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Nichiren Daishonin urges: “Exert yourself in the two ways of practice and study.
Without practice and study, there can be no Buddhism” (WND-1, 386). And his
direct disciple and successor Nikko Shonin instructs: “Followers of this school
should engrave the teachings of the Gosho in their lives and thereby inherit the
ultimate principles expounded by our teacher [Nichiren Daishonin]” (GZ, 1618;
Article 11 of “The Twenty-Six Admonitions of Nikko”).
The Soka Gakkai’s study movement is in exact accord with these instructions.
Study is a crucial element of our Buddhist practice, aimed at enabling each
person to attain absolute happiness. It also serves as the driving force of our
spiritual struggle to firmly establish in society the principles for bringing
goodness and peace to the world.
Those who take Buddhist study seriously develop a broad and expansive state of
mind and brim with infinite hope for the future. Those who spurn Buddhist study,
on the other hand, consign themselves to a benighted state of egoism and
arrogance, turning away from a life of joy and true inner happiness. This is
what I have seen happen.
The spiritual giant Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) wrote in his diary in his later
years: “An effort at thought is like a seed out of which a huge tree will grow;
it is invisible. But out of it will grow visible changes in the lives of [human
beings].” Those taking study exams may sometimes only have time to go over the
Daishonin’s writings in moments snatched from their busy schedules of work,
school, or family commitments, often while fighting off tiredness and
exhaustion. Such modest, continued exertions, however, contain an enormous
“effort at thought” that will give rise to a “huge tree” of human revolution
beyond anything we could imagine.
Daisaku Ikeda
NL 7398
SGI President Ikeda’s Essay
THE LIGHT OF THE CENTURY OF HUMANITY
By Shin’ichi
Yamamoto
Now Is the Time
to Study the Supreme Philosophy of Life—Part 1 [of 2]
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