Nam myoho renge kyo - Where to begin?

Honest and sincere prayer/meditation/chanting - Our Buddhist practice is a gift not an obligation.

John Shelby speaks candidly about prayer. He speaks about how prayer has become a practice or an austerity to many Christians.

In Nichiren Buddhism we are taught that prayer or chanting should never become an austerity or a chore, prayer is about focusing on being sincere and honest.

We never pray to beg for help, we pray and chant to ask for courage and strength to resolve our own problems and issues in life.

John Shelby is an inspirational man, who clearly leads the way for a new movement in Christian belief, I just hope that there are many more young men and women out there in the US that are spreading this word of love, compassion and honesty.

Our Buddhist practice, is a gift, not an obligation.

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There is no hell. The Church invented hell.

"Hell is an invention of the church ... The catholic church doesn't like the people to grow up." (John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal bishop from Newark, N.J., interviewed by Keith Morrison on Dateline, NBC, 8-13-2006)

John Shelby Spong, whose books have sold more than a million copies, was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark for 24 years before his retirement in 2001. His admirers acclaim him as a teaching bishop who makes contemporary theology accessible to the ordinary layperson — he's considered the champion of an inclusive faith by many, both inside and outside the Christian church. In one of his books, "The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Discover the God of Love" (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2005), this visionary thinker seeks to introduce readers to a proper way to engage the holy book of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

A committed Christian who has spent a lifetime studying the Bible and whose life has been deeply shaped by it, Bishop Spong says he was not interested in Bible bashing. "I come to this interpretive task not as an enemy of Christianity," he says. "I am not even a disillusioned former Christian, as some of my scholar-friends identify themselves. I am a believer who knows and loves the Bible deeply. But I also recognize that parts of it have been used to undergird prejudices and to mask violence."

A visiting lecturer at Harvard and at universities and churches worldwide, Bishop Spong delivers more than 200 public lectures each year to standing-room-only crowds. His bestselling books include Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, A New Christianity for a New World, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, and Here I Stand.

Bishop Spong's extensive media appearances include a profile segment on 60 Minutes as well as appearances on Good Morning America, Fox News Live, Politically Incorrect, Larry King Live, The O'Reilly Factor, William F. Buckley's Firing Line, and Extra. Bishop Spong and his wife, Christine Mary Spong, have five children and six grandchildren. They live in New Jersey.

http://www.johnshelbyspong.com/

Showing gratitude

There is a difference between feeling gratitude and appreciation for something, and feeling attachment to something. Appreciation and gratitude are states of pure love, while attachment contains fear - fear of losing or not having what you are attached to. When it comes to something you want in your life, appreciation and gratitude attracts, and attachment pushes away. If you are feeling afraid that you will not get what you want, or losing what you have, then you have attachment.

To remove the attachment, keep shifting yourself into a state of appreciation and gratitude, until you can feel that the fear has gone.

Why is the SGI continuously attacked and subject to vicious rumours?

SGI continues the Buddha’s mission of awakening people to their potentials and their identity as Bodhisattvas : global citizens who put humanity first in their behaviour. This spirit clashes head on with three main tendencies:

The isolationist tendency of Japanese supremacists has no room for the concepts of global citizenship, humanism and Buddha nature, inherent in the people of all nations. It only natural for those who deny the equality of people - based on their shared humanity, such as racists and nationalists - it is natural for them to be at odds and in strong disagreement with SGI teachings of Humanism. The nationalist powers continue today their past history of hatred and disregard to what unites people.
The Japanese nationalist authorities, which caused the ruin of millions of families during the II World War - and banned the Soka Gakkai at that time – were not alone in finding justification for their aggression. Various temples vigorously supported the nationalist cult of emperor worship and the cult nation worship.
“Arrogance and Authoritarianism” are shared qualities between the nationalists and the “religious” priesthood:

The spiritual life of the individual in Nichiren Buddhism does not need the authority of “mediator-priests”. SGI’s teaching: that an individual has a “direct connection” with the world of Buddhahood - was a teaching of dispute with the controlling priests. The priesthood demanded from ordinary believers the “absolute obedience” to the authority of the High Priest. When the Soka Gakkai rejected obedience to this spirit of arrogance and control over ordinary believers of Buddhism, the vicious animosity of the priesthood against SGI consequently revealed it self.

Anyone familiar with the history and influence of the concept of “authority” on the Japanese society would grasp how easily ordinary people can fall into deception. There are various individuals and institutions which are strongly affected by the media campaign of fabrications and hatred against SGI. Falling in the trap of emotionalism and delusion, they also attack SGI, expressing their ignorance.

The group of the “Ill-informed” about SGI can also be found outside of Japan, in various Western countries, among those who base their information - and hence attacks on SGI - on hear-say sources and “Japanese experts” views. The “Ill-informed group” covers under its umbrella also those whose superficial views about Buddhism find SGI teachings as “revolutionary and alarming”, a reminder of the situation faced by Nichiren when he challenged traditional beliefs with the revolutionary concepts of the Lotus Sutra.

