The media and government have been dropping frightening hints of a coming pandemic that may possibly kill untold millions of people throughout the world. Avian flu, as we have learned is a virus that is killing birds and has killed about sixty people worldwide who have worked directly with birds. Thus far, it has not mutated into a virus that can be spread from human to human. According to scientists, it is only a matter of time until that occurs. If, or when it does, our world is in grave danger. If you think that the government will save us, think back to 9/11 and hurricane Katrina. Knowing that this was on the horizon, I addressed that subject in my new book. We must quickly learn to protect our families and ourselves.
“With the emergence of new diseases like SARS, the continuing onslaught of AIDS, and the growing threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria, we need a way to survive beyond the fragile hopes of allopathic medicine. Health care has become a luxury for many. At the heart of survival is a timeless means that people have always gone to in times of trouble. Science in now proving what religion has always understood. Prayer works. (first paragraph of introduction,) ”Riding the Wheel to Wellness”
Prayer transforms fear into action and strength. It may be wise to consider the reality of such a pandemic. This will not be like Y2K. If this virus breaks out into the general population, hospitals and healthcare services will quickly be overwhelmed, there will be quarantines (that people will resist), business and vital services may temporarily grind to a halt, basic necessities like food, water, and medicine will be in short supply. The American pharmaceutical industry, which should be mobilized for such a health crisis, like the Manhattan project was focused on the bomb, has proven to be no friend of the people. Instead, this industry is transparent with greed. I do not believe that we can count on the pharmaceutical industry in the short-term, which is mind boggling to me. It will be hard to make a profit on selling medication when a great number of their customer base is suddenly deceased.
You do not have to be a doctor to understand there will be suffering and many fatalities, especially the young, the old, and those with compromised immune systems. Apparently, this virus can proven fatal for ordinarily healthy people in the prime of life, killing more than one third of the people it strikes. My grandfather explained in detail to me what happened when the swine flu epidemic occurred. What can we do to protect our families and ourselves?
“Mastering the mind and knowing how to boost your immune system will be crucial in the near future. Scientists have predicted epidemics and possibly pandemics resulting from mutating viruses, such as recently occurred with SARS (Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which could possibly kill tens of millions of people due to a lack of natural immunity…There seems to be no way to avoid contracting future viral or bacterial illness for which we have no natural immunity, but we can learn to boost our immune system through visualization and prayer so that our body can ride out the illness and we can survive.” Page 42.
My goal is to help as many people survive as possible. My most fervent prayer is that this scourge does not occur at all. Having personally been stricken by a bacterial infection when I had a compromised immune system, I can speak with some authority on how difficult and perilous such a battle can be. I can also share with you a means to challenge that illness.
The first rule is to be safe and use common sense. In the coming weeks, there will be many experts giving basic steps we can take to avoid the virus. We begin by taking all the precautions we ordinarily take to avoid the flu. We must live a healthy lifestyle and avoid stressing our immune systems. We should avoid large groups of people wherever possible. It may get to the point where we need to wear latex gloves, protective masks, and goggles.
From a mind-body standpoint, we can use mantra-powered visualization to accomplish two things: first, to pray to be in the right place at the right time to avoid exposure to the virus; and two, we can use visualization to bolster our immune system so we can overcome the virus if we become infected.
Meditation and prayer have the natural power to boost our immune system. This improved immunity is a scientific fact that has been repeatedly proven in clinical trials at universities around the world. If we cannot reasonably count on a vaccine or an antidote, we must conquer this illness by sheer determination.
The visualization to overcome a potentially life threatening illness like that posed by the Avian flu is based on the meditation Shakyamuni Buddha used to cure King Ajasi from virulent boils. It is called the “Moon Loving Meditation.” It is perfectly fine to construct your own version of this, or create a completely new one based on your own imagination. Some will just pray for the best, and that is fine in that prayer alone is a booster of the immune system when conducted twice daily for ten minutes intervals. Choose your own method.
My conception of the Moon Loving Meditation visualization is to imagine a full moon inside your chest, like the golden harvest moon of October. This moon is radiant and awe inspiring, with rays that penetrate every cell of your body, instilling your integrated bodily systems with peace, harmony, and love of the greater life – you. Calmly ask you body to produce adequate antibodies to thwart the illness, sending shafts of empowering moonlight into your lymph system, your organs, and every cell existent in your body. Affirm your will to overcome to the Buddha, and be at peace with the powers of daimoku coming from your life.
