This section features Ikeda Sensei’s seminal guidance to the members of the United States. The following is an abridgement of his speech given at the Youth Training Session, held at the Malibu Training Center, Malibu, California, February 26, 1990. The full speech can be found in My Dear Friends in America, fourth edition, pp. 84–94.
Youth is the time of continual worries. Your heart is swayed in all matters—your future direction, personality, relationships, society and life. You may often feel irresolute and restless. Some will be puzzled by the gap between ideals and reality, and others will succumb to self-hatred and become consumed with insecurity and fear.
Youth is a season of unrest and agony. This is true of young people anywhere in the world. In a sense, it may be all for the best. You certainly are not suffering on your own, and since young people are all experiencing change and growth, such feelings cannot be helped.
Therefore, you should not be hasty. It is unreasonable to suppose that you can become both spiritually and socially stable in one fell swoop. An airplane will have an accident if it tries to take off without first building up speed. Even if a plane takes off successfully, without sufficient fuel and complete preparation, it will not keep flying, or it may even crash.
Life is like a marathon, as is faith. Though you may lose the lead in the midst of the race, victory or defeat is decided at the finish line. Your training during your youth is for the purpose of enabling you to win ultimate and true victory. Therefore, now is the time when you must study as much as you can and chant abundant daimoku so that you can greatly increase your life force.
Please steadily advance along the fundamental path of faith manifesting itself in daily life, living in the way that best suits you. Just as the sun rises every day, if you persistently advance based on the Mystic Law, the absolute Law of the universe, you will definitely lead a life in which all desires are fulfilled. Please be convinced that you are now leading the most certain and valuable youth. …
The Actual Proof of Improvement
Since we have taken the lead in embracing this great religion to which so much of humankind still remains oblivious, above all it is important that we demonstrate the value of Nichiren Buddhism by showing actual proof in our daily lives. Seeing such proof is what enables people to realize for the first time the greatness of the Dai-
shonin’s teachings and that it is something they have never encountered up to now.
Nichiren writes, “Even more valuable than reason and documentary proof is the proof of actual fact” (“Three Tripitaka Masters Pray for Rain,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 599). Of course, when we speak of showing actual proof, it doesn’t mean we have to try to put on a show of being in any way more knowledgeable or accomplished than we are. It is my hope that, in the manner that best suits your unique situation, you will show proof of the validity of Nichiren Buddhism by making steady improvements in your daily life and in polishing your character, and also in your family, place of work and community. In this way, you will become the kind of person who impresses others with vitality, hope and conviction, and who makes them feel reassured.
Only if you challenge your human revolution in a manner that is true to yourself will the people around you naturally begin to trust and respect you. That in itself is the greatest way of laying the groundwork for the spread of Buddhism. …
Be Ambassadors of Joy to Friends Steeped in Sadness
Faith comes down to the efforts we make continuously and untiringly to develop the New World of limitless power and potential existing in our lives—namely, that of Buddhahood.
The “Life Span” chapter contains the passage “Constantly harboring such feelings of grief, they at last come to their senses” (The Lotus Sutra and Its Opening and Closing Sutras, p. 270). This passage is short yet rich in meaning. In brief, it describes how the children in the story, believing that their father had died and that they were left with no one on whom to depend, are steeped in grief. And how, as a result, they finally come to the realization that they have to take the good medicine that their father had left them. Here, ingesting the medicine represents taking faith in the Lotus Sutra.
On one level, this passage indicates how, without experiencing suffering and sadness, common mortals cannot embrace Nichiren Buddhism and manifest their Buddha nature. It may be that each of us has lived with incessant grief at one time or another before becoming a Buddhist. Also, it would be no exaggeration to say that, whether in America or in any other country, there are numerous people whose lives are steeped in such grief, bereft of any conviction or spiritual support.
Once we awaken to our Buddha nature, however, we need not grieve any longer. Our lives are filled with the greatest of all joys. A world of infinite joy blossoms in our daily lives. It is our mission to teach this to others; thus, friends joined by the Mystic Law are ambassadors of joy.
California is often referred to as the “Eureka State.” Eureka is Greek for “I have found it.” Legend has it that the Greek mathematician Archimedes, while taking a bath, discovered a way to measure the purity of gold in the king’s crown and was so overjoyed that he ran naked through the streets shouting “Eureka! Eureka!” What an appropriate name for the Golden State, home of the gold rush in the 1 9th century.
We have discovered our Buddha nature—a wonder immeasurably greater than mere gold or Archimedes’s principle. Giving full play to that boundless joy in your youthful lives, I hope that, shouting “Eureka!” in the depths of your lives, you live each day filled with value and happiness.
With this significance, I propose that we form a new group with all the participants here today, to be called the Eureka Group.
Starting with this Eureka State, let us build a current of true happiness, a current of the Mystic Law that flows throughout America and the entire world. I will come to America as many times as I can and support you to the utmost.
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