In 1971 I was at that time stationed at the Marine Corps base Kaneohe, Hawaii. In that year I had a significant pain and swelling in my knees. It was so bad I could hardly walk at all. I went to the sick bay and they sent me to Trippler Army Hospital on the other side of the island. It was determined after many doctor visits and consultations that I was suffering from significant scar tissue from my knees being featured while in boot camp some 3 years earlier.
I was prescribed a rigorous regimen of physical therapy. Now physical therapy then meant that every day I had to show up at the sick bay on base and perform the required exercises and whirlpool treatments, there was no getting out of it, no slacking off. I was assigned to light duty with no prolonged standing, no marching, and not kneeling or squatting. After six months of this there was no improvement and it was decided that surgery to remove the knee caps and replace them with plastic ones was the only option.
When I shared this with my leaders and other in the Soka Gakkai the Japanese women became quite alarmed, as was I. The idea of synthetic knee caps with a limited life span needing to be replace after several years meant that I would be doomed to a life of constant knee problems.
Immediately they did what ever it was and obtained for me gofu, a special ‘medicinal’ piece of paper that is to be eaten. This paper purportedly was a snippet of the paper that was used to clean the surface of the large Gohonzon, located at the head temple of the Nichiren Shoshu in Taisekiji. The instructions were that I had to chant one million Odaimoku before consuming it. So the special gofu was placed on the main altar at the community center and in one month I completed the one million Odaimoku.
I still fondly and warmly recall the many nights I would stay at the community center there in Hawaii chanting to the Gohonzon in the dark after everyone had left for the evening. The old community center there had this koi pond that wrapped around the building with several waterfalls. Since the temperature there is quite mild the windows would be open and I would chant to the sound of the water and the insects of the night.
I would fall asleep, wake up chant some more and sleep. Chanting is all I did practically. I recall I wasn’t panicked or worried. I felt quite serene and confident that all would work out for the best. I had already by this time developed a sense of practice that worrying about something wasn’t necessary though certainly appropriate actions were always required.
After that month I finally took the gofu along with the water from the altar. I remember my disappointment at not feeling anything magical, no lights, no special goose bumps, it was all quite ordinary other than the fact of eating paper.
My next appointment at the hospital was to be with five surgeons who were going to make final review of my knees and set the date for the surgery. Prior to that meeting I had a final set of X-rays done. I already knew that there had been a significant improvement in my knees, the swelling had gong away, the pain had left as well. The result of the consult was that surgery would not be needed that I was to be returned to full active duty with a notation of service related injury.
Now I don’t know exactly what happened. Yes it would appear that the Odaimoku and the gofu had ‘cured’ my knees. Yet I’ve always been somewhat hesitant to say that because I don’t want it to be oversimplified and written off as a miraculous cure. I’m not sure a case can be made for that nor am I sure it can’t be said. Certainly something did happen.
One reason I am reticent to simply attributing it to the gofu and Odaimoku is the tendency of people to then oversimplify it and think that the outcome will be the same for them if they do this ‘magical’ thing. Odaimoku and our Buddhist practice can not be reduced to a simple reliance on some outside miraculous phenomena. There is at the core of it all our own effort and our own faith and those are not easy things. It was I believe a combination of the marshaling of my inner faith and my inner healing resources, the practice, the dedication to do the best for my body and soul, the attention I received from the compassionate Japanese women, the support I received from the Sangha, the medical treatment and care of the military medical providers. It was a whole bunch of things and lacking any one of them the outcome may have been entirely different.
There have been studies done recently which indicate that in many instances the cure for many of our illnesses actually begins when we make the call to schedule an appointment with a doctor. There is evidence that even the act of visiting the doctor is more the ending of the illness than the beginning of treatment. In my case the process was six months long. Did the resolution begin at the beginning of that period or did it begin when I consumed the gofu or was it both? I simply do not know. I do know that nothing worked against the other.
Perhaps the chanting and the gofu combined to marshal my inner healing abilities in a way that simply positive thinking could not have. Perhaps I had such faith in the gofu and the Odaimoku that I didn’t have in the physical therapy. I’m not sure.
So while I caution about harmful religious ideation I do want to leave open the possibility of helpful religious ideations as well.
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