A big thank you to life coach and podcaster Leigh Martinuzzi who recently promoted my book to his global audience and then interviewed me about Buddhism and personal development. I loved his warm approach to our dialogue and the searching questions he asked. Leigh is all about inspiring people to live with peace, passion and purpose, so it was an honour to take part in his latest podcast on his website, The Hidden Why.

It was meant to be a one-hour chat, but it lasted a little longer – nearly 90 minutes… Take a listen here, and if you don’t have time for the whole show, here’s a guide to the topics we discussed, with approximate timecodes:

00:00 to 19:00

Leigh gets a quick overview of my career, how I met coaching and how it is similar to Buddhism. Why too many of us live ‘on a hamster wheel’, lacking a true purpose in life. Also a big mention here of The Winning Edge, my all-time favourite personal development programme.

19:00 – 40:00

Lots here for budding authors on how to overcome self-doubt, motivate yourself, keep going to the end and find a publisher. Chanting daimoku to raise your self-esteem. And some tip-top advice from my fellow Buddhist, the actor Duncan Pow.

40:00 – 45:00

Leigh asks me who my book is for and how it’s different from other self-help & Buddhist books. We talk about a culture of enlightenment replacing a culture of entitlement to transform the spirit of the age.

45:00 – 53:00

Inspired by a quote from Daisaku Ikeda, Leigh and I explore different types of intelligence – intellectual (IQ), emotional (EQ) and spiritual (SQ) and why SQ is the key to world peace and to feeling one-ness with our fellow human beings.

54:00 – 70:00

A big section on Nam Myoho Renge Kyo – including some chanting and an explanation of how it works. Also actual proof, how Buddhism goes deeper and wider than personal development and why I admire Nichiren for being a rebel and revolutionary who was ahead of his time and who loved humanity. Mentions of SGI discussion meetings and of how precious life is.

70:00 – 90:00

A mixture of topics including my favourite non-Buddhist personal development books, another quote from Daisaku Ikeda, living with passion & purpose, the power of coaching and believing you’re a Buddha.

Enjoy,

Dx

The post The Hidden Why – podcast interview appeared first on David Hare.

In theory, I shouldn’t have liked this book. I don’t read biographies, I don’t read travel memoirs, and my simple brain doesn’t normally handle stories with flashbacks. Junkie Buddha crosses all three boxes. But knowing that the author was a Nichiren Buddhist and a trained psychotherapist, I decided to give the first chapter a go and see if it gripped me. It absolutely did and 230 pages later I’m so happy that I finished this entrancing tale. I loved every word of it.

A two-trip journey

The narrative takes you on two trips, an emotional journey of grief and healing and a cultural exploration of the Inca Trail. It is a physical and spiritual journey depicting the mountains and valleys of both. Along the

way we meet witches, shamans, dodgy hoteliers and unreliable coach drivers plus would-be suitors flirting with our intrepid narrator. The whole adventure is laced with humour, dashes of exotic South American cocktails and occasional Buddhist chanting.

As Diane’s senses take in the sights and sounds around her, many of them trigger a memory of Sacha’s life, so we segué seamlessly from present to past and back again. I loved this flitting narrative, it somehow gave me a better sense of the eternity of life. For example she recalls a photo of ‘Sacha at Glastonbury, knee deep in mud in the pouring rain, his dreads flying around in the wind, laughing with a couple of friends. I wondered what drugs they were on.’ And it is his voice as much as hers that we grow to love, as she retraces his steps to Machu Picchu, with his ashes in her backpack and his words serving as a sort of spiritual tour guide.

Finding hope in despair

Junkie Buddha is a raw and searingly honest account of love and loss, anger and grief and the search for meaning in despair as Diane seeks to understand why the ‘vibrant energy of Sacha had morphed into a bag of gritty, grey dust’. This story pulls no punches, yet at the same time the prose is as colourful, finely woven and robust as a Peruvian rug.

Although this is the story of a mother’s unconditional love, the author’s first impressions of many people are sometimes quite negative. But by the end I even found her candid bolshiness strangely endearing, you feel you can trust someone who so openly shares with the reader what they are feeling.

The occasional Buddhist references are sprinkled in with a light touch – one or two quotes from Nichiren or Daisaku Ikeda plus plenty of anguished grappling with Buddhist teachings, for example: ‘As a Buddhist I believed in the preciousness of life and the concept of ‘turning poison into medicine’. But what value could possibly be created from this [death]? My daily mantra had become “Why me?”’

