The Buddha in Your Mirror: Practical Buddhism and the Search for Self

In so doing, they discover a way of living that redirects all things toward hope, value and harmony.

Ikeda’s continual example and guidance stand as a means to measure my own behavior and to bring out a better side of others as I strive daily to improve myself.

“Society is complex and harsh, demanding that you struggle hard to survive. No one can make you happy. Everything depends on you as to whether or not you attain happiness…. A human being is destined to a life of great suffering if he is weak and vulnerable to his external surroundings.”

To see a World in a grain of sand, And a Heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour.

Likewise, our lives, which are one with this universe, have also always existed in one form or another, following an unending cycle of birth and death, decline and renewal, subject to the physical laws of this universe.

Buddhism teaches us to recognize these cycles of impermanence and have the courage to accept them.

Nichiren stated that the source of all desire is life itself; as long as life continues, we instinctively want to live, to cherish love, to seek profit, and so on. Since desire arises from the innermost core of life, it is virtually indestructible. Even the thirst for enlightenment is a kind of desire.

This idea that the power to achieve happiness lies totally within can be disconcerting. It entails a radical sense of responsibility.

While the specific details of rebirth, in what form and when, are ultimately unknowable, the Buddhism described in this book stresses the importance of seeing the big picture—discovering the eternity of life within oneself. In this Buddhism, the challenge presented by the issue of death is to find the most valuable way to live.