Nichiren instructed his contemporary and future followers to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo (also referred to as “daimoku”) and overcome all their obstacles based on faith in the mandala he inscribed, commonly known as the Gohonzon. The mandala created by Nichiren is not the traditional round configuration but a rectangular scroll. Inscribed down its center is the mantra “Namu-myoho-renge-kyo, Nichiren”; this is flanked by the names of the Buddhas Shakyamuni and Many Treasures, who are depicted in the eleventh chapter of the Lotus Sutra, “Emergence of the Treasure Tower.” Included on the Gohonzon are the names of various Buddhist gods who represent the elemental functions of the universe, as well as the gamut of life conditions we all possess, known as the Ten Worlds (see Glossary). Nichiren described the Gohonzon as the object of devotion for observing one's mind. By chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo while focusing your eyes and attention on the Gohonzon, Buddha consciousness can be attained and prayers realized.
Of the Gohonzon, Nichiren writes in his letter, “Reply to Kyo-o,” “Believe in this mandala with all your heart. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is like the roar of a lion. What sickness can therefore be an obstacle?”6
Nichiren implies that nothing is impossible with faith and prayer. This is a common theme in all religions. Faith without prayer is little more than wishful thinking. Prayer without faith is like work without joy, or marriage without love.
While Nichiren claimed that any illness could be overcome through strong faith and prayer, he also placed great importance on getting proper diagnosis and the best possible medical treatment. Never did he suggest that faith alone would enable a person to disregard treatment. He strongly encouraged a stubborn, elderly follower to take proper care of her illness: “If you are unwilling to make efforts to heal yourself, it will be very difficult to cure your illness. . . . In addition you can go to Shijo Kingo, who is not only an excellent physician, but a Votary of the Lotus Sutra.”7
Drawing enlightenment and hope from the mighty ocean of the Lotus Sutra, Nichiren nourished his followers with the life-sustaining encouragement that by virtue of their faith and determined practice they could overcome any illness, extend their life-span, die a victorious death, and be joined by a thousand Buddhas who would guide them to nirvana.
Buddhist practice redirects attention away from external gods or saviors to the latent potential of Buddhahood at the core of human life that each of us can activate through chanting. This realization that enlightenment exists inherently and is imbued with unlimited healing power is the prima facie cause that in the cancer patient promotes a dynamically energetic immune response as well as a more synchronized spirit-body relationship.
By using the correct meditation of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, we can arouse and make manifest the life condition of Buddhahood from within. The state of Buddhahood definitely exists in all life, originating beyond the alaya-vijnana, or what C. G. Jung termed the collective unconscious.
In regard to Buddhist healing, when we chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, we are calling on the Mystic Law with our spirit and mind to emerge like an equatorial sun from the depths of cosmic consciousness and to positively transform and nourish the karmic seeds in the eighth level of alaya-vijnana. Through this process, negative health karma is burned up once and for all, so that even if illness takes our life, we will be rid of that destiny in our next existence.
From the standpoint of modern healing, an increasing number of highly respected medical schools are teaching new doctors about alternative medicine, including meditation, yoga relaxation techniques, prayer therapy, and guided imagery. Is there a meditation, prayer, and system of imagery that can empower people and, at the same time, positively transform the original cause that brought forth illness in the first place? Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is that method of meditation, prayer, and imagery all rolled into one. I call this combination of prayer and visualization “mantra-powered visualization.”
