“Because I have expounded this teaching, I have been exiled and almost killed. As the saying goes, ‘Good advice grates on the ear.’ But still I am not discouraged. The Lotus Sutra is like the seed, the Buddha like the sower, and the people like the field.” (“The Essentials for Attaining Buddhahood,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin,vol. 1, p. 748)
Background
Nichiren spent years trying to help people understand the root causes of their suffering, pointing out the errors of the other Buddhist schools and teaching the practice of reciting the sutra and chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. In return, he had to face one life-threatening persecution after another. As the saying goes, “Good advice grates on the ear.”
Despite this, he could proclaim: “But still I am not discouraged.” It’s a passionate declaration, a “lion’s roar,” that he would continue fighting to sow seeds of happiness, thus showing his disciples that he was a teacher that they could follow to a life of victory. Likewise, we are fortunate to have correct teachers in the three founding Soka Gakkai presidents, from whom we can learn to live an unbeatable life and with whom we can sow happiness wherever we go.
Ikeda Sensei’s Guidance
To live in accord with this path of mentor and disciple is to lead an unsurpassed life, one committed to opening the way to peace and happiness for all humanity.
To bring the “nourishment of wisdom” and the “moisture of compassion” to the “parched fields” of people’s lives that have been devitalized by greed, anger and ignorance and restore them to “lush green fields”—this is the vow of mentor and disciple in Buddhism. (A Foundation for Your Life, pp. 122–23)
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