At Oike Elementary School, where I attended, there were wise sayings and well-known adages hanging on all the classrooms’ walls.
Those words of wisdom included famous expressions such as the Japanese saying “Nothing will be accomplished unless you just do it, and if something hasn’t been accomplished, that’s because you didn’t do it” and the famous maxim “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” Those words as written in the principal’s calligraphy are still clearly visible to my mind’s eye and burned into my memory. It’s impossible to measure the impact those words have had on my life.
Hard work and perseverance are fundamental to our growth. But they are so basic that we sometimes neglect them. This happens because we don’t realize that the gods and buddhas are right beside us, and so we fudge things and slack off.
But I cannot help always feeling grateful because I believe that the gods and the buddhas are continuously watching over us. Therefore, no matter what task I take on, I always do my best and am as industrious as I can be.
It is important to improve oneself in this way for as long as one lives; to cherish the aspiration to devote oneself to the good of other people and the world at large, and to work hard and persevere toward realizing that aspiration.
The Buddha guided you into the world so that you could live your life in this way.
Bodai no me o okosashimu [Germinating the Seeds of Awakening] (Kosei Publishing, 2018), p. 23-24
Nikkyo Niwano, the founder of Rissho Kosei-kai, was born in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, in 1906. A longtime advocate of cooperation and dialogue between the world’s religious faiths, Rev. Niwano promoted interreligious understanding as honorary chairman of Shinshuren (Federation of New Religious Organizations of Japan), honorary president of Religions for Peace, and in various other capacities. He is the author of several books on Buddhism, the Lotus Sutra, and spirituality, such as Buddhism for Today, Lifetime Beginner, Buddhism for Everyday Life, and more. Rev. Niwano passed away in 1999 at the age of 92.
