There has recently been a discussion on Zadankai (the discussion meeting that never ends) regarding the new Soka Gakkai International silent prayers. I began using my own version of the silent prayers in the early 90’s, after I “discovered” so much of Nichiren Shoshu theology didn’t match history.
I thought that I would take the ever-so-bold step and publish my prayers, which are a combination of the ones I originally learned with Gongyo in the early 80’s with some newer “updates”. The trick is, being the clever evil monkey I am, to formulate my prayers so they fit into whatever format is currently being used, thus being able to lead gongyo at meetings without a hiccup.
First Prayer (from the 1979 Nichiren Shoshu gongyo book)
I offer gratitude to Bonten, Taishaku, Nitten, Gatten, Myojoten and all other Shoten Zenjin, the universal forces within all life, the guardians of Buddhism who night and day protect those who embrace the Gohonzon.
Second Prayer
I offer gratitude and deepest appreciation to Nichiren Daishonin, the Buddha of the later day of the law who inscribed the Gohonzon and chanted Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for all mankind. I offer gratitude to all those sincere priests throughout the history of Nichiren’s Buddhism who have transmitted his true spirit of mercy and compassion until this day.
Third Prayer (includes excerpts from the 1992 SGI Gongyo book)
I sincerely pray for the earliest possible realization of Kosen Rufu throughout the world. I pray that the Soka Gakkai International develop eternally in this endeavor. I offer gratitude to Tsunesuburo Makigushi and Josei Toda for their selfless dedication to the propagation of the law.
Forth Prayer (excerpts from the 1979 NSS book)
I pray to erase my negative karma created by my own past causes and to fulfill my wishes in this life and in the future (I include my own personal prayers here, mostly for the safety and fulfillment of my family, friends and members).
I pray for all of my deceased relatives and all who have passed away (Includes my relatives and family members by name)
(This last paragraph comes directly from the 1979 book)
Lastly I pray for the Gohonzon’s impartial benefits to spread throughout the world and to bring peace and happiness to all mankind and the entire universe.
Funny – I have never seen these in writing. Though I’ve been doing them in my mind for years (in one form or another) when I began documenting them I found I couldn’t recall much of the content and am sitting in my chair shrouded with books spanning two decades. If I have written them down correctly they should fit into the current format. I’ll try them out and let you know if they do!
Please report any typos!
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi
Today I received something in the mail. That’s the POSTAL mail, not e-mail….
I really didn’t know how to feel when I opened the box. My friend had sent me something she made, herself.
I don’t get gifts often. I don’t recall ever being given a gift of this – uh… caliber? Of this quality? With this significance? Hell, I don’t really know what to call it, how to feel about it and certainly how to thank her properly. I mean, I will of course, it’s just that this gift, it’s just so – uh intense? Awesome? Bitchin? It’s just a really good gift.
On the gift scale of 1 to 10, this is definitely a 10. It’s a top-rate gift, definitely in the upper echelon as far as gifts go. An equivalent store-bought gift would have to be, say, maybe a Rolex Submariner watch, perhaps a Gen III Night vision monocular, or maybe a dive trip to the crater of Molokini on the Island of Maui.
This gift is needle-point, and apparently good work. A woman at my office does needle point and was very impressed at the detail. I noticed the gold thread running around the inscription. I’ve largely been avoiding the gift, and only while writing did I begin to understand why…
I guess I don’t feel I deserve something of this magnitude and I suppose that bothers me.
I deserve the trip to Maui, or the watch, but not this. This gift is too much so I’m avoiding it for now. In time I’ll pick it up and examine its wonderful detail. For the time being it’s in the corner that houses my Shidoshi license, 6th Dan certificate from Hatsumi Soke, and my Shoden license from Kenshinsai Machida Koncho, as well as my swords.
In time I will mount it up on the wall, above these certificates because frankly this gift has more talismanic power than the rest, and in the final analysis I have to believe that having a friend like Danna give me something like this gift says more about who I am than all my certificates and licenses put together.
Thank you Danna…
Greg
I will be away from my temple for the week. If you came hoping to reply to blogs about how SGI is a cult, terrorism, or Ninja, please don't let my absence stop you....
