Well, it's finally official.

It's now standard practice unavailable to do the kind of gongyo that most of us have been doing for years. We called it "A & C" or "drive-by" or "short" gongyo. Instead of reciting the sutra five and three times in the morning and evening respectively, most of us were doing just the verse parts of the Hoben and Juryo chapters, once through.

Then we'd chant daimoku, of course. And sometimes we'd feel a little guilty, like we were cutting corners or cheating somehow.

Now, no more guilt.

What? No guilt trip in the SGI? That's impossible!

I've always been a bit of a rebel. That means, regardless of what the SGI-USA has prescribed in terms of doctrine and practice, I have always felt free to practice in my own style. I feel that it's my duty to embrace only those doctrines that I can find clear support for in the Lotus Sutra and the writings of Nichiren.

I have been lucky that the people in my district have a "live and let live" view of such things. Other districts have their sticklers. For thirty years, the sticklers berated people who did anything other than old-style "5 & 3" gongyo. Now I wonder if the sticklers will suddenly berate people for doing anything other than "A & C" gongyo. Myoho can be funny that way.

I've always clashed with sticklers, so I'm one of the last people you'd expect to be sad about the change in gongyo. I do feel sad. I feel nostalgic and melancholy. I miss the old, "long" gongyo.

I remember fighting my way through LA traffic to get to an evening meeting. If I was lucky, I'd arrive just before gongyo. The room would fill with frazzled people like me who had also been battling traffic, lousy jobs, difficult relationships, illness.

The bell would ring and we would start the longest part of gongyo. We usually sounded awful. The part of gongyo known as "B" (which we no longer recite in meetings) was like slow torture. Our voices bleated wearily.

Then, after a few moments of silent prayer, we'd go back to the beginning and recite parts A & C again. During the second time through, our voices grew stronger and more harmonious.

At last, for the third and final time, we went back to the beginning and recited A & C. By this time, the room was rocking! Our voices were unified. It was like we had taxied down a long, long runway to gain speed. We took off into the wild blue yonder as we launched into the chanting of daimoku.

It took about fifteen or twenty minutes of sutra recitation to get to that launching place. From that place, we chanted maybe five or ten minutes of daimoku. That may not sound like much, but there was a quality to that daimoku, an intensity, that is indescribable.

It makes me sad to think that future members of the SGI will not know from experience what I'm talking about.

As I said, I've done "A & C" gongyo for most of my practice. But I will be the first to tell you there were times when that little gongyo book -- all of it, A, B and C, five times in the morning, three times in the evening -- saved my life.

We have all gone through times of grief or hopelessness where we found it difficult if not impossible to chant. During such times, I knew that my life desperately needed the stabilizing effect that Buddhist practice has, but I literally could not face the Gohonzon. I could not chant.

I sat down in front of my altar and opened my gongyo book. I recited the syllables that appeared on the page. The words carried me from one page to the next, without any effort from me. It was like the sutra took my hand and led me through the maze of my own pain and confusion. All I had to do was hold on. I just followed the book and did not worry about anything but pronouncing the syllables. That's what got me through a very rough time.

It makes me sad that future SGI members will not have this same gongyo book.

Much as I find the "B" part of gongyo a chore, I can also see it as a journey. There is value in taking that journey sometimes, even if it is arduous, even if I have taken it a hundred times.

I am also nostalgic for the way my life changed when I first challenged myself to learn "full" gongyo and recite it twice a day. It took discipline. I was young and wild (in my early twenties) and had no discipline.

Gongyo was hard. I had to work for it. I had to want it. Ever since I learned gongyo, I have been able to apply personal discipline and focus to every other aspect of my life. I am a much better person for it.

The word "gongyo" means "assiduous practice." Nichiren never strictly prescribed what formula of sutra recitation constitutes assiduous practice. So "A & C" recitation plus lots of daimoku would probably be OK with him.

Plus, the change in official gongyo does make the practice of Nichiren Buddhism more accessible to a wider number of people. This is good.

I doubt that the "new" gongyo makes practice any easier, though. Buddhist practice is not an easy thing. Confronting our own lives at the deepest level is never easy.

That's the long and short of it.