At the root of the Mystic Law is the boundless source of energy, consciousness, and synchronicity we call life. This vast power to heal and elevate consciousness already exists inside us. All we need do is tap into it and bring it out. We need no special skills or abilities to promote healing. Maintaining a state of equilibrium is the natural inclination of the body and mind. Buddhist healing goes directly to the cause of illness on a consciousness level. Shakyamuni declared in the 23rd chapter (“The Former Affairs of the Bodhisattva Medicine King”) of the Lotus Sutra:
Such is the Lotus Sutra. It can cause living beings to cast off all distress, all sickness and pain. It can unloose all the bonds of birth and death. . . . Among all sutras, it holds the highest place. And just as among all the stars and their like, the moon, a god's son, is foremost. So this Lotus Sutra is likewise. For among all the thousands, ten thousands, millions of types of sutra teachings, it shines the brightest. And just as the sun, a god's son, can banish all darkness, so too this sutra is capable of destroying the darkness of all that is not good.8
If someone is critically ill and they or their family prays to God or Jesus Christ for deliverance and are blessed with recovery, it does not diminish or contradict the power of the Lotus Sutra to heal or pave the way for a peaceful, dignified death and fortunate rebirth. By the same token, chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo does not conflict with other religious practices. Buddhism clearly recognizes and respects the beauty, intrinsic value, history, and diversity of the world's myriad spiritual teachings. What's important is the removal of suffering from our lives, not whose mythology is most popular. Chanting daimoku raises the awesome power that metaphorically changes poison into medicine at the core of our being. Chanting cultivates happiness in our daily life, elevates our life condition from weakness or confusion into strength and clarity. It mystically causes benefits unique to our individual happiness to appear, and it enables us to muster the resolve to overcome our personal obstacles, no matter how daunting they may seem at the moment.
What is at work in the Lotus Sutra is far more than a bounty of beautiful metaphors, timeless legends, or rapturous, spiritual praise. The essence of the Buddha's message is that Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the foremost spiritual medicine for people who are suffering and ill. The message of Buddha is that simple.
For nearly three decades, I have studied Nichiren's teachings in order to understand the nature of prayer and compassion as outlined in the Lotus Sutra. In the world of spirituality, it is a superior teaching. Nichiren left a legacy of personal letters and scholarly writings based on the Lotus Sutra that clarifies how to overcome illness and suffering through the practice of Buddhism. In his writing, “The Daimoku of the Lotus Sutra,” he quotes the great teacher Miao-lo, who said, “Because [the Lotus Sutra] can cure that which is thought to be incurable, it is called myo or mystic.”9
In another important work, “Reply to Ota Saemon-no-jo,” Nichiren wrote: “The Lotus Sutra is beneficial medicine for all illnesses of body and mind. Therefore it states, ‘This sutra is beneficial medicine for the illnesses of all mankind. If one is ill and can hear this sutra, his illness will vanish immediately, and he will find perpetual youth and eternal life.’”10
An extremely unusual trait seems to emerge when people chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo that can be objectively seen by others as well as subjectively experienced. Instead of growing old in spirit, people who chant become youthful and enthusiastic. This transformation is most evident when an elderly or weakened person starts to chant. They invariably become vigorous and youthful in spirit as if they were in their twenties again, but enjoying the wisdom of experience. Few things are as taxing on people's psychological age or health as cynicism, apathy, depression, and having no mission or passion for the future. Nichiren wrote, “This Buddha expounded on the medicine of immortality. This is the five characters of myoho-renge-kyo we have today. Moreover, he specifically taught that these five characters are ‘good medicine for the illnesses of all the people of Jambudvipa [the world].’”11
“The illnesses of all the people of the world” can be interpre
ted both literally and as a metaphor. Literally, it implies that chanting will put us in touch with our true identity, enabling us to see the eternity of our lives, allay the nagging fears of death, and awaken our inner power to overcome illness and suffering. From a metaphorical standpoint it implies that chanting is the solution to the misdirection of people and society as a whole.
1 John Michael Francis Camp, Magic, Myth & Medicine (New York: Taplinger, 1974), p. 105.
2 Nichiren Daishonin, The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 1999), p. 631.
3 The writings of T'ien-t'ai appear in The Taisho Shinshu Daizokyo published by The Society for the Publication of the Tripitaka, 1924-1934, Japan. They are in Chinese and, to my knowledge, only fragments have been translated into English.
