A Guide to the - Rissho Kosei-kai

What Will Light Up Our Hearts?People should cherish ideals and goals. If they do not, they quickly succumb to compromises,try to avoid hardship, and drift with the current. In my youth the word ambition was oftenheard, and most young men recited to themselves a poem by Shaku Gessho (1817‐‐58) thatwent, "Setting an aim in life, a young man leaves home, determined to succeed or neverreturn." It seems that today status seeking remains but ambition has been forgotten. Since thatword has fallen out of favor, it seems that we have also ignored the words "pride" and"dignity."The poet Hideo Yoshino (1902‐‐67) has something significant to say about ambition in"Soliloquy of a Poet" in his collection of essays Yawarakana Kokoro (The Tender Heart): "Incomposing poetry, one must be bold. By this I mean bold enough to let oneself go and focussharply on one thing; poetry requires that spirit. . . . The true essence of a poem comes from apliant soul experiencing an irrepressible feeling and allowing it to find a breach and pour forth."Yoshino does not use the word ambition, but when he refers to his poems' quality ofinevitability, it is obvious that is what he is talking about. If one throws oneself into one's workwholeheartedly, then the quality of each day's work will be subtly transformed. Our work willbe different from that of others. At first the difference may be slight, but it will graduallybecome more obvious, and then it will become the kind of work that sparkles and shines, andone will become bold.Ideals are similar in that they rise high above reality. There is no such thing as an ideal that isnot lofty. For example, the Buddhist ideal is to perfect oneself like the Buddha and make thisworld the Pure Land. Most will say, "That's just beyond the realm of possibility," and give up.There are also people who would probably say, "No matter how hard I try as a single individual,the world will not change."When we consider the disgraceful conflicts and terrible disasters that frequently occur in ourown society, and that so many people on this earth are exposed to the terror of nuclearweapons, scorched by the flames of war, and faced with starvation, the transformation of thisworld into the Pure Land and the achievement of world peace do seem utterly impossible. That,however, is a misunderstanding of what an ideal is. It stems from the false impression that anideal is only valid if it is realized.The ideal of world peace is like a great ocean, and our individual activities are like small drops ofwater that fall on a tree in a forest in the mountains. One drop provides the earth with a dropof moisture. If enough drops fall, the trees will grow and there will be ground water. Where theground water emerges as a spring, it will sustain birds and animals, and quench the thirst of thepassing traveler. Farther on, it will become a mountain stream, making beautiful ravines andgiving fish a place to grow. As it goes farther, it will give life to the crops of the fields thatprovide human beings with food, and it will provide an important means of transport. Thuswater, even before it reaches the great ocean, fulfills a number of definite roles at each stage.Even one drop of water has that much power.In Japan as elsewhere, there are large numbers of people engaged in volunteer work toimprove society and contribute to peace. These people render service at social welfarefacilities, raise money for refugees in Asia and Africa, and in general try to add individual dropsof water to the oceanic idea of world peace. Through this day‐by‐day individual effort, the idealis for certain being accomplished.Everyone knows the story of Isaac Newton seeing the apple fall and discovering the law ofgravity, but his was not a case of sudden enlightenment. Before that chance event, he had long31