It's so basic, but I often forget. I sometimes find myself in a mental pattern of wanting to reject what I perceive as "bad." I want to purge it, make it go away.
Specifically, I've been dealing with "bad medicine," as one of my dear friends calls it. Most of us would probably refer to it as anger, jealousy, curses and ill will from others in our environment.
I have no doubt that these energies (for lack of a better word) are real and potent. If someone is hating on you, you're going to feel it (if you have any sensitivity) and it's going to hurt. It's meant to hurt you, but it also hurts the person who is originating or broadcasting an ugly emotion and the intent to harm....
This type of behavior has become commonplace in our daily lives. But we aren't really very good (as a culture) at dealing with aggression and nasty intentions. A lot of it is textbook relational aggression -- hurtful gossip, backbiting, character assassination, deliberately not including the target in meetings or even social conversations. It happens in every workplace to at least some degree.
For a few weeks, I have been dealing with an episode of "bad medicine" by praying for bad spirits/energies/intentions (take your pick) to depart, and for good energies to take their place. I keep telling the harmful energies that they are not welcome, and that this is not a comfortable place for them to take up residence.
As I was reciting portions of the Lotus Sutra yesterday morning, it occurred to me that the Lotus rejects nothing. It doesn't purge "bad" and glorify "good." Rather, it harmonizes them.
In the gosho, Nichiren mentions the story of a woman who stomped on the Lotus Sutra. As the story goes, her feet attained enlightenment because they had formed a relationship with the sutra. The fact that it was a "bad" relationship was irrelevant.
This story has been employed to justify the taking and dishing out of abuse in some religious organizations. Somehow, it is believed, the "good" of the Lotus Sutra will overpower the "bad."
Yet I don't think it's so simple. I think somehow, the promise of practicing the Lotus Sutra is not that we become so good that we automatically wipe out all badness. Rather, I think the sutra recognizes darkness and negativity as facts of life. It suggests that through devotion to the Lotus we can use darkness to propel us to a place where even "the sufferings of daily life are nirvana."
As I said, it's such a basic lesson, but one that I lose sight of. In Nichiren practice, the emphasis is not on eliminating suffering or eliminating delusion, making them go away. The emphasis is on transforming suffering and delusion into something beneficial.
At the level of the Lotus Sutra, there's no good energy versus bad energy. It's all just energy, and it all can be used as fuel for illumination and awakening.
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Yes, it seems this topic has come up before although I cannot remember my comments. Speaking only for myself, I have observed that I tend to get a fixed idea in my mind about how I want circumstances to work out, then I chant for that to happen. In certain circles, this is considered correct practice. For me, it is a lazy frame of mind. In this mode, I am presuming to tell the Gohonzon what needs to happen in order for all beings to benefit. That is a ludicrous approach, of course. I do not know what the most beneficial outcome of a particular situation should be.Prayer is powerful, and prayer rooted in the Lotus Sutra is particularly powerful because of the transformative capacity you describe. When I chant about practical issues in my life and the lives of others, I find that offering daimoku in an open spirit feels best to me. For example, I chant for the safety, well-being and happiness of a troublesome individual rather than for the troublesome person to leave my environment.
Hola, Brooke, Auntie,Thank you for such thoughtful posts. I am still thinking about them. Auntie said:
For a decade, Auntie, I had a supervisor who was just plain cruel but only to some people. She had her "chosen few" who were "okay" beings. This was during the era when the SGI was telling people to chant for other people's happiness. So, I chanted for her happiness and she was soon happily cruel to me. I had bumped her hellish nature up to rapture/hell and she was fine with it. Finally, she retired and spends time with her chosen ones and everybody is happier about her not being here any more.As for the troublesome person leaving one's environment, that's true, what you say. Snoopy once said, "I climbed over the fence, but I was still in the world." However, we have a certain dean that might be a much happier man if he retired and went fishing with his family. If he went to another Univ., they would have as much trouble with him as we do with many fewer beings to chant/pray about him.So, I am wondering how this approach is going for you. We have been having troubles with really terrible behavior for some time in my city and at my place of work. There has been some significant improvement now. It was one of the first things I wrote about on this board, if you remember that. Spiritual protection or somesuch.I am hearing this increasingly from other places, too. People with an attitude of "I don't care, I don't have to. The hell with you. I will get what I want however I want it." They don't understand Cause and Effect, which seems to me to be being somewhat recalcitrant of late, for some reason, and they seem to have lost that basic human philosophical value of just being decent, generous, and kind.How's it going, Auntie?Best,ArmchairHello, Armchair. Yes, I vaguely remember a previous discussion on this topic. My life circumstances are perhaps different than yours. I do not have bosses and co-workers anymore, although I used to. A workplace can be a difficult environment because people don't seem to realize that they are there voluntarily. They say, "I can't leave. I have to be here. I have bills to pay and a family to support. I can't go out an get another job. Just look at this economy." So there's always an attitude of resentment in the air, and bosses take it out on their underlings, and co-workers take it out on their peers.I will let you in on a little secret. I do chant for people to be happy and for their suffering to depart. The secret? I chant for myself this way, too. I chant for my happiness and for my suffering to depart. Sometimes a troublesome person leaves my environment quite naturally. Sometimes I leave the situation quite naturally. So I like to keep it open. As I said, I do not know what the solution should be, and I have found that a prayer to the Gohonzon can bring a surprising response. I have been known to ask for blessings -- in other words, to beseech the Gohonzon for "benefit" -- but I know better than to give the Gohonzon marching orders.Ultimately, I find that the people in my environment reflect something about attraction. Nichiren attracted quite a few spiteful, punishing individuals into his life, and he recognized the potential good fortune of this. Because hell's guards torment us, we long to escape from hell. Chanting attracts problems. That has been my experience. Problems and persecutions befall even saints and sages, Nichiren tells us.Knowing this, why would anyone ever begin to chant? This is the million-dollar question. I shall hazard an answer: One chants because one feels a particular sense of mission to transform the pain or problem one has encountered. The "solution" is usually not so simple and obvious as "the troublemaker needs to go away."Go away where? Go away to cause misery to someone else? In that case, can we say that the problem has been transformed? Hasn't it merely been shifted from our immediate sphere into someone else's?That said, my advice about how to chant is totally worthless, of course. Nichiren urged us to chant. He did not say "keep your prayer open" or any such nonsense that I offer. Just chant. Still, we wonder when our prayers do not appear to be heard or answered. It is a dark, difficult time when one feels this way.
It doesn't matter what you chant for because it will never happen the way you think it should anyway. The way you should view practice is to first of all be consistent in your practice, and second, always take the high road if you are chanting for some thing or for someone. You need not worry about how something will turn out. The faith comes from it always turning out in your favor.Third, the fact is that we have to overcome our karma. It doesn't go away just because we chant. What actually happens is that it speeds up in the manifestation, but it is controlled through practice so that it manifests at times when you can handle it.The goal is to attain enlightenment, but you can't get there till you overcome your karma. It has to manifest, so also view this as proof, not just hard times. Also remember that in hard times benefit is easy to see. In easy times, benefit is hard to see.