If your experience of first contact with Nichiren Buddhism was like mine, and I suspect for most people it was, you were simply instructed to chant some strange phrase either Na Myoho Renge Kyo or Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. You may have been told that simply by repeating this strange expression over and over that you could become happy, or get anything you wanted, or overcome any problem in your life. You may have been told it roughly translates as Devotion to the Mystic/Wonderful Lotus Flower Teaching or something similar. Beyond that you may have heard something to the effect that you don’t need to know what it means, just chant.
None of that is false and it is also not completely true and certainly not quite accurate. Please do not hold a grudge against those who first instructed you. They were not malicious in their intent. They may have been exasperated at needing to stop and give you an explanation when they knew from their own experience that sometimes the explanation inhibits the application and resultant benefit from the practice they wished to share with you. Their heart was in a good place.
So take a moment now and offer up a silent prayer of gratitude for their wonderful effort to enable you to become enlightened.
Recently at my temple I have been giving a series of lectures covering what our attitude should be and how we should focus our mind as we engage in this wonderful Buddhist practice. I am covering materials found in a previous book titled Important Matters. Right now we just began talking about Namu + Myoho Renge Kyo. I have also written smaller Dharma Talks and essays on the subject of this formula. There is much more I would like to say than what I have said previously and since I am a writer what better way to get it all out than to begin another book on the subject.
I am calling this book Namu and You. My hope is to impart what I believe may be something that sometimes become obscured or forgotten about when we chant this phrase in our daily practice. There is some danger in not fully understanding the relationship between the seemingly innocuous word Namu and simply saying it means devotion. While that is certainly true, it does sort of translate into devotion, that glosses over the action of devotion. So I’ll talk about that in this writing.
Often people do not appreciate the relationship that exists between Namu and Myoho Renge Kyo. Additionally there are some questions I have been recently asked about how it came to be and then there is the age old debate of which is it Namu or Na/Nam. So I’ll write about that again here.
You know when every I set out to write a new book I am never quite sure what I’ll end up with. I may have one thing in mind and find the end product is quite different. Or perhaps the. End product is what I thought it might be. Almost always the length of the book is the biggest mystery. What I think may be simple and short ends up being long and complicated. In this case my original idea is this will not be a longish book though it may not be simple and certainly will be important.
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