your thought-provoking post.
Posted by: Lisa J at January 6, 2004 07:50 PM
Thank you for your insightful and creative approach to Nichiren Buddhism. I have been thinking about ESP - or the entire realm of perceptive communication for awhile. My larger question is why does the SGI pick & choose what to teach us? I understand there is a significant amount of untranslated gosho. I can speculate why the SGI does what they do, but I'd rather move
on and figure out a way to study what I am interested in studying. So, again, thank you and
go deeper. Is there more than what you have quoted from Nichiren on the topic? Could we benefit from a comparative analysis with Zen and
Tibetan? Could you write another book on this topic alone? How can we develop the latent potential beyond random success? Keep it up, Charles! Jan
Posted by: Jan Tyler at January 7, 2004 03:24 PM
Rubbish! ESP and Dowsing, etc, are indeed flim-flam. Dowsing fails to produce anything above random chance in all properly-conducted double-blinded experiments, for instance, as does ESP.
If you or someone else could demonstrate ESP in a properly-controlled environment, people like James Randi would give you a million dollars, which, even if you have no need for the money yourself, think of the good works you could perform with that cash! Buddhism doesn't need this sort of New Age anti-scientific nonsense hanging around it.
Posted by: Ken Nicolson at January 8, 2004 01:05 AM
Dear Ken:
Thanks for the letter. I knew you were going to write me – just kidding. I’m 100% for a healthy dose of skepticism. James Randi is truly an amazing guy, and a heck of writer too. I’ve read all of his books. My favorite one is “The Faith Healers.” I used to subscribe to the Skeptical Inquirer and enjoyed it very much. I might have been an official “skeptic” like my father and brother, if it weren’t for personal experience. Nichiren wrote, “Buddhism is reason.” It seems reasonable to me that we live in a universe where there are infinite possibilities. Skepticism is a life philosophy in itself – they get their kicks from poking holes in the paranormal and charlatans. I say more power to them. In Samsara, all opinions are welcomed, even ones I don’t agree with.
Charles Atkins
Posted by: Charles Atkins at January 8, 2004 10:23 PM
Dear Charles,
I, too, like Ken Nicolson, am somewhat skeptical of ESP. I do, however, prefer to keep an open mind.
It's not as if there were any empirical evidence of ESP's existence. And unlike Creationist of what ever religion you can name, I don't really have any expectation of that any will be found.
I tend to think spirituality can be understood largely through anecdotal experience and faith. After all, Nichiren Daishonin said in not so many words that if something doesn't make logical sense, we shouldn't believe it.
Peace and love,
Eddie
P.S.- I loved your Mokuren novel.
Posted by: Eddie Rios at January 9, 2004 10:48 AM
As promised, for the next month or so, Phantom City will rerun my old Samsara blogs from the legendary BuddhaJones website. These essays will appear in order and include reader’s comments.
SAMSARA
December 02, 2003
With a Little Help from My Friends
Since this is the first official article of my new weekly column, Samsara, I thought we should get to know each other better. It’s true I’ve promised articles on the gamut of metaphysics and divination, the hidden history of Buddhist-Vedic UFO’s, and tales of the electric dharma via psychoactive substances and samadhi states of consciousness. Not today. I’m feeling in a lighter mood. Let’s start at the beginning.
I grew up in the Chicago area and am a self-taught person. Buddhism has been my great passion in life. I’ve been a professional writer off and on for the past thirty-three years and have paid my dues a couple of times, now. Today, I’m an author. I was kind of a weird kid. My mom bought me a deck of tarot cards when I was fourteen and in a few years, I was competent enough to make a marginal living from doing readings. I practiced yoga in an ashram, learned all about practical magick, divination, and astral projection. In 1969, I had my first experience with LSD and for a few years thought I would explore the Mind at Large. It was quite a trip. Around that time, a high school friend who had been to an NSA meeting, told me about Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. He told me that he laughed at the sight of people chanting to a box. None of us were ready for Buddhism, especially him.
My friend was obsessed with making money and smoking high quality pot. I was never drawn by greed but the pot had to be good. By 1973, he was getting rich and I had started to seriously chant. His name was Don Steinberg. He was an entrepreneur of amazing skill. In time, Don and a smoky cabal of my high school classmates formed the largest and most lucrative marijuana smuggling enterprise in US history ultimately selling more than 100 tons a week. By the time they hit their stride, I was eating Ramon noodles and they were all multi-millionaires dining on lobster and drinking fine wine. Don was making more than one million dollars a day. It was a dilemma because I was not against what they were doing, because I think pot is a decent way to relax and get inspired, but I could not reconcile having their kind of lifestyle and the practice of Buddhism. I’ve always been against the war on drugs because it’s a war against our own citizens. I remember senior leaders saying you can’t be a leader if you smoke pot then they would go out later and get pig drunk. It was a mixed message. I still fondly remember when our territory YMD leader came to town for a meeting then afterward getting me stoned on some righteous bud. Now that was some primo guidance.