4 Nichiren Daishonin, Gosho Zenshu (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 1952), p. 708.
5 Cited in Daisaku Ikeda, “The One Essential Phrase Part 2,” in World Tribune, June 7, 1996, p. 9.
6 Nichiren Daishonin, The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 412.
7 Nichiren Daishonin, “On Prolonging One's Life Span,” in The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 955.
8 Burton Watson, tr., The Lotus Sutra (Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 286.
9 Nichiren Daishonin, The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 149. Brackets are mine.
10 Nichiren Daishonin, Gosho Zenshu, p. 1015.
11 Nichiren Daishonin, “The Good Medicine for All Ills” in The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 937.
CHAPTER 2
Faith, Prayer, and Their Modern Proponents
Despite numerous technical advances in Western medicine, many people have expressed serious doubts that pure physical science can cure our ills. That fact has in turn created a $13 billion a year alternative medicine industry. With the advent of AIDS and the continuing horror of incurable cancers, people have turned to body-mind and faith healing. In answer to the public's thirst for spiritual remedies and body-mind philosophy, certain contemporary seers have emerged to redefine the role of the individual in their own healing. Thus an innovative group of physicians, now turned authors, have introduced us to the amazing powers and forgotten history of self-healing and our symbiotic relationship with the universe.
Harvard professor Dr. Herbert Benson conducted extensive studies on the effectiveness of faith and prayer in healing. He termed the measurable influence of faith and prayer “the relaxation response,” which he details in his book of the same title. He determined that what he calls “the faith factor” in a patient's prayer correlated to the degree that the patient's immune system was stimulated. With the relaxation response induced by prayer, patients were better able to reach a state of what Dr. Benson termed “remembered wellness.” The patient's faith is the key in the healing process.
In his book Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief, Dr. Benson confirmed, through clinical studies, the benefit of faith and prayer in eliciting the relaxation response and leading patients to remembered wellness. The study concluded that repetitive prayer, born of faith, is a highly effective adjunct to conventional medical treatment. The essence of that clinical study found measurable recuperative benefits were consistently obtained by chronically ill Christians, Jews, and Muslims who used repetitive prayer in conjunction with the best medical treatment available. Dr. Benson postulated that as long as the mantra or prayer is personally affirmative, it induces healthful physical changes such as lower blood pressure, better regulated heart rates, and lower metabolic rates.
Dr. Benson indicated that the evidence points toward all mantras, prayers, and secular affirmations being equal in producing the relaxation response. For example, a Jew chanting “Shalom” or a Muslim reciting passages from the Koran would experience the same benefits as a Hindu chanting “Om” or a Christian repeating the 23rd Psalm. Even secular affirmations such as “I will overcome, no matter what,” produced the benefits of the relaxation response and remembered wellness. Referring to how healing was accomplished in the past, Dr. Benson wrote, “Because these superstitions and legends were accepted and touted by healers, they undoubtedly fostered remembered wellness. And up until a hundred years ago, remembered wellness was the treatment of choice.”1
Norman Cousins wrote a number of pioneering books on self-healing such as The Healing Heart: Antidotes to Panic and Helplessness; Head First: The Biology of Hope; and Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing and Regeneration. Mr. Cousins was able to bring mind-body healing to the forefront of the public's attention, extolling the benefit of laughter and positive thinking in recovery.
In his book Head First: Biology of Hope, Mr. Cousins exposes five basic misconceptions that explain much about the mind-body relationship and that seem to dominate our thinking about health:
Almost all illnesses are caused by disease germs or other external factors.
Illness proceeds in a straight line unless interrupted by outside intervention in one form or another.
Pain is always a manifestation of disease and the elimination of pain is therefore a manifestation of a return to “good” health.
What goes into the mind has little or no effect on the body (and vice versa).