By the end of the book, Diane’s answer to the same question is to set up her own counselling practice for clients who have suffered through abuse, addiction or bereavement. From Sacha’s death, she says, ‘has come a deeper connection with and compassion for other people’.

And there’s no doubt that this book has touched many hearts – judging by the dozens of five star reviews and by the comments on Amazon, grieving parents in particular have found it incredibly healing. As Sandie Shaw eloquently describes it, Junkie Buddha is ‘an uplifting book about finding value in the painful experience of profound loss.’ 

The post Junkie Buddha – book review appeared first on David Hare.

Too weird to be true?

If this is you at the moment (sometimes it is me…), give yourself a big pat on the back and say: “Congratulations to me! I did it! I kept my promise!” And then remind yourself that, as taught in The Lotus Sutra, you made a vow as a Bodhisattva of the Earth to ‘voluntarily assume the appropriate karma’ in order to teach others about Buddhism. But why on earth would you make such a vow? Why would you choose to be born in difficult circumstances, why would you go looking for such deep suffering? It just seems too weird and extraordinary! After all, there are no mentions of masochism in Nichiren Buddhism :-)! Of course, Nichiren actually taught that we made this vow so that we could, through our struggles, develop the wisdom, courage and compassion to move other people’s hearts. So that they too will feel inspired to discover and reveal the joy and dignity in the depths of their own lives.

Of course, believing this is a huge ask! The whole ‘Ceremony in the Air’ story taught by Shakyamuni in the Lotus Sutra can seem like too much of a fairytale to be true!  We struggle to conceive that we attained Buddhahood aeons of lifetimes ago and that then, in order to reveal the power of the Mystic Law, we volunteered to be born in the current age ‘emerging from the Earth’, and dancing joyfully with huge karmic sufferings. It is not something that our logical and sometimes shallow minds can easily grasp. So we have to ‘go deeper’ in our prayer. Even then, it sometimes seems too far-fetched to believe that the key to discovering your True Self might lie in this fantastic story. As the wonderfully wise SGI Europe Director Kazuo Fujii recently said, during a lecture I was privileged to hear (and with his shoulders jumping up and down with his usual irrepressible joy), “It’s even more amazing than Harry Potter!”

Toda recalls his Vow in prison

Even SGI’s second President Josei Toda seems to have struggled to grasp the truth of the Lotus Sutra. And it was only once he found himself in prison (1943-45) for refusing to renounce his faith, that he attained enlightenment, that he awakened to his mission as a Bodhisattva of the Earth. As SGI leader Takanori Endo explains: “He would walk about in his solitary cell saying to himself, ‘I have to know! I simply must understand!”  

When I first read these words a couple of months ago, they took my breath away. To realise that Toda himself had to grapple in the very core of his life with the truth of the Lotus Sutra in order to make sense of his solitary confinement, maltreatment and malnutrition was incredibly reassuring. But thanks to his indestructible seeking spirit, he had an experience while chanting daimoku in his prison cell, of recalling his own enlightenment at the Ceremony in the Air. In effect, he was remembering his eternal Bodhisattva Vow and it is only because of his Vow that the Soka Gakkai has flourished since the end of World War II, spreading a precious message of Buddhist humanism never taught before.

A Bodhisattva loves being alive

So, what are the benefits of living your life as a Bodhisattva of the Earth? There are loads! A Bodhisattva of the Earth:

• loves being alive,
• sees their darkest karma not as a punishment for past deeds but as the source of the deepest joy,
• looks forward to leaping out of bed every day,
• faces every problem from the point of victory, knowing they have already won,
• sees a new problem in their life and says: “Ah yes, I remember asking for you! Welcome! Thank you for coming!”,
• lives a life where hope oozes from their every pore,
• exuberantly makes the impossible possible,
• resents and begrudges nothing and nobody,
• lives their life dancing with joy, instead of plodding on fatalistically,
• supports and encourages their fellow Bodhisattvas when they are struggling in the ‘muddy pond’ of daily life, reminding them of their shared vow to transform the spirit of the age.

See if you can chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo with this spirit! I promise you it will take your practice and happiness into a totally different dimension. It is the fastest way to ‘cast off the transient and reveal the true’ you. Remembering that you emerged from the Earth dancing joyfully (rather than kicking and screaming…) can totally transform your perspective on life. For example, as a ‘common mortal’ you may see a huge setback in your life as a crushing blow. But as a Bodhisattva of the Earth, you are filled with the joy of knowing it is a promise kept. Or your tears of self-pity may become tears of compassion for all the people you don’t yet know but who share a similar karma to you.

