Download Guidance for the New Year

The President’s Guidance for the New Year
Live Every Day Responsibly
Nichiko Niwano
Following the Spirit of the Members’ Vow
I wish you a happy new year.
This year is a milestone for me, since it is now twenty years since I
inherited the Lamp of the Dharma.
There is the expression “Ten years is one long time,” and I think in my
life since then, two long times have elapsed. I want to express my deep gratitude
to all you members who have lent your support both publicly and privately.
In the last twenty years many things have happened both inside and
outside our organization. Even today, I recall the passing of Founder Nikkyo
Niwano as if it were yesterday. It happened almost eight years after I became the
second president of Rissho Kosei-kai.
In the founder’s last years, somewhere in my mind I prepared myself for
the fact that he would die someday. I wanted to relieve, if even a little, any
uneasiness or unrest over that among members.
After inheriting the Lamp of the Dharma, I often talked about the Truth
and the Dharma of impermanence, because I wished to prepare members for the
founder’s eventual passing.
If we compare our organization to a train, the founder was the
locomotive. With a powerful locomotive, all that the cars behind it have to do is
let the locomotive pull them. However, no locomotive has the power to run
forever, and a train will stop if the locomotive loses power.
Although I am Rissho Kosei-kai’s second president, I am not as strong as
the founder. So I have come to think all the “cars,” that is, all our members, must
run on their own power, pooling all their strength; by doing so we can keep the
train moving forward.
Since the founder’s death, my frequent reminders to “make yourself the
light, make the Dharma your light” and “a true and independent faith” and the
like, have come from an ardent desire for all of us to awaken to the knowledge
that each and every one of us naturally has the ability, without relying on
someone else, to recognize the Truth and the Dharma and to put this into
practice and moreover to convey it to other people and lead them along the way
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to liberation.
No one would be more disappointed than the founder if, after his
passing, the train no longer ran and dissemination of the teachings ceased. For
the past twenty years I have taken great care to prevent that.
In 1998 I published Shinden o tagayasu (Cultivating the Buddhist Heart),
and in the preface I wrote, “I believe Shakyamuni had only one objective on his
missionary travels, and that was to convey the Truth and the Dharma to people
and thereby enable them to recognize the true path to salvation.”
For the cover of that book I chose an illustration of a peach, a chestnut,
and a persimmon in reference to the saying, “Peach and chestnut tress take three
years [to bear fruit], but the persimmon takes eight years.” My thought was that
it takes time to truly understand the essence of Buddhism, and the amount of
time depends on the person.
Now, for instance when I am listening to members’ personal Dharma
journeys, I truly get the feeling that their understanding is steadily deepening
and that it is not simply a relief from sufferings but a devotion to moving toward
true liberation.
Pursuing true liberation is by no means my own idea. It has already been
stated plainly in the Members’ Vow. The Members’ Vow was created a half
century ago, and although parts of it have been revised since then, I am amazed
that a vow that contains the essence of Buddhism was created so soon.
There may be some who recite the Members’ Vow casually and do not
pay much attention to its very important message. I would like for all of us once
again, as we recite the Members’ Vow, to devote ourselves to keeping it in its
truest sense.
As we look ahead to Rissho Kosei-kai’s centenary, may each and every
one of us become a cheerful, gentle, warm person, aspiring to build religious
communities and sanghas that are firmly based on the true nature of Buddhism,
and together let us walk the path of liberating others as well as ourselves.
The study of the Dharma need not be stiff and formal; it can be done
through happy, cheerful repetition. That will deepen your understanding of the
significance of installing an image of the Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni and the
Dharma titles of the founder and cofounder at your home altar, and make you
grateful for having good friends in the Dharma.
I think installing an image of the Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni and the
Dharma titles of the founder and cofounder, studying the Dharma, and nurturing
good friends in the Dharma, should all be tied together, through enjoyable study
of the Dharma, rather than considered separately.
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Serving as an Oasis for Society
A new addition to this year’s guiding principles is the injunction to become a
cheerful, gentle, warm person. The most important human qualities are
cheerfulness in knowledge of the teachings, warm compassion, and gentle
consideration for others.
There is a saying, “Concentration on just one thing, that is, showing a
kind face, should be a human being’s lifelong endeavor.” The point here is that
becoming a cheerful, gentle, warm person and then communing with other
people is at the root of creating even better families, workplaces, and
communities.
For those who are ordinarily hard to please or disagreeable, this may
seem a bit too high a hurdle. But I have recently learned that since cheerfulness,
gentleness, and warmth are inherent in everyone, they are not things for which
we need to strive. We only need to avoid things like grumbling, ignorance,
whining, criticizing, and complaining, which weigh us down like heavy stones.
Our aim is reasonable for anyone, which is to serve as an oasis for
society―each and every one of us by becoming cheerful, gentle, warm people.
This year, we will renew our readiness for sharing the Dharma with
others and cherishing every individual. In short, we will make our Buddhist
organization an oasis, who’s Dharma Centers, chapters, and sanghas are places
to rest the body and soothe the mind. My hope is that renewal will be carried out
at each level without losing sight of this fundamental aim.
Problems such as the recession and unemployment have been piling up
around the world. Especially in these times it becomes important to study the
teachings carefully and make good use of them. I have learned that phenomena
have no positives or negatives, but are neutral. There is no light or dark in
worldly phenomena. They all depend on how we look at them. And we should
become aware of the things that we have already been given, that we are always
surrounded by blessings, and be grateful for them. That is how the Buddha sees
life, and it is the plain truth.
“If your viewpoint changes, you will change. If you change, the world
will change.” I believe that taking this to heart and engaging with the things that
are in front of you will always open up the future to you.
We think about tomorrow, but once we get a night’s sleep and awake in
the morning, tomorrow becomes today. We are always living today. I think of
every step toward our organization’s centenary in the same way. Following the
guiding principles and looking in the important directions set out in the
Members’ Vow, I look forward to applying myself throughout this year, together
with all of you, according to the motto “Live every day responsibly.”
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