Old age is connected to numbers, beginning at 65, at which point mental and physical abilities begin to fall off significantly, and therefore society is justified in mandating retirement based on age.2
Superimmunity: Master Your Emotions and Improve Your Health, by Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., struck a powerful chord with people who sought to bolster their immune system by understanding and controlling hot and cold emotions and the ever-changing mind. Far ahead of his time, Dr. Pearsall recognized the quantum nature of human life, health, and our relationship to the universe. “Our immunity is enhanced when we learn that our mechanistic, dualistic, simplistic thinking is not in keeping with the laws of the universe.”3
Author and cosmic philosopher Dr. Deepak Chopra has put forward such ideas as quantum healing, realizing perfect health, reversing the aging process, balancing the doshas (see Glossary) of the human body, and the importance of humanity's acceptance of a quantum world-view. Dr. Chopra's emergence from the constraints of conventional Western medicine spawned an explosion of insight influenced largely by ancient Hindu Ayurvedic medicine. Dr. Chopra's observations on life and consciousness as energy fields, and that we are integral components of a universal, all-pervading intelligence are important ideas in understanding the elements involved in self-healing. Quantum consciousness breaks down matter into intelligent fields, waves, and subatomic particles. Dr. Chopra's opinions have very important implications with regard to guided imagery when he writes, “Every cell is a little sentient being. Sitting in the liver or heart or kidney, it ‘knows’ everything you know, but in its own fashion.”4
Larry Dossey, M.D. has written and spoken about prayer and self-healing in its varied forms and has introduced people to such Buddhist-like ideas as nonlocal consciousness, which transcends space-time, and our ability to initiate recovery through prayer. His book Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine affirms what millions of people already know and believe—that prayer could make possible the impossible. Dr. Dossey has done extensive research in virtually hopeless situations where ordinary medical intervention failed but prayer seemed to work; in time-displaced prayer; negative prayer effect; prayer involving dreams; and telesomatic events. His book Prayer is Good Medicine: How to Reap the Healing Benefits of Prayer further explores his premise that prayer has always been medicine's best-kept secret. In his best-seller Healing Words, Dr. Dossey offers an intriguing perspective on the true nature of our prayers for recovery, the transient nature of illness, the eternity of life, and the transcendental essence of the fundamentally enlightened human spirit: “Even if prayer or attempts at self-transformation fail in the course of illness, there is still a sense in which a cure can always occur. By “cure” I do not mean the physical disappearance of cancer, heart disease, high blood
pressure, or stroke, but something more marvelous—the realization that physical illness, no matter how painful or grotesque, is at some level of secondary importance in the total scheme of our existence. This is the awareness that one's authentic, higher self is completely impervious to the ravages of any physical ailment whatever. The disease may regress or totally disappear when this awareness dawns, for reasons we may not understand. When this happens it comes as a gift, a blessing, and a grace—but again of secondary importance. The real cure is the realization that at the most essential level, we are all “untouchables”—utterly beyond the ravages of disease and death.”5
Through his many books and tapes, Dr. Bernie Siegel has taken thousands of very ill people on a unique healing journey into the spiritual center of the mind. He has taught people exercises that can put them in touch with their inner self to effectuate healing of the body and soul. Dr. Siegel has observed that unhappiness, denial, and false attachment can be great impediments to wellness. He states, “Our emotions don't happen to us as much as we choose them. In fact, our own thoughts, emotions, and actions are the only things we really do control. In the first century A.D., the Greek thinker Epictetus made this fact the foundation of his philosophy, by declaring that all unhappiness arises from attempts to control events and other people, over which one has no power. The same futile attempt, born of our fears and resentments, weakens the body and leads to disease.”6
Dr. Martin Rossman, another pioneer of mind-body healing, further explains that the common roots of imaging and visualization shared by our species have been recognized by all cultures and traditions. Since the 1950s, researchers and clinicians throughout the world have studied the effectiveness and the role that imagery and visualization have played in recovery from illness. The consensus of these studies, which involved stress research, biofeedback, and relaxation therapies, supports the premise that the mind-body connection truly exists.
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