“An Indescribable Joy”

This guidance is from section 26.2 of “The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace” series, published in the December 2017 Living Buddhism, p. 54.

[First Soka Gakkai President] Tsunesaburo Makiguchi began practicing Nichiren Buddhism at the age of 57, in 1928, the year I was born. He was by no means a young man. In terms of the average life expectancy at that time, he would have been considered elderly. In other words, he started practicing Nichiren Buddhism in the concluding chapter of his life, and yet he created an indelible record of achievement in the history of kosen-rufu.

In his final years, he engaged in an unremitting struggle against Japan’s militarist authorities and died a noble death in prison for his beliefs. Describing how he felt when he embarked on the path of Buddhist practice, Mr. Makiguchi wrote:

When I made that great decision and finally committed myself to practicing Nichiren Buddhism, I came to fully comprehend and appreciate in my daily life Nichiren Daishonin’s words: “When the skies are clear, the ground is illuminated. Similarly, when one knows the Lotus Sutra, one understands the meaning of all worldly affairs” (“The Object of Devotion for Observing the Mind,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 376). With an indescribable joy, I completely changed the way I had lived for almost 60 years.^[1]

Mr. Makiguchi uses the phrase an indescribable joy. Through adopting the fundamental way of life of Nichiren Buddhism, he completely transformed how he had lived up until then, and found himself able to freely and energetically take action in society. His words convey to us his exuberance in asserting that nothing could compare to the joy of this experience.