Emerging from the Earth

SGI President Ikeda’s Daily Encouragement for 29th December

I hope you can develop the ability to discern true human greatness. A great person is someone who forges unity among human beings through sincere dialogue, armed with a solid philosophy, feet firmly planted on the ground. A great person is one who lives among the people and earns their unshakable trust. Fickle popularity and temporary fads are nothing but illusions.

Last year we posted regularly a column called Stand-Alone Spirit by two SGI members: Brad and Cybele. Each had faced the challenge of practicing in isolation and were sharing their stories. To celebrate the coming year and its spirit of hope in the face of challenge, I am reposting Cybele’s story. If you have any Stand-Alone Spirit stories of encouragement you’d like to share, please send them in.

Cybele’s Story

I got a taste of the stand-alone sprit when I joined the United States Peace Corps in September of 2004. I was assigned to work in a Muslim country as a small business development advisor. Alone in my mountain village, my SGI-USA publications and daimoku sustained me. It was the first time in my life that I had lived without the SGI.

It was also the first time that I had to explain Buddhism to people who practiced a non-Western religion. Most Westerners ask me questions like, “Do you believe in God?” or “Does Buddhism forbid eating meat?” I confronted a new round of questions one day as I sat in my friend Zahra’s house. She showed me a photo of the recently passed pope in an Arab newspaper. “I’m sorry your baba died,” she said.

“It’s not my baba,” I replied. “But thank you for saying so.

Her sisters looked up from their needlework and asked me what my religion was. “I am Buddhist.” I explained, knowing that they had never heard the word. The girls circled around me with wide eyes. They asked me who my prophet was, what book my prayers came from, and was that book the word of God? I wasn’t sure how to answer that one. “Ours is,” they said.

Another time, I was at my neighbor Fatima’s house where the village women were convening; another neighbor was going into labor so we all sat with her until it was time to go to the clinic. Someone asked about my religion and I began to answer the same questions with thought-out answers. “But how do you pray?” a woman asked. “Like us?” She demonstrated the Muslim prayers by sinking to her knees and touching her forehead and palms to the ground.

“No, like this.” I said. I turned to face the wall and knelt (had I faced, them, they would have thought I was committing idolatry by praying to them). I placed my palms together and recited three daimoku. When I turned back to the women, they smiled. “It’s very nice,” one said.

For two years, I essentially chanted alone. There were a couple clandestine SGI members in the capitol city, so I visited them once a month or so. It took me seven hours and about a week of my paltry salary to get there, but it was well worth it. Those members took care of me like I was their long-lost daughter, showering me with food and gifts. Being with them reminded me that I wasn’t the only Buddhist in the world.

That may seem like an exaggeration, but try to imagine the loneliness of suddenly becoming deaf, dumb, illiterate, and alone all at once. That’s what happened in my village until I learned to speak the local dialect and form relationships. With no one to talk to about Buddhist things, it was easy for the sense of isolation to take over.

A funny thing happened, though: with nothing and no one to rely on but my prayers and study, my faith grew to a new level. Actually, it turned to rock, like a mountain rising beneath me to lift me out of my delusions. It got stronger, harder, and higher. The impossible thing happened: I felt at home in my village. I became a part of my community. The usual obstacles arose but I was too strong to let them sway me.

I’ve been back in the states since December of 2006. It’s exhilarating to be able to call SGI members and chant with them whenever I want. I love my new district. Of course, I have plenty of challenges and I am not happy all the time. But nothing ever gets in the way of my faith and determination. I know, on a fundamental level, that everything will in fact turn out just fine, because I have the power to make it so.

• Buddhism Day by Day: Guard the Truth of Life
• Itai Doshin
• Buddhism Day by Day: Live with a Dancing Spirit

Live with a dancing spirit. The stars in the heavens are dancing through space, the earth never ceases to spin. All life is dancing: the trees with the wind, the waves on the sea, the birds, the fish, all are performing their own dance of life. Every living thing is dancing, and you must keep dancing, too for the rest of your life!