I would go as far as to say that all suffering comes from the self-slander of believing you are not a Bodhisattva of the Earth.  And that your deepest pain comes not from what happens to you, but from resisting or begrudging your mission to transform it. Your Bodhisattva Vow to lead others to enlightenment.

As Daisaku Ikeda writes: “There simply are no Buddhas who spend all their time sitting in meditation. Buddhas are Buddhas precisely because they continually ponder and take action to help others resolve their worries.”

A dear long-standing friend of mine (whom I will call ‘Mr.G.’) emailed me today a week after we discussed these matters. Subject line: ‘A promise kept’. Body of message: “I have just been diagnosed with bowel cancer and secondary cancer of the liver. But I know this is an opportunity to deepen my faith to another level, changing the impossible to possible, and to create an even more amazing life.”

Now that’s what I call the Bodhisattva spirit… And Mr.G, Cherished Buddha, we are all with you, fighting by your side.

Love and Light,

Bodhisattva Dave x

The post A life filled with joy – remembering your Bodhisattva Vow appeared first on David Hare.

“Some nineteen years ago I was discharged from hospital with a life-threatening illness and the advice to get my affairs in order. My chances of survival were slim, I was weak and frail and did not really want to carry on with my life. While in hospital and without realising it, I had been introduced to Buddhism by a visiting volunteer worker who chanted to me while I fell asleep. I was not in much of a state to take it in at the time and didn’t start to practise myself until many years later.

Ostracised for being gay

“I returned home to my small homophobic racist town and found my house had been sprayed with graffiti, saying ‘Gay with Aids lives here’.

This further lowered my already low life state and I was very scared. I removed the graffiti several times and put up a board saying this was their problem not mine, they were cowards, get over it. So they started putting faeces through my letter box, but at least a litter tray to catch it was cheaper than having paint removed! Eventually my tormentors got bored and the harassment stopped. But my hatred and anger toward these people stayed with me and caused me to stay indoors and be really bitter and twisted for many years to come.

Some fifteen years after my first encounter with Buddhism and with my immune system deteriorating, I went on a weekend respite break. I heard this chanting from the room next door and recognised it was the same as the one I had heard from the health worker in the hospital. This intrigued me, so after much discussion with the man from the next room on Buddhist philosophy, I realised this was the piece of the jigsaw I had been looking for in my life.

It was really hard to chant for my persecutors’ happiness or see their Buddha nature, but when I did, I realised this hatred was mine… I had created the cause and had reaped the effect. Once I realised this, my anger and hatred for these people dissolved and changed to a feeling of sorrow and even compassion.

I had always isolated myself from my community out of fear. Eventually I decided to integrate with these people, so where better than at the pub! I experienced homophobic remarks when I went, with the local racist men singing ‘Puff, the Magic Dragon’, but I ignored them. Then I found out the landlord was a racist and was always referring to ‘poofs and darkies and sooties’, which really infuriated me.

Poison into medicine

One day I went to the pub and he looked really worried. I asked if he was OK and he explained that his daughter was in hospital with suspected meningitis. I told him I used to work at the hospital and there were some very good African, Asian and Polish doctors, so she was in good hands! I think he knew that I was empathising with him whilst also challenging his racism.

As time went by, I eventually got talking to him about my hobby, fishing, as I knew he was a fisherman and I challenged him to a match, which he accepted.

While fishing we discussed our different philosophies and I revealed I was a Buddhist. This made him think I really was a freak – a gay and a Buddhist! He asked me why my head was not shaved and I didn’t wear robes but he also showed interest in where I was coming from. We discussed life experiences, my work in the coal mines and Buddhist philosophy such as energy never being created or destroyed, karma and so on. And I listened to his outlook on ‘immigrants taking our jobs’. I said that although I respected his views, I did not agree with them, and did not expect him to totally agree with mine. Since then we have had lots of dialogue and developed respect for each other, and recently I was invited with my partner to go on a fishing / caravan holiday with him and his wife and parents. We accepted and had a great time, talking late into the nights.

And things have changed at the pub, the man that sung the homophobic songs has been banned by the landlady (she is the boss really!) They now have an African lady behind the bar and a Hungarian chef working in the kitchen. I still get comments when I go there such as ‘Have you been chanting, Dave?’ I reply: ‘Yes, I am chanting for you lot to accept all people as human beings.’ They reply that they do and then I say: ‘And I’m chanting for you all to come back as black lesbians in your next lifetimes!’