The above is an excerpt, from http://www.buddhawill.com/Soka_Humanism/Homepage.html

It is my firm and strong opinion that if people would stop juding others, based on what they heard, and instead on what they actually saw with their own two eyes, the world would be a very different place.

So many different schools and groups, spend so much time, throwing insults, hurling abuse and demanding that the other "practices the correct path".

If we all have the same goal, of peace and happiness for all humanity, what does it matter.

We all want the same things at the end of the day, love in our hearts, peace in the land.

It is beyond me why we cant all just get along. I dream of a day when ignorance and arrogance are no longer the major causes of conflict in this world.

The Earth - Our Home...

Panasonic VariCam HD cameras were used for land-based footage and Sony HD cameras for aerial sequences. For aerial footage the camera was mounted in a device called a Heligimbal, a gyroscopically-stabilised housing attached to the underside of a helicopter and controlled by joystick from inside the cockpit. The unit was lightweight, enabling lenses with a longer reach to be attached (up to 40x magnification).

Reincarnation - The Boy that lived before - Part 1

Reincarnation is not an easy concept to get your mind around. How could we possibly live again and again? Death seems so final and when we are alive, life appears so vivid.

It is not easy for us to imagine the possibility of life after death because we are so focused in this life, that nothing outside of it seems real.

What happens at the point of death? My teacher Seth, said that its much easier to ask the question then it is to answer it.

What is it to be alive? And where does the I, or the me, exist? Am "I" in my brain, or am "I" in my heart?

We often refer to our bodies, in the possessive form, my body, my arm, my leg, and with out realising it, we refer to it like a suit.

I don't want to hurt my body, I don't want to damage my body, I must look after my body.

Seth says that we are a projection from our inner conciousness. If you think of your body like an image projected on a wall, the energy required to maintain that image, is immense.

There is a part of your that exists, outside the physical matter, that maintains this corporeal image.

When we die, what happens to us afterwards comes down to a matter of choice. Since everything that exists is connected, we have a choice to be a part of anything.

When the Buddha, became aware of all phenomena, he literally was everything and every where instantaneously. He reached a point of creative concious thought that connected this concious mind, his subconscious mind and every thing in between and he became aware of all reality and everything in it.

Death, in Buddhism is seen very much like a form of sleep. When we go to bed at night we dream and when we wake up in the day time, it all seems very real.

Well in our Buddhist belief, it is our understanding that when we die, the essence, the entity, the karma, what ever you want to call it, rests and then re-enters the world, on some level, based on the choice of the source self.

Sometimes, I wonder why I believe this stuff, but it is something that I have known, since I was a child. I have always felt something like this.

Long before I became Buddhist, I believed in life eternal.

Just like winter turning in to spring and then summer. Our lives are the same, we go and return over and over.

Our lives can be likened to a stage, and we come and go from that stage. The characters on the stage play the parts, and act convincingly, consumed by the part, but when it comes time for them to go, they leave the stage.

They may return in a new costume, with a new mask.

The Hindus believe, that we are all GOD, but with different masks on. That each and every one of us, is a different aspect of God.

Like a large pane of glass, smashed in to a trillion shards, each one of us feels unique, but we are all a small slice of the source, the universe, the god, Allah, Yahweh.

Centuries have passed and we have been brainwashed to forget who we are, but I believe that that is changing.

As time passes, we will wake up from the dream and realise who we are.

All connected. Many in body one in mind.

Watch this touching story, I really enjoyed it.

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Part 5

The earth is a priceless jewel, of which we must cherish.

Some-days we forget what a beautiful planet Earth truly is. We wake up every day and we go about our chores, our work and we become so consumed by every thing that happens around us and in our mind, we often dont stop and observe the wonder and the beauty around. The trees, the birds, the flowers, the rock and stone, the water and air.

Have you ever picked a flower, held it in your hand, looked at it, seen it and merged with it? Have you ever just looked at an object and just allowed it to be, without question, or judgement or an attempt to understand it.

To really, see it!

The earth is a priceless jewel and it is our duty to cherish it, honour it and protect it.

Buy CD - Beyond: Buddhist & Christian Prayers (Tina Turner, Dechen Shak-Dagsay)

I found this a while ago, but never thought to buy it.
It is a wonderful album with many beautiful Christian and Buddhist prayers.

Sometimes in our lives, we need to reach down inside ourselves and call forth deep faith.

Faith that we are on the right path and that the universal law/god will give us the wisdom and compassion to choose the right direction and the correct path.



If your in the UK you can buy BEYOND with Tina Turner by clicking here

Tina Turner - Speaks about Nam myoho renge kyo