I explained my situation of being poor and my friend’s new wealth to the late, great, Ted Osaki, and he assured me that I would win and they would lose. Ted Osaki was not against pot per se’, because I know as a fact he tried it himself. He was for Nichiren Buddhism and a lifestyle of chanting. He was right too. I chanted three million daimoku and became a father the same year that Don and my old school chums were caught and put on trial by the Federal Government. They were the first people in America to be convicted of a new law of “running a continuing criminal enterprise.” It was 10 years to life. Their bust was quite a sensation at the time. Time and Newsweek covered it and a book was written about it called “The Underground Empire.”
In 1975, I tried to get Don to chant as well as some of the other guys that were involved, but I had no takers. Don and my other friends spent 10 years in Federal prison while I got to meet president Ikeda and received tremendous training in faith. Now that thirty years has elapsed, the difference is even more obvious. Several of the crew came to garish ends and the others wondered how I changed from a directionless hippie into a realized being. “Chanting,” I told them. “You were greedy,” I said with a laugh and wink. I embraced the dharma - they embraced the seductive rush of fast money. In the end, old Ted Osaki was right – I walked through the gates of nirvana while they entered federal prison. I still love them all, but for me it’s always been more prayer with only a dash of inspiration.
Comments
Hi Chuck,
I've read your book, Modern Buddhist Healing, and it inspired me greatly. Thanks!
I am also very hooked on the Mokuren series... you are an excellent writer, and I really admire your way with words... yes, I know you have the disclaimer of "satire, baby, satire," but I sense a lot of truth and candor in your writings. And, in a way, you are, in fact, the Bodhisattva Mokuren himself. (your sword being your pen.) Thanks for the refreshing writings.
Although I'm way down in Tennessee, (outside of Nashville, to be exact) I do remember Ted Osaki very well... and miss him. We used to be affiliated with Chicago back when we were part of the Midwest Territory. Pascual is someone I also miss. He visited Nashville several times. Osaki often made monthly trips here to encourage us.
I know there is a distance factor, but I wish we were still connected to Chicago. The members there are so united. I agree with one thing you mentioned in the Mokuren series... there seems to be a sense of apathy among the members now. And I agree with your question you posed in one of your Buddha Jones postings... Where are all the Youth? Things certainly have changed over the course of thirty years. Thanks for stirring things up and helping remind people of their original determination as Bodhisattvas of the Earth.
mere
Posted by: Meredith Green at December 3, 2003 01:46 PM
December 09, 2003
As a Writer, I’ve Paid My Dues
Welcome to samsara. Let’s turn the wheel. I’m sending daimoku to all my friends in the Northeast who were nailed by that nasty snowstorm. I would also like to thank all the people who have written to me via my blog (I hate that name). Keep those letters and opinions coming.
Alas, I’ve broken my promise to you - again. You’ve been promised all these way out articles and this week all I can offer you is more of the same old crap. No, the dog didn’t eat my research and I haven’t been in bed with the flu. The truth is that I just finished my latest manuscript and sent it to my publisher. It’s taken me eleven months of nonstop work to finally get it in the mail.
Today, I’d like to talk about the writing business and what it takes to succeed and why some writers go crazy. Most people I know are “closet writers” who love to spin a yarn or write a poem, hoping someday that they can get their work published. My mother warned me about being a writer. When you’re a writer the only thing that will stop you is you. My mom was very pragmatic – especially after a few martinis. She thought I would make a good doctor or lawyer. At the very least, she hoped that I would be a salesman. I almost made the salesman dream come true for her, but if you read last week’s column, I might have ended up with a cellmate named Joe-Bubba. So, she was pleasantly surprised when I landed a fulltime sportswriter’s job for a large daily newspaper in the Chicago suburbs, immediately after graduating from high school. I was paid $80 a week plus mileage. Not much, even for 1970, but I was on my way.
Lot’s of people want to be writers. I live just off campus near the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, and this town is crawling with aspiring journalists, scholarly writers, poets, frustrated novelists, and screenwriters with dreams of six figure advances dancing in their head. The world of writing, especially books, seems romantic. In my opinion it’s about as romantic as a blues artist hoping to sit in on the final set before the bar closes at 2:00 AM. It’s a calling.