-Much thanks to Buddhism Day by Day

A society that has sacrificed so much to material wealth that it has forgotten the human heart and the better human aspirations degenerates into something compassionless, doctrinaire, ignorant and ultraconservative. When this happens, fundamental solutions to calamities become impossible. If we protect the truth and are resolute, we are capable of creating peace and prosperity. And the truth we must protect ought to be high and great. Our great truth-the thing that we must protect to the utmost-involves ethics and the best of human nature. But more basic than anything else is our duty to guard the truth of life, the truth that we and the universe are one, and that a single ordinary human thought contains the entirety of universal life.

from Buddhism Day by Day. Much thanks to http://www.sgi-usa.org/encouragement/dbd.php

Let’s value our neighbors
  and treat them with sincere and
  warm-hearted consideration
  so that we can earn their trust.
Buddhism stresses the importance
  of our behavior as human beings.
  
Above is a translation of “To My Friends” based on President Ikeda’s recent guidance, published in the Seikyo Shimbun.

–わが友に贈る–
近隣を大切に !　
「さすが」 と言われる
　誠実さを !　
こまやかな配慮を !　
仏法は 「人の振舞」

–WAGA TOMO NI OKURU–
KINRIN WO TAISETSU NI!
“SASUGA” TO IWARERU
  SEIJITSU SA WO!
KOMAYAKA NA HAIRYO WO!
BUPPO WA “HITO NO FURUMAI”

Hello from the the southernmost city in the continental USA, Key West, Florida. We have SGI meetings at my home every week or so. Please come by and chant with us if you’re in the area!

Mark Meyer

the.old.grump@gmail.com

Hi! I am Carol from SGI Philippines! It is always revitalizing and inspiring to read your messages!
I have come to practice the stand-alone spirit at work when I had to move our from my comfort zone in pursuit of better career. Had I not developed myself as a Young Woman’s Division member and leader, I couldn’t have survived the harshness reality offers.

Submitted on 2008/06/02 at 11:53pm

HI FRIEND.
I´M MEMBER OF THE SOKA GAKKAI INTERNACIONAL.
I LIVE IN LIMA-PERU.

MY ADRESS ELECTRONIC IS:

alfredo.valverde@hotmail.com

good bye.
RONALD ALFREDO VALVERDE Y.
LIMA-PERU

Submitted on 2008/03/15 at 2:04pm

Hi NHRK, I am a Soka Member from New Dehi, India. We would to show your video “March 16th Introductory’ during our Zadankai tomorrow. Is it possible for you to send us the downloadable file of the same.

Please reply

My coordinates are.

Rajesh Kumar Maini
rajeshkumarmaini@gmail.com
Tel: +91 989 911 6433

Thank you for such a wonderful experience. Just wandering through looking for great SGI sites and found this Center City district blog area. Keep up the good work.

Well done!

I’d be interested to know more about how the clandestine SGI members cope & see their world… any chance you can get them to share that with us? I think it is quite important.

–TO MY FRIENDS–
Our society is in
an evil age defiled by the five impurities.(*)
Don’t be deceived by fraud.
Let’s watch out for one another to ensure
that we see through and detect cunning lies.
Let’s protect the safety zone of our
respective communities.

(*)They refer to the impurity of the age, of desire, of living beings,
of thought (or view), and of life span.

Above is a translation of “To My Friends” that is based on President
Ikeda’s recent guidance, published in the Seikyo Shimbun.

–わが友に贈る–
五濁悪世の社会だ。
詐欺に騙されるな！
皆で声を掛け合い
巧妙な嘘を見破れ！
地域の安全地帯を護れ！

–WAGA TOMO NI OKURU–
GOJOKU-AKUSE NO SHAKAI DA.
SAGI NI DAMASARERU NA!
MINA DE KOE WO KAKE AI
KOMYO NA USO WO MIYABURE!
CHIIKI NO ANZEN CHITAI WO MAMORE!