Nichiren Shonin said that if our heart is not pure, our environment will not be pure, and that if our hearts are pure, our environment will be pure as well. This means that the pure land and defiled world are not in different places. It is just a matter of whether or not our hearts are pure. For example, a foggy mirror will turn into a beautiful one which reflects everything clearly once polished. Our wandering hearts are like that of an unpolished mirror. Polishing our hearts will make them more beautiful. We can polish our hearts by chanting Namu Myō Hō Ren Ge Kyo each and every day.
In Japan in the month of December nearing the new year, it is common to thoroughly clean one’s residence. Removing tatami mats and smaller cushions to get rid of the dust outside, repairing the paper on the sliding screen doors; the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church was also cleaned with the help of seven people last December. Though it is the main temple and not much dust is expected to accumulate, once cleaning it became very clear how dirty the temple had gotten.
If even the temple can get dirty without noticing, what about the human heart? Living our busy lives day-by-day, we can only imagine how our hearts can become without cleaning them. We may take baths and showers to make ourselves feel clean on the outside, but that does not equate to cleaning our heart. Then what are these impurities in our heart? They are the wrong teachings and actions we encounter and practice in our everyday lives. Nichiren Shonin teaches us that by cleaning our hearts in this current lifetime, we can attain enlightenment and become buddhas without being reincarnated over and over again into this world to train again. To reach enlightenment, he emphasizes the importance of encountering spring teachings.
Ven. Kenjo Igarashi
January / February, 2022