Is there anybody going to listen to my story….it’s still about the girl who came to stay. Stay within the SGI, stay within the safe stream of Buddhism, channel all those creative energies towards something positive and life-affirming. But, I had this nasty little life experience, just about 22 years ago…..and it stayed with me over time. Now, granted it was a legitimately nasty experience, one none of us would ask for, yet it was one that I gladly embraced….after all, it’s all karma…it’s all about mission and I got the lucky straw.
I had chanted in 1980 or so to the Dai-Gohonzon (yes, I was so very fortunate to go on tozan with many, many friends from around the world) and I made one of those transformative prayers that I would have a child with a profound mission for kosen-rufu. OK, translations are in order….Dai-Gohonzon is the physical embodiment of our highest enlightenment; tozan is a pilgrimage; and kosen-rufu, well, call it world peace.
So, back to the story…..shortly after returning to the USA, I discovered that I was pregnant…..Voila, prayer equals child with mission. So I ambled along, doing the usual, giving birth after 9 months, raising my now nuclear little family (mommy, daddy, and 2 kids)….all the while encouraging Baltimore SGI members as their women’s division chapter leader. You know the drill…meetings all day and night…..kids wandering through adoring members….chanting to stay positive, be supportive, and somehow get everything done every day.
Jump forward through 2 more years of abundant daimoku and onto another pregnancy….and I‘m now 9 months pregnant and we are getting ready to move…more space, bigger yard – the American dream. I am in the daimoku rhythm – two hours of chanting every day for this new healthy baby (and to get everything done, which is now even more of everything). And oops….my two year son, Stephane, remember the one with the incredible mission for kosen-rufu? Well, he decides that it’s about time to realize that mission…and in one great leap of faith, takes a fall off a high armoire, and is dead before I can even blink.
Yep, as I said, a legitimately nasty experience…..except, with all that daimoku (that’s the Nam Myoho Renge Kyo chanting) under my vastly expanded pregnant belt, I made a determination that all my Baltimore friends and family, myself included, were going to deepen their faith as a result of this and that none of us, not a one, were going to suffer because of this accident – a very tall order which required many hours of daily daimoku, the support of many hundreds of friends, and much study and guidance. And, in the wisdom of my Buddhist experience, I knew that the best way to overcome all suffering is to demonstrate compassion for others, primarily through the practice of shakubuku (basically sharing Nam Myoho Renge Kyo with other people). And shakubuku we did….we chanted, we kept moving forward, and we transformed this nasty little hiccup into a great, big, huge benefit for everyone.
After all, life and death are just part of a cycle….round and round we go….and my Stephane, and all my friends in spirit, are just a meditation away. You see, the veil between life and death is, for me, very thin and something I can easily cross in daimoku. And my friends in spirit share my joy when I am happy….and wish that I were making a happier movie when I am sad. Yes, it’s all just a movie and we are just spirit beings having a human-costume experience….so I try to make it a great movie that anyone would like to watch. Obviously, some days are more exciting than others.
So, after this great experience, I eventually end up with 4 children – 1 in spirit and 3 here on earth (or so it seems most days when the earth has not spun off its axis – lol). And I’m having this little problem….it’s a free floating mother of all anxiety that makes me worry every time I am separated from one of my children that this could be the moment of their death. Oops – bad movie, don’t care to repeat that scene. So I continue to chant boatloads of daimoku, great heaping rowboats filled with daimoku, steam ships and ocean liners of daimoku…and still I am anxious. Ugh!
Now, because I’m a writer, I did what writers do and I start journaling….page after page….until an idea forms. It begins with that “what would Jesus do” question that everyone in this bible belt of America felt compelled to ask, in word or bracelet. And it just irritated the crap out of me – what the hell – you’re the physical embodiment of Jesus, Buddha, Messiah, Yahweh… what are you going to do? And that’s how it all began….the healing that is.
A book of meditations, written in 1998, and used every day since to focus my thoughts in a positive, live-affirming direction….To chant daimoku and trust that everything is just the way it’s supposed to be….and that all my children are just fine – after all, if spirit is only a thin veil, then they are only a thought away….and if it’s a movie, let’s not make it a horror flick, let’s make it a happy one.
Tomorrow….more about the book
sorry delete last, its missing this!
you blow me away with your courage and spirit. would love to hear your voice tell the tale on our show . . .