Paul Monaco .com

The World Tribune, a weekly newspaper put out by the lay Buddhist organization the Sokka Gakkai recently published an exerpt from “A Youthful Diary” – The diary of young Daisaku Ikeda, the SGI’s 3rd president, my mentor.

On Saturyda May 13, 1950 part of his entry reads… “Am I tired from all our struggles? My physical condition is extremely bad. Shall a disciple of Nichiren Daishonin be defeated? Never! Burn with great conviction! Faith, arise!..

Points to remember from today on: 1) Study Buddhism, 2) Cut down on expenses and 3) Live productively.”

Though these are points I do and have been practicing, after a while our convictions need to be renewed. Reading that exerpt has inspired me to add these points to my 43things.com and renew my efforts.

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

See more progress on: study buddhism

On September 8th, 1957 the second president of the Soka Gakkai Josei Toda made a declaration calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons (Full Text).

As this month marks the 50th anniversary since it’s writing, it has been the focus of many SGI discussion meetings and individual study.

On the surface, this proposal to me seems very feel-good and benign. But the more I read it, the less inclined I am to be a supporter of this document as written.

Josei Toda writes, “I wish to declare that anyone who ventures to use nuclear weapons, irrespective of their nationality or whether their country is victorious or defeated, should be sentenced to death without exception.”

To me, death without exception goes against one of the basic precepts of all schools of Buddhism, to not kill. It has always been my understanding that fundamentally Buddhist practitioners were against all forms of capital punishment and that ALL LIFE was precious.

Further more, this was written by a man who has in recent history, seen his country devastated by a nuclear attack, and there seems to be a degree of anger in his verbiage. Anger is one of the three poisons so often discussed in this practice and to me further distracts me from the celebration and support of this document as written.

In the spirit of Bodhisattva Never Disparaging, I most likely will not bring up these key points in my local discussion meetings, but would love to hear any comments here in this venue.

I know prior to attending my first meeting I was very apprehensive and though I’ve read up it, never knew what to expect. This short 2-minute clip is a great little summary of our daily gongyo practice.

I was given the opportunity to give my experience during our March Kosen Rufu Gonyo and since then, been meaning to post it here. Finally after someone bugged me a bit more, here I am posting it.

Honestly after hearing so many fantastic experiences, I really didn’t think mine was all that remarkable. However, several people disagreed with me.

Actually I was just really nervous about getting up here and trying to find a way out of it!

My journey actually began prior to learning about this Buddhism.

I was caregiver to my wife who was fighting an uphill battle with Hepatitis-C. As her health deteriorated, the amount of care I needed to provide went up exponentially. Managing her medications, logging her vitals, getting her and the wheelchair in and out of the car for doctor appointments. Not to mention all the usual red tape associated with the hospitals, insurance carriers and social security. Oh.. and I had to hold onto my job at the same time.

Almost a year ago today, she lost her battle.

Now my life was empty. There was no purpose, no reason. I woke up and went to work. That’s it.

My house became a mess… I didn’t clean… I didn’t have to.

Nobody relied on me, what I did just didn’t matter and I became very depressed.

Realizing I was in trouble I decided I needed a hobby. Just to do something.

Having been a DJ in my younger days I opened an Internet radio station.

Turned out to be not so good of an idea.. That led to hanging out in bars, meeting some of the independent artists I would play. They’d all buy me drinks… then they’d learn of my story… they bought me more drinks.

The drinking was quickly getting out of control.

Then I heard a song called “Mirror”. I didn’t know it at the time but it was about this Buddhism. I just thought it was this great little upbeat tune. I started playing the song on the air and eventually met the singer/songwriter Vittoria Conn, who explained to me what the song was really about, and how chanting to the Gohonzon was like looking into your mirror.

She gave me a copy of The Winning Life and I began chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. We quickly became very good friends and chanted together when we could.

One day she was invited to Kosen Rufu Gongyo at the Hudson Valley Activity Center to perform her song, and she invited me to see her performance which would also be my first time experiencing daimoku in a large group.

That day had a profound impact on me. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it was but from that moment on I knew that this practice is the correct way for me.

That very same day I kicked my 2-pack a day smoking habit, cold turkey. Whenever I felt like I wanted a cigarette… Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

Now people are always asking me “How’d you quit”… I just hand them a shakubuku card.

Mind you at this point I still hadn’t received my Gohonzon yet… which I did receive in November.

Shortly after receiving my Gohonzon, I quit drinking as well.

What’s really amazing is at work, everyone is noticing all these changes in me. Whether it’s the smoking, drinking or just my attitude… they all want to know how I did it. I’ve been telling so many people that I even heard someone chanting at a jammed copy machine trying to make it work!

I found this wonderful Daimoku chart (in PDF form) on the SGI’s MySpace Page.

Reverse engineering that link, reveals quite the talented artist.