The Winning Life
The Winning Life
Each of us possesses the potential for a winning life. Within us is the ability to live with courage, to have fulfilling relationships, to enjoy good health and prosperity, to feel and show true compassion for others, and the power to face and surmount our deepest problems.
Crucial to living a winning life is to undergo an inner transformation that will enable us to bring out our highest human qualities and change our circumstances. This process is a revolution of our own character, an individual human revolution.
Consider the following scenario:
Perhaps you feel under-appreciated at work. Maybe your boss is belligerent or ignores you. After a while you develop a chip on your shoulder. Though you may be an expert at hiding negativity, every once in a while it rears its ugly head. Perhaps your co-workers or boss perceive you in turn as not being entirely committed to the success of your job, or that you have a bad attitude. Of course there are myriad reasons for your attitude and all of them "valid." But whatever the reasons, you miss opportunities for advancement because of the poor relationship. This is a common scenario in today's working environment.
But suppose you start coming to work with a new attitude that is not just a mental adjustment but an outlook bolstered by a deep sense of vitality, confidence and compassion, and based upon serious self-reflection. Your compassion leads you to have empathy for your boss's situation. Armed with a new understanding, you treat your boss differently, offering support and finding yourself less and less discouraged by any negativity he or she may display toward you.
Your boss begins to see you in a new light. Opportunities present themselves.
This is obviously a very simple example and many of us would say this is a natural thing to do, but to live this way every day requires a basic change in our hearts and character. Once the change is made, like a never-ending domino effect, we can have continual impact on the people around us.
The practice of Buddhism as taught by Nichiren Daishonin is a catalyst for experiencing this inner revolution. It provides us with immediate access to the unlimited potential inherent in our lives by which we can live a winning life.
It is the promise of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism that we can attain a state of freedom and unshakable happiness for ourselves while creating harmony with others.
Buddhism is a way of life that — on the most fundamental level — makes no distinction between the individual human being and the environment in which that person lives. Like a fish in water, the two are not only inseparable, but each serves as a catalyst for the other. Thus, to a Buddhist, self-improvement and enhancement of our circumstances go hand in hand. The two are actually so interlocked that it is incorrect to consider them separate entities. In treating the sufferings and delusions of human beings, there is the accompanying benefit of better social conditions, since the one is the source of the other for better or worse.
While the word Buddha may conjure up images of a specific person from history or world religions courses we have taken, it is also a description of the highest state of life each of us can achieve. Buddha actually means "awakened one," and the historical Buddha (known as Shakyamuni or Siddhartha Gautama) discovered that all humans have a potential for enlightenment or "Buddhahood" in the depths of their lives. This could be likened to a rosebush in winter; the flowers are dormant even though we know that the bush contains the potential to bloom.
Similarly, by tapping into our potential, we can find unlimited wisdom, courage, hope, confidence, compassion, vitality and endurance. Instead of avoiding or fearing our problems, we learn to confront them with joyful vigor, confident in our ability to surmount whatever life throws in our path.
Buddhism also shows us the most satisfying way to live among others. It explains that when we help others overcome their problems, our own lives are expanded. When our capacity increases and our character is strengthened, the source of our problems comes under our control. Because we make an internal change, our relationship with our problems changes as well, wresting positive resolutions in any number of astounding yet tangible ways.
Through this process of inner reformation, we can also fulfill our dreams and desires. Rather than calling for the eradication of desires, Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism recognizes that to be human means to have desires and that as we proceed in our human revolution, we elevate our state of life, "magnetizing" our lives to attract that which will further our happiness.
Not only do we fulfill our desires as we change ourselves through Buddhist practice, but the very pursuit of those desires through our practice is like rocket fuel propelling us toward our enlightenment. Life is ever-changing, moment-to-moment. The only constant in life is change. Our minds are constantly in flux, and while one minute we may have the courage to conquer the world, the next minute we can be overwhelmed by even the simplest occurrences. But through our steady, daily practice, we continually strengthen our resolve and ability to live a winning life. Winning in life, however, is not the absence or avoidance of problems. Being human, almost by definition, means we will constantly meet up with challenges. True happiness or victory in life is having the tools to take on each hurdle, overcome it, and become stronger and wiser in the process. Inside each human being is a storehouse of all the necessary traits to tackle every problem that confronts us. Buddhism is the practice that allows us access to this storehouse and unleashes our inherent power to take on all of life's challenges and win.
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