There is no easy or convenient answer when illness strikes a loved one or us. We can, however, do something about it with our spirit. Remember the timely and encouraging words of Eleanor Roosevelt, “When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” I pray this crisis does not unfold at all. In the words of Martin Luther King, if the Avian flu does strike, “we shall overcome.”
Researching, writing, and promoting a book are very time-consuming tasks. For a relatively unknown, sophomore author like myself, it is a labor of love. There is no financial windfall, no swarm of adoring fans, and no one but yourself to take care of the endless details associated with bringing your product to market.
There are many books in print that serve as guide to writers trying to break into the field, books to shed light on the realities of the marketplace. There are books about finding an agent, how to write query letters and manuscript proposals, books on where to sell your work, how to interpret your contract if you can get one, and how to promote it effectively, once it’s published. However, no book can prepare you for the shifting sands of authorship. Like most true learning in life, textbook knowledge proves insufficient – actual experience is the best teacher.
There has been little time in the past few months to do much more than pray, write, work my fulltime job, and prepare for promotion of my book. My wife has been my anchor. She has prepared my meals, made sure that I rested, rubbed my shoulders when they felt on fire from being in front of the computer for too long. She has encouraged me during dark, lonely times when I was blocked or felt unappreciated, and she has scolded me when I got too big for my britches. I don’t think that I could have done it without her.
Without doubt, the most important element in my transition from dreamer to achiever was the basic practice of chanting daimoku, gongyo, and study. My prayer has been to develop into a person capable of correctly teaching the healing power of daimoku to the people of the world – mainly, non-Buddhists. There were no ten-hour daimoku sessions or other desperate austerities. My prayers became more sincere and focused, enabling me on many occasions to connect perfectly with the Gohonzon, basking in the beauty of its transcendental wonder. Because of this intimate connection, many of the latent benefits that believers could realized that are described in the Lotus Sutra became manifest. I had to stop and thank my many former teachers and mentor in the SGI, and especially my masters, Shakyamuni and Nichiren, for showing the way for a fool such as me to bring the dharma of the One Great Vehicle to the suffering people of the world.
At some point during the past year, my life went through a great transformation. Our basic practice was instrumental in bringing forth my highest potential as a writer, speaker, and devotee of the Lotus Sutra. This transformation did not go unnoticed by my family, friends, or my publisher. Perhaps the last person to notice was myself, because I was still sprinting. For example, after I completed my manuscript and checking it over several times, my heart sunk. All my efforts of research, writing, and fussing over sentence rhythm, bibliographic references, and textual details, seemed to have produced a deeply flawed writing that my publisher would deem not up to the standards of their press. Nicolas-Hays is a scholarly press that created a name in academic circles as a premier publisher of Jungian psychology. Formerly an imprint of the publishing powerhouse, Samuel Weiser, the foremost American purveyor of serious Occultism and Eastern Philosophy, Nicolas-Hays emerged from a lofty tradition, and then became a critically acclaimed publisher in its own right. Although a small press by volume, I was now in the big leagues and their standards are very high.
You see, when it comes to manuscripts, my editor has the mercy of pro football middle linebacker sacking a quarterback with the game on the line. She has been in the business for decades and will not hold back on criticism for a writer under contract to spare their precious feelings. As a rule, I keep the actual text of my manuscripts in progress a complete secret to family and friends. Not even my wife was allowed to read as much as a single paragraph. When I sent the manuscript in to meet my deadline, I was sure that my editor would declare it unworthy of publication, using a series of four letter words.
Weeks passed by without any comment. I put the manuscript away – not looking at it again until it was time to do the final editing some ten months later. I turned to the Gohonzon and determined to take whatever criticism was coming in a positive way. Finally, she wrote back to tell me that my manuscript was great and that my writing had taken a quantum leap forward. Hmmm?! With the exception of text rearrangement, additions to the narrative, there were hardly any changes that had to be made in the manuscript. I wondered if she actually read the same manuscript that I had sent to her. I was shocked. How could I have so underestimated my work and tortured myself to such a degree? I realized that my experience was one of learning humility. It was a hard lesson learned for an alpha-male.