I remember reading that in the 1970s Daisaku Ikeda was criticised by some people in Japan for visiting Communist regimes when he went to talk to leaders in China and Russia. When asked why he was going, he replied: ‘Because there are human beings there.’ That’s why I kept going to the pub and I now see these people as human beings with Buddha nature, not with anger or hatred any more but with compassion. If it was not for my illness and my persecutions I would not have become a Buddhist or developed compassion. Thanks to the practice I have turned poison into medicine.”

For more inspirational stories of Buddhists doing their human revolution, to transform the spirit of our age, check out my book, The Buddha in Me, the Buddha in You.

Dx

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So much wisdom pours from Sabra’s lips that it’s hard to know where to start. So let’s rewind to the beginning of her own Buddhist practice in 1985. “I was a crazy off the rails teenager from Notting Hill Gate, London. I felt so frustrated that I often wanted to put my fist through a wall. And although I was a talented dancer, I was doing too much cocaine. Two of my dance teachers introduced me to Buddhism. They told me I had bags of potential but would waste all of it if I carried on the same way. They just said ‘chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo‘. To be honest I thought they were taking the piss. But then I thought, what the heck, it’s free and I’ve got nothing to lose, why not give it a go?! And the first time I chanted, everything fell into place, it all just fitted. And I’ve never missed Gongyo since, not even when I was in labour!”

Before our Skype call last week I was aware that Sabra used her performing skills with prisoners in California. I assumed this meant she and her fellow performers giving inmates some respite from long hours in their cells and perhaps spotting future Thespian talent, people who might tread the boards after release from jail. But I’m wrong on both counts and Sabra is quick to correct me (actually she does everything at top speed):

“Not at all,” she says, “the Prison Project is incredibly hard work. My students think they’re coming in for a bit of fun and quickly discover it’s the toughest thing they’ve ever done. And no, we’re not turning people into actors. This is a mental wellbeing programme, using theatre to teach people with no voice how to manage their emotions healthily when they’re released.”

Definitely not about ‘hugging a thug’

Sabra continues: “At first many of our students find it terrifying, it’s physically very intense – four hours at a time with no break – and we have incredibly high expectations of them, of people who are not used to anyone expecting anything of them. So this is definitely not a wishy-washy ‘hug-a-thug’ programme.” That’s another answer I wasn’t expecting.

Why so physical and why no break? “So that they can come out of their own heads and learn to empathise with their fellow prisoners, people of different gangs or races whom they could well be trying to kill if they were outside the prison walls,” says Sabra. And the approach is working. There’s been an 89% drop in offences between prisoners in prisons where Sabra has run the Actors Gang Prison Project and a significant drop in recidivism.  No wonder The White House is sitting up and taking notice (more of which in a future blog post).

A joyful struggle 

Sabra says the most important Buddhist principle she uses in her work is the teaching that ‘everyone’s a Buddha’. “Most so-called criminals in the US are people who made one bad choice on one bad day,” says Sabra, “so to walk into a room of people who’ve been discarded by society and then see them blossom has been an immense and unexpected joy. Even the struggle is joyful. That’s because I’ve based all my actions on daimoku, on the Gohonzon and on the mentor-disciple relationship. It’s really vital that I leave my ego outside the room, I don’t want the students to connect with my personality, I want to link them to the process, to the work. When you leave ego aside and use the Strategy of the Lotus Sutra, love fills the room. Working with incarcerated people is the deepest joy and greatest privilege. It’s made me a better actor and a better human being.”

And does her own ‘wild youth’ help her relate to her students in prison? “No, what helps me relate to them is their own humanity and courage,” (another answer I wasn’t expecting), “You have to understand that normally in prison, anger is the only acceptable emotion. Anger or numbness, both of which mask deep pain. Whereas in our classes we improvise scenes where all sorts of bottled-up emotions can bubble to the surface, where a black man who is a member of a Gang such as The Bloods could be looking into the eyes of a white man who identifies as a White supremacist and learn to empathise with him or an incarcerated individual can empathise with an Officer who treats her badly.  And vice-versa. That takes courage. That takes humanity. And the empathy is invaluable because they start to see the suffering behind the other person’s fear or anger. They might even wonder, the next time a prison officer shouts at them, whether he is suffering in his home life. So you see, this programme can actually change the whole culture of a prison.”

Blood brothers

Sabra adds that the cross-racial friendships formed behind bars are taken back onto the prison yard, so the black man and the white supremacist can become blood brothers (I wasn’t expecting that, either…)

Sabra has squeezed me into a hectic schedule and after one hour (that feels like ten minutes), my time is up… a Congressman is holding on the other line, waiting to discuss her recent meeting with President Obama.

