In the Gosho On Prolonging Life Nichiren Daishonin makes it quite clear that we can change any aspect of our lives. Addressing a sick woman called Myojo, he states: “Sincere repentance will eradicate even immutable karma, to say nothing of karma which is mutable.”

Further on in the same Gosho, this confidence in our ability to change our destiny is underlined when Nichiren Daishonin states that, through following his teachings, this process is not only possible, but also inevitable. He writes: “Today it is as natural for a woman to change her immutable karma by practising the Lotus Sutra as it is for rice to ripen in fall or for chrysanthemums to bloom in winter.” Men, too, can take heart.

Immutable karma has traditionally been held fixed and unchangeable. As a general rule, lighter karma is said to manifest itself in various ways in the same lifetime as it was created, while exceptionally bad karma will be carried over into subsequent lifetimes.

In practical terms, immutable karma refers to those things about ourselves that we consider impossible to change, such as our sex or the colour of our skin. Nichiren Daishonin is referring to immutable karma when in the Letter from Sado he writes: “A sutra states that both the crow’s blackness and the heron’s whiteness are actually the deep stains of their past karma.”

The effects of mutable karma, on the other hand, are more flexible and appear at no set time. They are less deeply rooted, exert a less profound influence over our lives and are thus easier to change than immutable karma.

A question of attitude
Most of us, when we start to practise, grapple only with the aspects of our mutable karma, limiting ourselves to what we perceive is possible to change. Nichiren Daishonin is empathic, however, that there is nothing that cannot be challenged and overcome through sincere practice. If one can believe in the apparently impossible, then the possible really is possible. It is a question of attitude. We can accumulate small proofs of the power of the Gohonzon working in our lives, steadily progressing in faith to take on larger challenges, or we can dive in a challenge what could have seem impossible as the Warsaw Pact denouncing authoritarianism. We only need the courage and the imagination to know and ask for what will makes us truly happy.

The concept of karma embraces attitude. It holds that we are responsible for our lives, that everything about ourselves, for good and for bad, is the result of past causes we have made. The Japanese translation of the word karma is shuku-mei which means ‘something dwelling in our life’. It originates from a Sanskrit word meaning ‘action’, but also includes our thoughts and what we say. Therefore, the concept holds, everything we do, think or say will later manifest as a corresponding effect. Were we able to truly believe in the strictness of this simple statement, would we so continually and conscientiously repeat those same causes which make us suffer?

The trouble is that we cannot see them. Our karma, which embraces a personal, social, national and even global perspective, obscures the real root of our suffering in its vast and intricate network of causes and effects. In this sense, karma can also be expressed as the filter through which we perceive life and which sifts out certain attitudes and aspirations for us to adopt. The workings of this filter is something we are able to discern with greater clarity as our faith grows, enabling us to change those causes which make us suffer both now and in the future.

Karma is sometimes known as the law of karmic causality, referred to in the Shinjikan Sutra: “If you wish to know the cause you have formed in the past, observe the effect in the present. If you wish to know the effect in the future, observe the cause you are forming now.”

A sense of strong will
One could say that karma is destiny. In a Gosho entitled Letter to Jakunichi-bo, Nichiren Daishonin talks of karmic relationships when he says: “It is destiny that they should have been my parents, and I, their child.”

Four specific causes are often cited in the Buddhist texts for immutable karma. These are actions, whether good or evil, motivated by exceptionally strong earthly desires or by a profoundly pure mind; actions performed habitually; actions performed with respect to Buddhism and actions performed with respect to our parents. These elements of discipline and will (or intention) are equally stressed in our Buddhist practice, but the fact that they can thus be applied to create immutable happy karma may not relieve our suffering in the least.

This is because although we do gongyo and chant daimoku daily, although we are taught within SGI to understand the importance of a respectworthy attitude towards everything in life, and although we are encouraged to base our actions on the noble goal of world peace founded on the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism, we have to develop our own strong will or sense of purpose. This might be considered the dimension of sincerity.
It is only with such a firm and committed sense of will that we can challenge our karma which dictates disbelief that our circumstances can change, or which manifests as deep and often ‘comfortable’ attachment to a particular form of suffering, making us blind to the possibility that it need not exist.

In guidance entitled ‘The simultaneity of cause and effect’, President Ikeda addresses this point when he says: “If you dwell on the past alone, becoming sentimental and negative, you are not really practising true Buddhism.”
But how can we stop ourselves? The past is, in a sense, all we know. We may even know that we are blind in certain areas of our lives but we still cannot develop the will to yearn for insight.

In the case of immutable karma, it may be true from a superficial perspective that our circumstances cannot change. For example, a person may only have one leg or suffer from some incurable disease. They may live under a corrupt regime and suffer constant persecution or prejudice. Logic often implores us to accept that in this life, we are unable to change our lot.

An eternal view
But changing karma is about elevating one’s life state such that the suffering caused by whatever disability we have, and in whatever sense, is eliminated. The causes we make in chanting sincerely to the Gohonzon enable us to feel our Buddha nature where, unfettered by the chains of karma which make us judge and belittle ourselves, we can activate sufficient wisdom and life force to overcome any suffering. We can choose to break the pattern of our karma, to see things as we know we would want to, or as we know deep in our lives is right.
As President Ikeda puts it, “With unflinching faith one can call forth the courage to turn hardships into the springboard for growth.”