Rev. Greg
If you haven’t already read in past blogs, I dive. I started diving when I was in junior high, teaching myself to freedive, how to breathe, how to equalize my ears. I’ve read about diving, studied diving, dove when I had the chance and then – finally having reached the twilight years of my 40’s and having also relocated to the coastal city of Salinas California (just inland from the Monterey Coast) I began diving in earnest.
Like everything in my life I do not consider myself much of a tourist, rather I am in constant love with process, the doing of the thing rather than using the activity as a modality to go places, see things. Diving has always been the one path I have chosen to do by myself.
Living in a society necessitates asking permission for many things; I ask permission to drive when I renew my license, I ask permission every couple of years when I renew my EMT certification. Other things I do not ask permission to do, religion for instance.
My Shidoshi licensing in the Bujinkan is the permission I most highly value. I have worked the hardest and suffered the most for this particular certification and hold it among the highest of my “validations” in my life. Martial Arts would be pointless without a tribe in which to train, especially in this society where I am not called upon to fight on a regular basis.
Diving is a twitchy thing though – the “sport” of diving is the classic science meets religion. Through out the last 3 decades, practically the total time that modern scuba diving certification and training has been available to the those other than ex-UDT members and competitive swimmers, each period has presented new technological advances in dive marketing making this sport more widely accessible to a wider variety of human beings including the elderly, the very young, the physically out-of-shape and even the handicapped.
Do not misunderstand, it is wonderful that so many people can explore a “world within a world” that is, the world of the undersea, but in truth diving is still not a safe activity. There are many very serious medical risks associated with breathing compressed gas under the pressure of the ocean waters. Not many people died decades ago mostly because not many people dove. Now with so many people diving people still die, though the sport has been made safer. Even freedivers, or breath-hold divers (which is what I primarily do) run the risk of blacking out and dying.
The point I wish to make is that diving is fraught with religion, the religion of the illusion of safety. Any particular generation of divers all dive with the same training and virtually the same equipment set-up due to the belief that “this is the only safe way to dive” when in fact advances in diving technology have as much to do with marketing as anything else. Safety in diving is closely related to market expansion and profit margins as it is the safety and survival of divers.
There is one area of diving that remains as controversial as say, downloading your own Gohonzon off of the internet - Solo Diving. Solo diving is the heretical sect of Diving Shu. From the beginning of modern sport diving the community has taken faith in the orthodox doctrine of the “buddy system”. However recently there have been a couple of good books written on solo diving which have re-examined the historical origins of the law of diving with a buddy. Examining the origins of any religion – by the way – always reveals interesting aspects and often shines new light on previously accepted dogma, at least to the open mind.
Here are some good articles for anyone with a further interest on the subject;
But of course seeing the vast marketing possibilities in this once forbidden variation those companies who sell diving training and certification were quick to respond. One company offers an actual course through which one can become a certified Solo Diver. Here is a marketing blurb from their website;
“We realize that many divers dive by themselves, but this in no way makes them "solo divers". They are neither trained nor knowledgeable in the hazards to which they may be exposing themselves. The SDI Solo Diving course examines the benefits, hazards, and proper procedures for planning and conducting solo dives. Completing this course empowers you with specific knowledge, enabling you to make a sound risk analysis when engaging in this type of diving. “
The marketing implications are endless. First, why does one need to be certified to be a diver? Most people, divers or not, know that scuba divers must be certified but why? Are there scuba cops stationed at all corners of the global oceans who will check your “c-card” to ensure proper licensure? No, of course there are not. In fact the only reason anyone must become certified is that nearly all dive shops throughout the world require a c-card of some level before they will rent you equipment or refill your scuba tanks. This is merely in order to protect themselves from later litigation follow accidental injury or death.
This new Solo Diver c-card does nothing. It may allow one to dive solo in a diving resort which employs a dive master to monitor dive activities, but there is no guarantee of this at all. No one is required to accept any dive c-card whatsoever as proof of any tangible thing. In the end, no one really cares whether you are a trained and experienced diver; they just don’t want to get sued when you kill yourself.
The inventiveness of the marketing of this course is what fascinates me. “We realize that many divers dive by themselves, but this in no way makes them ‘solo divers’”. They have pirated ownership of the title “solo diver” and turned it into a rank of sorts, a permission implying that one can only achieve said rank if ones pays for and completes their course. In fact this only works if you are first convinced that “Solo Diver” is anything more than a functional description of an activity one does by themselves. I in fact am a solo diver. I dive alone. When I dive with others I cease to be a solo diver, and when I dive alone once again I become yet again a solo diver.