So, how to sum up this whirlwind of a personality? Straight-talking and sassy? Yes. Surprising? Definitely. Still acting in films and on the stage? Yes. But most of all Sabra Williams, once an ‘off the rails’ kid from North London, is now making her mark on Capitol Hill as a passionate criminal justice reformer. You will have gathered by now that I ain’t no Nostradamus, but I wasn’t expecting that…

Love and Light, NMRK,

Dx

PS. In my next post about Sabra later this month, find out what happened when she met President Obama at The White House!

PPS. For more inspirational stories from SGI members, check out my book, The Buddha in Me, the Buddha in You. Available from Amazon.com on Kindle and from Amazon UK in paperback or Kindle.

PPS. Thank you for reading this far !! Are you an SGI member who like Sabra, is helping to transform the spirit of the age? Are you bravely carving out a path that nobody has trodden before? If so, I would be interested to discuss sharing your story on here. Just contact me here.

The post Buddha behind bars – interview with Sabra Williams appeared first on David Hare.

During the festive season, when you spend more time with close family, do you ever find yourself saying: “You’re really winding me up,”? or “She got on my nerves,”? or “They made me angry,”? Let’s explore whether that is really true. Or whether it means that you give all your power away so that other people or circumstances decide how happy you are. You may have spotted where I’m heading here and this post may help keep things more harmonious this Christmas…

Over 700 years ago, Nichiren Daishonin wrote: “One should become the master of his mind rather than let his mind master him.” This means we have the power to choose how we want to perceive and respond to a situation, rather than being tossed around by the ebb and flow of events. (That might of course include choosing to get angry or winding ourselves up, but the difference is, we know we have a choice.)

In modern psychology, this ability is often called ‘reframing’. As Auschwitz prisoner of war Victor Frankl famously wrote, in his book, ‘Man’s search for meaning’: “The one thing you cannot take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me.” Frankl’s situation was horrific – everything (seemingly) had been taken from him – family, friends, dignity, food, clothing and freedom. And yet he found the inner strength to master his mind when so many around him were losing theirs.

Nowadays though, our first instinct is often to change how we feel by shopping / drinking / comfort eating or other types of consumption. All of this contributes to extra global warming, by the way.

SGI’s second President Josei Toda without doubt developed an ability to change from the inside (much better for our beautiful planet…) describing Buddhahood in this way: “It is like lying on your back in a wide open space looking up at the sky with arms and legs outstretched. All that you wish for immediately appears. No matter how much you may give away, there is always more. It is never exhausted. Try and see if you can attain this state of life.”

Where was Toda when he experienced this state? On holiday? In a beautiful park in Tokyo? At the top of a Mount Fuji watching the sun edge below the horizon? None of the above. He was actually in solitary confinement in prison (for being a Buddhist).

All that you become begins in your mind

Buddhism says that all the situations in your life including (from a karmic perspective) what happens to you – all of your ‘be, do and have’ – begin in your mind, which is why it makes so much sense to ‘master your mind’. We can summarise ‘The Buddha Mind for dealing with challenges’ as follows:

1. I created this situation, therefore I can create the solution
2. Because life is precious, every ‘problem’ is a gift in disguise
3. Therefore when faced with obstacles, “the wise rejoice and the foolish retreat”
4. Any problem is your life asking to grow, say YES (instead of grumbling inside).
5. Here’s a great chance (yes, another one) to get over your ‘smaller self’
6. The lotus flower only grows in a muddy pond. Focus on the flower, not the mud.
7. How can I use this to fulfil my life purpose?
8. I will face whatever it takes to fulfil my personal mission in life
9. This low life state (angry, grumpy, blue, resentful, frustrated…) absolutely does contain latent Buddhahood
10. What is the ‘problem’ trying to stop me doing? Then Just Do It. Now. Darkness disappears when the sun of action shines
11. Suffering and problems are a fact of life, for you, me, saints and sages
12. Make your desire for Kosen Rufu (world peace) bigger, deeper and more sincere.

And if none of the above seem to be working, remember this famous quote from Nichiren Daishonin:

13. “And still I am not discouraged”.

To be strong is to master your mind

To master your mind is to instinctively and increasingly realise that all of the above is true. To constantly develop the strength to choose how you feel and develop a bigger all-embracing state of life whatever is happening to you. As Carl Jung wrote: “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

Daisaku Ikeda says: “True happiness is not the absence of suffering; you cannot have day after day of clear skies. True happiness lies in building a self that stands dignified and indomitable like a great palace – on all days, even when it is raining, snowing or stormy.”

