A function in algebra is like a machine. Imagine a big machine full of pipes, pulleys, levers and other mad-inventor stuff. Anything you feed into it will come out changed -- but always in the same way.

So you can have a f(x)=h2 function, for example. This will multiply the height of anything you put into it by 2.

Imagine now that this function is actually a door. A door standing in the middle of nowhere. If you walk through this door, you're suddenly in a world where everything's height is double what it is over here! All these tall lanky people lumbering up steep flights of stairs to get to their flats... Some cloud-surfing elephants whose legs disappear into the sunset....

Isn't imagination a wonderful thing?

No?

I shall proceed.

Now comes the moment for a big leap of logic. Perhaps it can serve to explain stuff to some of the more math minded among us.

Nichiren Daishonin lived in 13th century Japan -- a time of valour and swords it may have been, but a time of big math maybe not. So a mirror was a good example to use then, because people knew what it was, and they still know now.

The Gohonzon is like a mirror in that it is a reflection of our life. So by chanting to the Gohonzon, we are chanting to ourselves. There are a lot of other things that are very well explained by this analogy. But I'll take it a bit further:

The Gohonzon is a function which is reflective. By stepping through this door, you will immediately find yourself in an enlightened world where you and everything else is shining with Buddhahood. So you are chanting to yourself on the other side of the function.

But that self is not exactly the same "you" as it would be in a mirror. It is your enlightened self. So I conclude that the function is:

f(x)=Bx

Where B is enlightenment. Of course, B is intrinsic to x and is made from our chanting. So this is actually a recursive function, but that's another story.

I hope you have enjoyed my little math lesson. Now I bid you all farewell, as I don my top hat and my elephant stilt-walker legs, and walk off into the sunset spreading enlightenment into my world.