How Do You Break Through?

A: [Andrei Borisov, the former Minister of Culture of the Sakha Republic] revealed a discovery he made in his youth while working as a gardener one winter. In trying to break through a thick layer of ice that covered the garden, he noticed that when he struck the ice in various places, it only formed a few small cracks. But when he struck at one spot repeatedly, the ice suddenly broke, sending large cracks out in all directions.

There is a critical point to everything. … When we concentrate our efforts on one point, we are sure to make a breakthrough. Nichiren Daishonin offers this allegory: “The situation is like the joints in a piece of bamboo: if one joint is ruptured, then all the joints will split” (“Letter to Horen,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 512). (Ikeda Sensei, Nov. 27, 2009, World Tribune, p. 5)