So, see if you can chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo with this conviction: “I am not my past. I am not my psychometric profile. I am not the role I have played to survive so far. I am not the product of my childhood. I am not my job description. I am a Buddha. I am who I choose to become.”

Much more on all of this in my book, The Buddha in Me, The Buddha in You, available now for pre-order on Amazon UK.

Dx

The post How to become the master of your mind appeared first on David Hare.

By ‘ego’ I mean our smaller self, our unenlightened self, the self that is dominated by fear and anxiety and lashes out in anger. The self that may have helped you survive difficult childhood experiences, adding layers of protection to shield you from further pain. This ego has a positive intention (protection and survival), but if it dominates your life, it will slowly stifle your heart and strangle your soul.

The good news is that your Buddhahood has the answers to the ego problem. Your Buddha-self is the layer of consciousness that goes deeper than your karmic, ego-driven self. Your Buddhahood is strong enough to know that it’s OK to feel vulnerable. Your Buddhahood is as happy about other people’s success as you are about your own. Your Buddhahood gives you the courage to be yourself and the compassion to understand others. Your Buddhahood understands the one-ness of your Life and ‘other’ people, and that in the words of Daisaku Ikeda, the ‘definition of evil is the illusion of separateness’. My mentor also writes: “Each of us is born as a precious entity of life. Our mothers didn’t give birth to us thinking, ‘I’m giving birth to a Japanese’ or ‘I’m giving birth to an Arab.’ Their only thought was ‘May this new life be healthy and grow.” I find these words especially poignant, re-reading them just a few hours after the horrendous killings in Paris. 

Here are some more differences between a life based on Ego and one inspired by chanting daimoku with the ‘Buddha mind of faith’: The ego protects you (based on fear), while your Buddhahood bravely trusts the Law of life. Your ego wants to control others and ‘script’ their behaviour, your Buddha-self does its own human revolution and trusts the Law. Your smaller self resents your difficult karma, your big self accepts your karma as your mission and trusts the Law. Your ego-self is ruled by self-centred anger, your Buddhahood expresses anger as a passion for justice and equality. Ego survives, Buddahood seeks and thrives. Ego uses head strategies, the mind of faith uses the Strategy of the Lotus Sutra first.

On a bigger scale, ego is the source of ‘office politics’, ethnic cleansing, destructive tribalism, religious intolerance and war. Of atrocities such as last night’s terrible events in Paris. In short, the ego is a seductive and accomplished liar, wearing the plausible mask of truth. Whereas when you infuse your life with your bigger self, you contribute to the flow of Kosen Rufu (world peace), because your higher life-state raises the life-state of the whole planet. I believe that terrorist massacres (such as the one in Paris yesterday) will subside when we all challenge our own smaller selves, because the consciousness of humanity will change. 

In the words of SGI President Daisaku Ikeda, this is what happens when your Buddhahood transforms your ego: “The misfortune of others is our misfortune. Our happiness is the happiness of others. To see ourselves in others and feel an inner oneness and sense of unity with them represents a fundamental revolution in the way we live our lives. Therefore discriminating against another person is the same as discriminating against oneself. When we hurt another, we are hurting ourselves. And when we respect others, we respect and elevate our own lives as well.”

Cast off the transient and reveal the true

My conclusion from all this is that we must open our eyes to this truth: the biggest threat to our own individual happiness (and to unity within SGI) is not challenges or problems or disagreements. The biggest danger is that we underestimate the power of either our small self / ego or, equally, that we underestimate the power of our Buddhahood. In other words that we underestimate our negative or our positive potential, our ability both to destroy and to create value.

Connecting with our own Buddhahood rather than ego is of course extremely hard when we are facing challenges such as redundancy, bereavement, a relationship ending, a serious illness… or a knotty piece of karma that has stuck around for 20 years or more. It is natural to want to give up.

But in our darkest and bleakest moments we can chant, as Nichiren did, to ‘cast off the transient and reveal the true’, prepared to lose everything for the sake of the Law, for the sake of the dignity of Life. For it is here that you find everything, that you find your Buddhahood, that you transform your smaller self.

And if you win today in your life, if you defeat your darkness, your lesser self and the illusions that spring from ego, then people around you who have never fought will discover the spark of hope, people who have given up will find the strength to start again, people who are fighting will keep going, and people on the verge of victory will have a final breakthrough. In this way, if you are prepared to face and transform your ego, then your deepest and darkest karma will become your Truth and your most noble and dignified gift to the whole world.

