Make music and sing joyfully.
Folks who have practiced with me at the temple know that when I begin leading Odaimoku during our services I always begin with the preface “Let us chant with great joy and confidence.” I’d like to share with you some background behind this as we meditate on the Lotus Sutra.
Joy and confidence are two characteristics that arise from within. While it is certainly possible for conditions to be present to induce joy or confidence, the actual experience of joy or confidence arises from within one’s self. I can encourage you to be confident, or cheer you on to be happy, only you can generate the joy and confidence from your life.
You can be happy or have a positive outlook, or be encouraged yet those things tend to rely upon external circumstances. It is generally easier to be excited and hopeful when others around you are supporting those emotions. Yet, as we all have invariably experienced sometimes we end up needing to be our own cheer leader. And that’s not easy to do.
There is a tremendous amount of support, perhaps even unlimited support, for failure, discouragement, defeat, sadness, suffering and so forth which we can easily find in society. Adverts tell us our body is shaped poorly, our education is insufficient, our diet is harmful, our deodorant is not smelly enough, our children are not smart enough, the car we drive is not pretty enough, in short the messages all around us are that nothing about you is worth keeping and everything would be better if you just used other products.
So there is a lot of support in society for being discontent, and less support for celebrating the potential for happiness which resides within your life. And virtually no one speaks about the Buddha you are.
“Or those who caused men to make music
By beating drums, by blowing horns and conches,
And by playing Reed-pipes, flutes, lyres, harps,…
Or those who sang joyfully in praise of him…
Have already attained the enlightenment of the Buddha.” Lotus Sutra Chapter II
OK, so there is that. Let’s make music.
Then we jump to the end of this chapter and we read these words
” Anyone who rejoices at hearing the Dharma… “
And then this among other passages is my favorite
Know that, when you remove your doubts,
And when you have great joy,
You will become Buddhas! Lotus Sutra Chapter II
One thing you learn as a chaplain is to detect when people either are ignoring what you are saying or are disconnecting. When I share this passage with people it is interesting how quickly people move on from this passage.
Perhaps they will say yes, or great, or agree, but really what happens is they want to change the subject because this statement is too simple.
The statement is incredibly profound, gets to the heart and soul of our faith, and is deceptively simple. But it isn’t simple. It isn’t easy to have great joy. It isn’t easy to have confidence. And further complicating matters is the fact that Joy and confidence arise from within.
One place to begin to nurture joy and confidence in yourself is to chant with joy, sing out your Odaimoku. Chant with confidence. Try to visualize these two things joy and confidence inside you while you chant.
Little by little gradually over time these efforts along with you Odaimoku will produce great changes. This is not merely positive thinking or some tricky psychological gimic.
This is based entirely upon the truth of the Lotus Sutra, the truth of the Buddha, and the guarantee of your attaining enlightenment equal to the Buddha.
UPDATE ON HEALTH
as I write this I am awaiting lung surgery today. It is about 08:30 and the surgical procedure is scheduled to begin in about 7 hours. The procedure could last anywhere between 1-5 hours. I’m not worried, mainly I’m hungry.