Book writing is a tough business to get a start in and just as tough to stay in. Journalism is usually more stable and the pay is better. But if you must dream about writing books, here’s the inside dirt. If you can handle 99% rejection, working a fulltime job in another field – then, when you get home, write until your neck burns and your eyes glaze over, book writing is the field for you. If you don’t mind editors sending back the manuscript you slaved over with a form letter and no constructive commentary, book writing is the field for you. If you can deal with major publishers refusing to even look at your manuscript because you don’t have an agent, you’ve picked the right field. If you don’t mind having to sell yourself to aloof agents and waiting months at a time just to be told “no”, you’ve found your true career path. If you don’t mind waiting months at a time to learn the status of your manuscript from a publisher, which is “no” 99% of the time, you’ve found your ideal gig. When you’ve been abused, avoided, dismissed, cut to ribbons, cheated, humiliated, and generally ignored, you will have paid your dues. Even when that happens, you may still not have a book deal. Sorry, I didn’t mean to bum you out.
Here is my advice to you. Don’t give up. You may have sent your manuscript out to 100 publishers and feel like you’ve been dragged behind a car on the interstate, then someone came over to your now still body and kicked you in the short ribs to see if you were still breathing. But, it might be that 101st submission that gets you the offer and all that pain and frustration will melt away. My original manuscript for Modern Buddhist Healing was sent to more than 250 American and overseas publishers before someone would take a chance on it. I went through two agents and chanted millions of daimoku. It wasn’t like I had no experience as a writer. By the time I signed a contract on my book, I had been writing professionally as a freelancer and professional resume writer for 30 years. Less than 5% of book writers make their living at it fulltime. Fortunately, those people who are serious about the craft will do whatever it takes to make it into print. To them, I say “bravo!”
Without Nichiren Buddhism and the creative powers that daimoku brought out, I would not have done as well as I have. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the artist’s philosopher’s stone – that lens into the deepest strata of consciousness and feeling that a writer needs. Some are born with that insight and others need to reach deep. Sometimes they come up empty, but they keep going back to the well, hoping for a bucketful of water instead of muck. When we chant, dark clouds obscuring previously hidden worlds of imagination are blown away. Daimoku enables us to create on the highest level possible for us. The discipline of gongyo is the ultimate training for a writer because it teaches us the necessity of challenging ourselves, even if we are busy or tired.
My new Buddhist healing book was not an easy project. My last one flowed from my mind and the keyboard like water over Niagara Falls. This one was like passing a kidney stone while being constipated. In my mind, that was a good sign. It meant that I had to reach deeper and fight through more obstacles for the perfect book. I spent more than 1200 hours writing and editing, researched more than sixty books, and I was unable to attend many Buddhist meetings and activities because I was on a tight deadline. Just two months ago, I felt like there was a gun pointed at my head. The pressure to find just the right words that would allow people to overcome their illness was immense. Passages that were brilliant the day before seemed dysfunctional. During those difficult times, I would sit in front of the Gohonzon and chant with all my heart to convey the right words. The beauty of our practice is that it never lets us down. I found the strength, perspective, and inspiration to fight through my doubts and finish the manuscript.
Now the real work begins. I will go through nearly a year of back and forth rewriting with my editor before it hits the bookstore. This site has been the ideal escape for me. Samsara and BuddhaJones has allowed me to showcase my work and opinions and have a lot of fun at the same time. Now that my manuscript is finished, its time for the next interim project. I am trying to make the jump from non-fiction into novels. I have a supernatural thriller or two in the can and will start marketing those. I’ll get to experience (again) all the dues paying crapola I just told you about. If you’ve got something decent, someone at some point will notice. With daimoku, you can make that happen.
For all you writers out there, keep chanting, keep writing, and don’t let the marketplace get you down. With daimoku, one day you’ll get your break. In samsara, you can ride the wheel or be caught under it. Daimoku makes all the difference.
Posted by ChuckA at December 9, 2003 01:01 AM | TrackBack
Comments
Chuck,
What you just posted is exactly what I needed to hear. All I had to do was substitute "painter" where you had "writer".
You see, I just finished earning my BFA, after delaying it for 30 something years. I have been a graphic designer forever, beginning at a daily paper (like you) in 1973 earning $90 a week (with no extras).
Two and a half years ago, I managed to pay off my mortgage and delve headfirst back into school to finish a long-delayed degree. My initial reason was to be an educator. While in school, I developed a passion for painting. I received an unsolicited critique last Saturday from my faculty mentor (our last class). It felt very much like all those rejections from publishers that you describe. I didn't take it personally, even though it was tough to listen to. I felt that his criticism was direct and strict, in order for me to reach deeper and bring out something greater that I haven't realized yet.
I know in my heart that art is my calling. I also know that I have to reveal my greatest potential through hard work and even more intense daimoku. It's going to be an interesting trip. Within a year or two, I plan to be accepted to graduate school. I realize now, that that will only happen through (1) a lot more drawing, studying the masters, painting, and entering shows, I also realize that the only way I can bring out my truest potential and my greatest work is through Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Thank heavens for the SGI!
Thanks again for your writing. It helps to inspire me.
meredith
Posted by: Meredith Green at December 10, 2003 01:22 AM