Much more on all of this in my book, The Buddha in Me, The Buddha in You  out in Feb 2016 and available now on Amazon UK.

Dx

The post Does my bum look big in this? How to defeat your ego and connect with your Buddhahood instead… appeared first on David Hare.

first of all, warmest thanks to the thousands of you who have supported this page over the last two years! Thanks to you I found a wonderful publisher for my book. So this is just to let you know that ‘The Buddha in Me, The Buddha in You’ (based on this blog) is now available for pre-order on Amazon UK. The book will be out in the UK in Feb 2016. I will do another post once my publishers – Rider (part of Penguin Random House) have placed it with other publishers in the USA, India etc… when it will also appear on the Amazon.com website.

This will be the world’s first personal development book to teach that individual fulfilment comes from making a vow to raise the life state of the whole planet (Kosen Rufu). More on the book here. Right, now that it’s on Amazon, I’d better crack on and finish the final manuscript! Love, Light and NMRK,

David x

The post The Buddha in Me, the Buddha in You – now on Amazon UK appeared first on David Hare.

What I love about James’s résumé is that he has slowly, surely and steadily built a successful Hollywood career through his repeated efforts. In fact to land those 100 parts, he has had to do more than 3,000 auditions! And this reminds him of a famous Buddhist quote: “From the indigo, an even deeper blue.” This means that, if one dyes something repeatedly in indigo, it becomes even bluer than the indigo leaf itself. In this interview, James shared with me how his strong Buddhist practice sustains him through the ups and downs of life.

What’s the biggest obstacle you’ve overcome through the practice?

My father and his father made huge, detrimental mistakes that destroyed their families and the damage took years and generations to heal and in some cases those issues have been the greatest obstacles I have faced as father and husband. Issues of infidelity, financial mistakes and more importantly issues of being present and available to set an example. This has also been my biggest benefit. I am present for my son and daughter, as best I can. I am working to be a better man, father, husband and son than the men in my family before me. In essence I am redefining the truest meaning of fatherhood in my family and all the responsibility that comes with that. This is not an easy task or mission, but it is mine.

What’s your favourite Buddhist quote and why? 

SGI President Daisaku Ikeda says: “A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation, and, further, will enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.” And another favourite quote (author unknown): “Two things define you, your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything”. I have never forgotten where I have come from and this practice allows me to have gratitude and to treat others as I would want to be treated.

Your new movie is Jurassic World, are there any Nichiren Buddhist themes in it?

The most obvious one is “the person & the environment are one!”  If our hearts and minds are pure, then so is the environment. There is also the theme of ‘those who do not stop evil are supporting and encouraging it.’ Also part of the inherent nature of dinosaurs was to kill, but unlike the dinosaurs, we have the Gohonzon, which gives us a tool to access our Buddhahood and transform ourselves and our inherent nature.

Why do you think Nichiren Buddhism attracts so many actors and artists?

This practice gives you the strength, power and hope to fundamentally transform your own human journey while on this earth. As an actor/artist I can have a deep and profound effect on the planet, if I just dig deep into my own humanity and then bring that to light by unearthing human behaviour in all its beauty, pain, joy and sorrow. That is my mission while I am here. I audition more than 300 times a year, and in a good year I will only succeed with ten of those 300 attempts to share myself and skills. I can’t imagine having to deal with that without this practice. It gives me a sword to wield through all these setbacks and come away from them feeling happiness, joy and hope. I hope my life and human revolution will encourage people to stand up and fight even harder!

Tell us more about how you handle rejection as an actor?

I cannot stress enough the resilience this practice gives you and how necessary this is for my life and career. Also sometimes you may ‘step in some dog shit’ in life and it takes a while to get rid of the smell from your shoes or even from your mind. You smell it, others do or even if they don’t, you think they do. You have to shed that mindset and make greater causes in order to counter the temporary nature of ‘having shit on your shoes’. I share that analogy a great deal to encourage actors going through serious dry spells of work.

What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?

Trust yourself more, be better to yourself and do this chanting thing that’s been put right in front of you!

You can Like James’ Facebook page here

You can view James’ showreel here:

And if you enjoyed this interview you may also like a similar post about another SGI Buddhist actor, Cathryn de Prume, to whom I am very grateful as she connected me to James.

More from James in my book, The Buddha in Me, the Buddha in You – a handbook for happiness, available for pre-order now on Amazon UK (to be published Feb 2016)

The post Jurassic World actor James DuMont talks Nichiren Buddhism and “a deeper shade of blue.” appeared first on David Hare.