One can, in short, start to exert positive influence on the environment rather than be hampered by the strain of deploring one’s karma. Indeed, because of those very circumstances that make us suffer so, we can begin to learn the meaning of faith, and change our eternal karma towards happiness. This is possible from the minute you start chanting.

It sometimes helps to view things eternally. When the now deceased member, Stewart Anderson, was engaged in his battle against Aids, he often cited the following passage from On Prolonging Life: “A single life is worth more than the universe. You still have many years ahead of you and, moreover, you have found the Lotus Sutra. If you can live even one day longer, you can accumulate that much more good fortune. How precious life is!”

He said in an interview at that time: “This Gosho is about living a day at a time with gratitude. By chanting today I am making the causes to chant tomorrow, therefore what great joy to be chanting. When I last came out of hospital I was very, very weak. I couldn’t stand up for three minutes. This changes your attitude to life. Each breath is precious.”

When Stewart died on 12 October 1987, he had changed his karma, which appeared as Aids at a time when there was no cure, through his discovery of the preciousness of life, both in this and in future lifetimes. I say this having had the good fortune to know his sincerity and feel his incredible sense of purpose. This was something that at the time I could only envy.

The battle of faith
Where members die before what is believed to be their natural lifespan, President Ikeda points out that we should take into account the matter of destiny, differences in strength of faith and the limitations of our wisdom as common mortals to understand the profound significance of events. “From the standpoint of the three existences of life (past, present and future), you are developing in the best direction and towards the greatest happiness. Life is joyful; even death is joyful,” he says.

The point is that however hopeless a situation or condition appears, one should summon forth the faith to believe it can be overcome. It is that strength of purpose that can allow the state of Buddhahood to penetrate the walls of all karma and allow a new, happier perspective to emerge.

With unhappy immutable karma, one may believe one can pinpoint the cause of one’s suffering but cannot change it, because it is beyond apparent reason to do so. The blame is externalised because it just doesn’t seem possible that the source of such suffering could lie within one’s own eternal web of causes and effects. With unhappy mutable karma, the cause of suffering may be apparently obvious but it can also be much more obscure, which again can work to make us defer responsibility for changing it. It is hard to struggle against a sense of sadness, isolation, despair or the many other clouds of suffering we come to accept as normal in our lives. In both cases, one can be defeated by thinking one is bound by karma, thus losing the vitality to fight to live a positive life and change one’s destiny. It is so easy to suffer. Happiness is also there, if we could only believe our master, Nichiren Daishonin.

His point is that by believing even immutable karma can be changed, anything else can surely be changed. Often, if something can just be taken on board and sincerely challenged, the battle is won. This battle is one of faith and, in Nichiren Daishonin’s words, this means repentance: of acknowledging that one’s shortcomings, faults or misdeeds stem ultimately from ignorance of the true nature of life and of sincerely seeking to correct or make amends for them.

The Fugen Sutra, which serves as an epilogue to the Lotus Sutra, states: “The sea of all karmic hindrances arises from illusion. If you wish to make amends, sit upright and meditate on the true entity of life and all your offences will vanish like frost and dewdrops in the sunlight of enlightened wisdom.” The phrase ‘meditate on the true entity of life’ means to chant sincerely to the Gohonzon.

Jan Hillgrüber, another deceased SGI-UK member, once wrote: “Reality is created. It is the result of action. If we do not have the courage or the imagination to choose and then create our own reality, someone else will do it for us. The future is a vacuum that fills itself with reality when it becomes present.” He then implored his readers to set about earnestly changing their karma through faith in the Gohonzon. “The more we desire our vision to come true and the more we persevere in purposeful actions, so the more quickly and accurately this vision will materialize… We ourselves determine through our perseverance – or lack of it – the pace at which our visions come true.” Or, as Nichiren Daishonin states: “Hasten to accumulate the treasures of faith and quickly conquer your illness.”

Mr. Kazuo Fujii, former SGI-UK General Director once wrote:
“Worldwide there are still conflicts going on right now. In many cases, in order to achieve their goals, people are still resorting to violence at the expense of human life. This is because of a lack of respect for life due to either a lack of the understanding of the dignity of human life, or a misguided perception regarding the value of life.
On a domestic level, we are also seeing a similar situation in terms of hooliganism, crime and vandalism. As the Gosho passage says: “One day of life is more valuable than all the treasures of the universe” and many of us may agree with this in theory. But how do we actually live this in our daily lives?

Nichiren Daishonin taught us that through chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and revealing our highest condition of life (Buddhahood), we can bring forth the wisdom to perceive the dignity and preciousness of our own lives and learn to feel and care for ourselves and for others. We will also find the courage and life force to take positive and creative action to manifest our regard to the dignity of life.

When a sufficient number of individuals have such a regard for life, people will have a fundamental respect for each other, so that any destructive energies which may be brought out in the shape of wars and conflicts (also in our own environment) will be turned to creative and constructive action towards establishing a peaceful world.
It is the mission of those who chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to inspire others, by their example, to follow such a way of life, whether or not they are able to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo themselves.”

From Kazuo Fujii SGI-UK General Director

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This page was last modified on Sunday, August 20, 2006.