Faith comes with Patience

January 6

"WE PRACTICE THIS BUDDHISM TO make our prayers and dreams come true and to achieve the greatest possible happiness. The purpose of Nichirent Daishonin's Buddhism is to enable us to realize victory. The fact that our prayers are answered proves the correctness of this teaching."

 January 7

"WHEN WE PLANT THE SEED OF happiness that is faith and carefully tend its growth, it will produce fruit without fail. We have to bear in mind, however, that we cannot plant a seed today and expect it to bear fruit tomorrow. That's not reasonable and Buddhism is reason. If we persevere in the practice of "faith equals daily life" in accord with reason, then our prayers will definitely be answered. This is Nichiren Daishonin's promise to us. And his words are true beyond any doubt."

 I have been having a hard time keeping up my faith for the past one year.  From having my prayers not answered, I kind of just slacked off. Well, this is a new year with new determinations and refreshed faith and belief! For the past 2 days, I have been consistently doing my morning and evening Gongyo. The above daily encouragements really stood out to me: Faith - Reason - Perseverance.

"We practice this Buddhism to make our prayers and dreams come true and to achieve the greatest possible happiness." What else could it be? Aren't we practicing this Buddhism is to overcome our own fundamental darkness (our negativity) and to achieve life-long happiness? Our dreams are our motivation to sit in front of the Gohonzon to chant and be consistent with our practice.  "The purpose of Nichirent Daishonin's Buddhism is to enable us to realize victory." This is a confirmation statement to me, assuring that as long as I keep forging on and not giving up my chanting - I WILL no doubt achieve my goals/dreams/happiness!

"We have to bear in mind, however, that we cannot plant a seed today and expect it to bear fruit tomorrow. That's not reasonable and Buddhism is reason." It's not only in religions, but realistically even in life when you are planting a tree, you cannot expect to see it grows 10 inches the next day or the next 2 days. You have to give it time to grow and in the meantime take a really good care of it by watering it everyday. Faith or Buddhism, is the same concept - when you set your goals and start chanting about them, you cannot expect to see the results immediately without putting efforts (meaning chanting) into it. In another word, you cannot act like you're taking a good care of the tree for like a month... If you don't see the result, you start to slack off and not water it daily any more.  "If we persevere in the practice of "faith equals daily life" in accord with reason, then our prayers will definitely be answered. This is Nichiren Daishonin's promise to us." You HAVE TO to persevere and be patient! Just like planting a tree, some trees take only a few months to grow tall (i.e. cypress), some take years to grow (bamboo).  Some goals are achievable easily, some aren't and required greater efforts! What is most important is that, you need to keep watering your tree everyday and have patience. Wait to see the results!

I love reading the January 7 encouragement, as it further strengthen my belief in this practice. It reminds me that Buddhism is reasonable and it is goes in accord with every aspect of living beings in life; and that we can relate or apply the same concept of nature to our practice.