Paul Monaco .com

There is no need for you to compare yourself with others but instead strive powerfully and cheerfully to develop your state of life, aiming to improve yourself each day. From that struggle will bloom noble flowers of mission, flowers of happiness that are yours and yours alone. Shine as you are, live true to yourself and advance in your own unique way. - Daisaku Ikeda

As I read an article in this months Living Buddhism, this particular passage catches my minds eye. It was not long ago prior to discovering this Buddhism that while on a technical endeavor I could not get out of this thought process. Constantly seeking out what those considered to be on top and attempting to emulate them. Some of these tactics proved useful, while others seemed to have no or negative effects. In the end, at best I could only achieve the ‘almost as good as’ status and never best in my own rights.

The philosophy of Many in Body, One in Mind allows us to to all work towards common goals (One in Mind) while maintaining our own unique individuality (Many in Body). It is the Many in Body, that generates this great strength.

I recently was able to put the individuality aspects of this into play. As many of you know my latest recreational passion is playing The Sims Online. One of the biggest rewards of the game is to establish a popular property with many visitors and to hold a top spot in the games ranking system. Of course I couldn’t help but observe what other top houses are doing and try to out-do them. Fortunately I was able to catch myself before I completely ruined the game for myself and now between the six characters I play I have enough diversity to really keep things interesting for me and to occasionally stir the pot a bit for the other players.

It was important for me to write this thought down as I have seen myself have faint urges to repeat my misguided ways. Now though, I do have an elementary grasp of the Mystic Law and can modify my plans to utilize it for the greater good and hopefully use it to for the propagation of good (kosen rufu). I realize I am still very new to the practice (November 2006) and still have much to learn and I hope these exercises will help me better my understanding of Nichiren Buddhism as practiced by the Soka Gakkai.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Buddhism, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.