[Note: if you would like to read a literal translation of what Nam-myoho-renge-kyo means (and find out why it may even anticipate the latest discoveries of quantum physics…) please visit this page on my blog. If you want to hear the sound of chanting, check out this Youtube video by my fellow blogger, a magnificent Buddha called Robbie Lockie.]

The Law behind the mantra

Of course the Mystic Law already existed before Nichiren began studying and teaching Buddhism. It is the force at the core of the Universe that flows through all Life, and has done so since time without beginning. And it was revealed by Shakyamuni Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) in the Lotus Sutra 2,000 years before Nichiren was born. But Nichiren was the first Buddhist teacher to distil it into a simple and accessible mantra that anyone can recite. I think that on a spiritual level, Nichiren simply realised – with his whole life – that when this Mystic Law manifests as words, the sound and form it takes is “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo”. And when it manifests as a picture, the form it takes is the Gohonzon – the scroll that Nichiren Buddhists chant to.

People often ask  me what chanting feels like and what it does. Personally, when I chant with full concentration, I feel a liberating sense of fusion, freedom and timelessness. I reach a place that feels like the effervescent epicentre of Life itself. There is a sense of losing who you are yet feeling whole, of being totally free yet also belonging, of being utterly relaxed yet completely focused, like your whole life is in the zone. When I am in this life state I don’t even feel I am consciously chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo any more. I feel that I actually am Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and that when I open my mouth and just let the words out, it would be labelled ‘chanting’ by an external observer.

So, that’s what it feels like. But what does it actually do?

The power of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo

My experience over the last 30 years is that chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo shatters your illusions, bulldozes your comfort zones and removes your subconscious and karmic reasons for being unhappy and/or disrespectful to others. It is a sort of ‘spiritual alchemy’ that lights a fire in your soul and lifts your spirits, transforming all your desires and delusions into enlightenment, and increasing your reverence for other people and for the inherent dignity of their lives. As a result, when we chant, we are raising the life-state of the whole planet, we are transforming humanity’s collective consciousness. At the same time it is immensely practical as well as spiritual. It’s a tool you can use. I get my best business ideas and creative insights when I chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

And, perhaps most amazing of all, when you let Nam-myoho-renge-kyo flow through your life, your mission unfolds before your very eyes. When faced with a decision to make about my life direction, I sometimes chant with this question in mind: “When the wondrous Mystic Law of Myoho-renge-kyo expresses itself through me, David Hare, what action do I take? Where do I go? What do I say? Who do I connect with? Who do I become?” I find this is a good way to overcome my smaller self (ego) so that I connect instead with my big Buddha-state. In short, and unlikely as it seems to our logical minds, this little mantra is complete and it is profound. When I doubt its power, it is because my understanding is partial and shallow. You may also want to read this post on why chanting goes deeper than personal development techniques such as affirmations.

The Mystic Law – a poem by Rob Cook

Of course prose is too clumsy a tool to convey the spiritual depths of this mantra, so I will resort to poetry. A poem composed by beloved SGI Buddhist musician and artist Rob Cook (1953 – 2013) who described his core beliefs as being ‘rooted in a spiritual humanism that sees humanity and the environment as one’. Towards the end of his life, when Rob was no longer able to paint, he wrote a poem called ‘The Mystic Law’ to communicate his love of Buddhism. Rob’s beautiful verses (published here with the kind permission of his partner Jane), are not a literal translation of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, but rather a personal interpretation of what this mantra meant to him as an artist inspired by a love of nature:

Nam is that

I take my diamond seat

and address the gaze of being

without doubt

without fear

with you in mind

Myo is that

the thought is all

and the light in the garden

never paused

from disclosing

our true mind

Ho is that

the river flows still

and the rain falls soft

without pausing

from washing into

a pure mind

Ren is that

the wind stirs the trees

and the air fills the sky

sweet and sharp

as we breathe

inside an unbounded mind

Ge is that

the earth gathers together

the life of plants

soft on the water

as we hold up

a joyful mind

Kyo is that

the ripples in the lake

reflect it all so perfectly

woven together

entwined eternally

walking in heaven here.

Isn’t it wonderful? When I first heard this poem at Rob’s funeral, its beauty moved me and many others to tears. Thank you Rob! And wherever you are now, I am sure you are once again inspiring people with your warmth and wisdom!

So, Happy Anniversary everyone!! And please feel free to contribute your own comments below about how you feel when you chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Or any questions you may have. Thank you.

Love and Light,

David

The post 28 April 1253 – Nichiren chants Nam-myoho-renge-kyo for the first time appeared first on David Hare.