Kosen Rufu
(author unknown)

At the root of all suffering - whether this is personal, social or environmental - lays what Buddhism names the 'three poisons'; greed, anger and ignorance (or stupidity). Take war for example. While greed and ignorance also cause war, anger keeps it going. War is nothing less than joint anger.

According to Buddhism, we make war superfluous if we each take responsibility for the destructive tendencies that live deep inside everybody's life. Each of us has some time or other behaved in such away to causing somebody or oneself to suffer. And to cause suffering clashes with the goal of kosen rufu: peace and happiness for all people.

To convert the negative and destructive aspects of our lives into their positive counterpart is called by the Soka Gakkai 'human revolution'. In this process we reveal our true self by basing our thoughts, words and deeds on our buddhanature and by making them prevailing tendencies.

Kosen rufu and human revolution are as two sides of the same coin. By making an effort for kosen rufu we accelerate our human revolution. And through the progression in our human revolution we accelerate kosen rufu. In this way, kosen rufu and our personal happiness are indissoluble connected together. So what is good for kosen rufu, is good for us.

For example, when somebody is very shy, how can this person ever convince anybody of the power of the Gohonzon? By tackling a certain type of suffering in our life, we not only change our own life, we also obtain the courage to help others so that they too can change their lives.

Kosen rufu starts in our hearts and stretches out to our family, our workplace, our neighbourhood, the community, other countries and even into the universe. How fast this process will evolve is all down to each of our own determination.

index

index

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