Before the actual publication of the book, and receiving my author’s copies, I began the arduous task of setting up the promotional end of marketing the book. The publisher is running ads in the Shambhala Sun (Nov. issue page 100), Tricycle, and the New Age Retailer. My publicist gets a book on her desk like a widget on an assembly line. For each type of book, there are set lists of reviewers who receive a copy, there are special bookstores where the book is heavily promoted, and the publicist tries to get coverage in the media, as well as radio and television time for the author. The publicist gives the book a hearty push, whether it goes much further or tanks depends on market forces, timeliness of the subject, and the quality of the product. The author’s job is to set-up book signings, find ways to get more publicity such as the Internet, newspaper articles, etc., and you speak to as many people as possible. The process consumes many hours every day. It’s like pushing a car up a hill until it can roll down the other side by its own momentum.
Finally, I had my first book signing on October 1st. The venue was Transitions Bookplace in Chicago, just north of Old Town. Although only 30 people came, it proved to be a resounding success. I must admit, returning to your hometown in victory is a wonderful feeling.
Timing, as they say, is everything. The night before, the world famous artist, Alex Grey, did a small exhibition and book signing drawing hundreds of people. Alex Grey is an original that paints with a dynamic flair that embodies an electric dharma, if you will. More power to him – he does great work; in fact, his paintings put energy and consciousness into coherent form that perfectly illustrate the visualizations that I describe in my book. Ironically, I had contacted him about a year ago to inquire about the possibility of using some of his transcendental art for my book cover. Maybe next time Alex, when my pockets are a little deeper; this time, I chose a fractal shaped like a wheel. It’s not Alex Grey, but it ain’t too shabby either.
After my presentation, that included a guided meditation using Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, I opened up the floor for questions. There were many. One woman had come because her 33-year-old daughter was dying of metastatic breast cancer that had invaded her lungs and brain. Her daughter was trying to be hopeful even though she was up against the wall. I was able to reach out to the mother and provide some much-needed guidance on the power of daimoku to transform seemingly impossible situations, without giving her false hope. We vowed to stay in touch and put her daughter in my prayers.
Also present was author, Bill Sweet, the past president of Spindrift, a world leader in prayer research. Bill, a Christian Scientist and expert on the “modern science” of prayer, is an avid supporter of my work. We have discussed putting daimoku to the test in the laboratory, as they have done to many other types of prayer for the past twenty-five years. His book, “A Journey Into Prayer: Pioneers of Prayer in the Laboratory,” documents the decades of research of the Spindrift founders to scientifically analyze the power of prayer in exerting effects on bean sprouts, mold, and other non-human, non-animal test subjects. Their choice of test subjects is used to rule out the placebo effect among other moral issues of praying for or withholding prayer from sentient beings. Spindrift also has scrutinized the measurable influence of targeted and open-ended prayer (that does not mandate a specific outcome).
My philosophy on Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is that it must be studied like other prayer and meditation is currently being studied. We (the SGI and Nichiren Shoshu) have made countless claims to the supremacy of our mantra above all other mantras, meditations, and prayer modalities. The consensus of current scientific research carried out at Harvard University and elsewhere, is that all affirmative prayer or affirmations produce the “relaxation response.” This phenomenon causes a measurable and repeatable boost to the immune system. There have been some spiritual disciplines such as Transcendental Meditation that were certain that their mantra was “special,” and more efficient than any others were. That assertion was proven wrong. What if daimoku was no more effective than the Lords Prayer, or “Thy will be done,” or a secular affirmation that proclaimed, “I will overcome?” At some point, we’re going to find out. Regardless of the outcome, it will not change my faith or belief in the greatness of daimoku.
A couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary that evening came to hear me speak. So much for romance.
Perhaps the most unusual happening was after I finished the question and answer period. A middle-aged Hispanic man approached the microphone and announced that he had come in to the store with a severe migraine. When he heard me narrate the visualization and chant daimoku, he felt an electric vibration travel from the top of his head to his feet – which began to tingle. He told the audience that his headache had completely disappeared, but his feet were still tingling. “I just wanted everyone to know that,” he said.
It was an important evening. It is extremely rewarding to teach people how to use the healing potential within them. As I gazed at the stars on my long trip home, I prayed that there would be more opportunities to help those in need.