“May we and all living beings attain the Enlightenment of the Buddha”
Practitioners are invited to act with the wish to work for their Awakening and for everyone’s improvement. If, in all their relationships, whatever they may be, they remember the cause and effect principle, interdependence, interrelation and everyone’s unlimited potential and welcome all beings in their hearts with benevolence and gratefulness, it will engender unexpected effects and discoveries which will enrich their humanity. As they will be involved in all their relationships with the consciousness gained from preceding experiences, they will feel the gratefulness of being able to achieve their spiritual roles.
Human beings considered as being elements in a chain of relationships.
The method created by the two Founders is both simple and deep. Every single thing only lives thanks to its relationship with others. Nothing can exist in itself. When a human being becomes conscious of one of the most obvious relationships in life, the one he has with his or her parents and ancestors, he or she rapidly perceives that life is only made of relationships.
That is why, if someone wants to understand their own lives, they have to look at it though the way it is related to their parents’, grandparents’ and their unknown previous generations’ lives. They will then realize that the origin of their lives dates back to many centuries and imply a tremendous number of living creatures who have all cooperated to their births. They can see that they are not solitary elements but a vital part of the universe. Thanks to this basic understanding of themselves, they get rid of the ignorance which had trapped them and their ancestors too into the vicious circle of cause and effect.
Our families’ karmic links
The consciousness of the deep meaning of our relationship to all previous human beings before us naturally creates gratitude as well as the desire for their happiness. We also wish they could hear this teaching which would enable them to get rid of ignorance, erroneous conceptions and the bad results they engendered in their lives. This is why offering our ancestors the Lotus Sutra is a basic part of a bodhisattva’s practice. Thanks to this privileged link with their families, practitioners become conscious of their own realities and of their limits and then gradually develop a clearer consciousness of their obstacles. Indeed the teaching of karmic links with one’s family is an important vehicle of transformation for the practitioners who are willing to look for the causes of their obstacles.
Creating other people’s happiness
This consciousness naturally widens to all our relationships, as various as they may be. As practitioners are invited to remember the basic principles of interrelation and karmic links, they abandon their conceptions and prejudices. They open up to others showing them new consideration and look for the proper actions to help them progress, therefore developing new qualities and thus taking part in the creation of their happiness.
Transmitting the Teaching: the path of spiritual friendship
A bodhisattva’s practice finds its deepest and most marvellous realization in the “Master of Dharma’s” practice as the Lotus Sutra calls it. It is rooted in the consciousness of the deep meaning of karmic links which is the breeding ground for transformation and awakening. It consists in walking step by step with the people who are also prompted by the wish to open up to this Teaching. It is the path of spiritual friendship : a kind of friendship of a particular nature which is based on the sincere wish for the others’ progress and which throws light on the necessary transformations to free oneself from karmic conditioning. Thanks to their astonishing experiences, practionners will discover the large, powerful and generous world of the Teaching and the truth of karmic reality at the same time. This noble aspiration to everybody’s progress brings about the resolution of the deep causes of obstacles and concretely transforms the perception of reality and reality itself. Experiences of all sorts generated by a sincere change of mind and the deep wish to transform oneself show how powerful this teaching is.
Improving the world
The Reiyukai Founders‘wish was to create a better world thanks to everyone’s progress. Reiyukai members are invited to show their bodhisattva’s heart towards all human beings and also become the Dharma’s masters, offering the teaching to the people who long for walking to the end of this path of transformation and progress. It is our human duty to improve this world so as to make it a place where peace and harmony can prevail.