Let’s look at other applications of this selling technique;
“We realize that many people practice the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin, however this does not make them ‘Nichiren Buddhists’". They are neither trained nor knowledgeable in the hazards to which they may be exposing themselves. The “Rev. Greg Dilley course in Nichiren Buddhism” examines the benefits, hazards, and proper procedures for planning and conducting one’s practice of this Buddhism. Completing this course empowers you with specific knowledge, enabling you to make a sound risk analysis when engaging in this type of religious practice.”
But wait! There's more! If you call right now... And of course upon completion of my course you would get a bitchin' card.
Speaking for myself, asking permission is not a bad thing, it is either appropriate or inappropriate depending on what it is I ask permission to do. I believe we Buddhists need to understand this. I try and live by the motto “if you have to ask permission, the answer is no”. Playing by the rules of others is neither bad nor good, like everything in the universe, its just important that we understand when we should make our own rules, and when others should be expected to follow them.
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi
So now we know, American troops are humiliating Iraqi soldiers in the same prison that Saddam Hussein used to torture and kill untold numbers of Iraqi citizens, the Abu Ghraib prison.
Take a look;
http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2004/04/28819.php
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/
There are lots being said about these pictures. I’m not going to add my own high-horse moral judgment to the lot, it doesn’t matter at this point. What matters, to me anyway, is the real lesson – lesson hell – the reminder.
We’re all human.
Aliens peering down from some other planet would not see any difference between myself, Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler. We’re all human.
Certainly we try and disassociate from those members of our race who make us uncomfortable, Jeffrey Dalmer, Charles Manson, Hitler of course, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, and now – these poor stupid careless soldiers who have been playing dirty little games with their charges, the Iraqi prisoners for whom they were made responsible.
They’re not like us, they’re certainly not like ME, I’m good, and they are all bad. I could never do anything like that. You couldn’t either, could you?
Look at the pictures. One person has weighed on my mind for days. There are two pictures featuring this same young woman aiming an imaginary rifle at the Iraqi soldier’s genitals. So what is the woman’s major defect? Men issues? Over-bearing father figure? Was she molested as a child? Raped? The explanations are endless, and I’m not even a psychiatrist.
I am relatively confident about one theory, these young kids must have been scared shitless when they first saw the Iraqis. The average Iraqi soldier has already fought, killed, and logged numerous combat hours before most of our young vets had even enlisted. They often have little to eat, less sleep, and are generally more pissed off than any young pup we send over there.
I imagine that these young GI’s couldn’t help acting out as they have as a process of adaptation and assimilation. It’s just human nature.
I’d like to know what MORON decided they had to have pictures of the mess, and then send the pictures to their friends….
It’s all so wrong on so many levels, but at the final level, it is all as human as we all get.
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo,
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi
Engyo Mike Barrett wrote;
“Trust is a very interesting issue. I was taught once that you can trust absolutely anybody, on ONE CONDITION: You must trust them to be EXACTLY AS THEY ARE and not as you want or expect them to be. The trick becomes understanding them as they are and not as I think or feel they should be”.
There is a story…
about a scorpion and a frog. One day the scorpion, in his travels, came up to the edge of a great pond. Not wanting to travel all the way around the pond to get to the other side he approached a frog resting on a lily pad near by.
He called out to the frog, “Oh frog! Please, won’t you let me ride on your back to the other side of the pond?” The frog replied, naturally, “I would normally help any other creature who called upon me for assistance but you are a SCORPION and I am afraid that you would sting me and I would die!”
To this the scorpion answered, “I understand, but please be assured that if I stung you I, not being able to swim, would sink to the bottom and die myself!” The frog thought about this for several minutes and finally decided that in fact he would trust the scorpion and give him a ride on his back to the other side.
The scorpion and the frog swam to the middle of the pound when all of the sudden the scorpion raised it’s tail and stung the frog in the back several times. As the frog began to perish it asked in despair, “Why have you stung me when you yourself will certainly die?” To this the scorpion answered;
“Because I am a scorpion….”