NoOneIsAlone

No One is Alone !

I. The Illusion of Separation

Due to advancements in industrialized civilization and the democratization of political systems (especially in developed countries), people in modern society have achieved ever-higher standards of living and enjoy more individual freedoms than ever before. Yet, in spite of better living conditions and increased material wealth, many people still feel that something is missing in their lives.

People are trying to find that "missing" something in different ways. Some may think they need even greater wealth or social recognition, while others are looking more within themselves to find their "peace of mind."

In any case, in the quest to achieve a "perfect world," the character of civilization to date has been to make whatever improvements it can with regard to the external conditions of human beings. But, as most of us have experienced, there are things that simply cannot be achieved by external improvement only. Just as no amount of wealth can satisfy a mind-set of greed, no amount of external improvement can ultimately be satisfactory unless we also improve our internal condition. That means we must improve the condition of our mind.

The condition of our mind (our internal condition) influences our feelings, our temper, and our attitudes toward our external conditions. It also influences our perceptions of external conditions and our reactions to them. Our reactions, in turn, have a great influence on our external conditions. For example, if we have negative feelings toward particular people or particular issues, our actions toward them will reflect those feelings. As a result we will experience their negative reactions in return and we will be affected accordingly.

Our internal and external conditions are deeply interconnected and are always influencing each other. Nevertheless, the development of modern civilization has focused mainly on changing external conditions. Moreover, that same approach has been incorporated into individual human behavior. People try to change or influence other people for their own individual convenience or benefit, and energies are mostly spent trying to bring about external change as if that were the only way to achieve a goal.

The problem is that, as individuals, we are not aware of the interconnection between internal and external conditions, so we unconsciously separate ourselves from the external world. In our mind, the "ego" tends to view the components of the external world (i.e., the people and things around us) as opponents instead of as allies. This tendency is strengthened by the highly competitive atmosphere of today's society. We are motivated to defeat, counteract, weaken, or convert the opponents for our ego's benefit. Without realizing it, however, in making these efforts we only create more opponents that our ego will feel the need to challenge. But, rather than leading to feelings of completion and wholeness, this cycle leads only to increasing feelings of frustration and isolation. The self-centered nature of our ego constantly distorts our perspective, always influences our behavior, and slowly builds within us an unconscious momentum of selfishness and ego-centered actions which, if unchecked, can become a powerful negative influence in our lives.

In such a situation, efforts that only focus on making external changes are similar to trying to make a room brighter by installing more light fixtureswhile continuing to wear cheap, dirty sunglasses which darken and distort one's vision. Rather than only increasing the number of lights, it would be more essential to clean the dirt from the lenses or simply take the sunglasses off. But, unlike sunglasses, ego-consciousness is very deep-rooted in our mind and it cannot be easily "cleaned" or removed. It requires a long and constant process of internal

improvement to clean up our mind and remove the self-centered force of our ego.

Members of Reiyukai promote a method, called "Innerself development," to help us comprehend not only the interconnections between our internal and external conditions, but also the idea that everything is interconnected. The goal of Innerself development is to transcend the self-centered forces of ego, arrive at a feeling of oneness with all things, and achieve total improvement in daily life. It is a process of understanding ourselves, understanding others, and working with others toward mutual improvement and progress. It involves sharing the process with all the people around us. These activities gradually enable us to develop clearer perspectives on the way things actually are. They help us develop awareness of the interconnected nature of all the things in our world, through which we also develop a feeling of oneness with everything around us. This feeling, in turn, enables us to develop appreciation and compassion for all beings and things, and it makes us aware of the significance of improving all aspects of our lives as we aim toward perfection.

Reiyukai, an international nonprofit association, was founded in Japan in 1930 by Mr. Kakutaro Kubo and Mrs. Kimi Kotani. They originated a way in which people could personally apply the philosophy of Shakyamuni Buddha within the framework of their daily life activities.

Among the many principles that Shakyamuni discovered and put forth were important concepts regarding the interconnection of all things and the misleading and seductive nature of ego. Mr. Kubo and Mrs. Kotani understood that Shakyamuni's concepts are based on reality and human psychology, and are unrelated to a Creator or His Messenger. Those ideas therefore do not interfere with religious faith, and, consequently, they can be utilized by everyone, independent of, or in concert with, their established religious practices. Reiyukai asserts that, as any scientific principle can be discovered (or rediscovered) and utilized by any scientist, the principles discovered by Shakyamuni also can be rediscovered and experienced by anyone, and can be utilized for the betterment of one's own daily process of living.

II. Reiyukai's Innerself Development Process

The Sub-Conscious Mind (Our Internal Storeroom)

- The Fuel Source of Ego's Function -

Ego's self-centered nature manifests itself in all of us to some degree, but the way it influences us differs depending on our mind-set and our character. It often happens in daily life that our feelings are not on the same page as our intentions. For example, we may try to not lose our temper. But when confronted with a challenge to our resolve, negative feelings and anger often appear "from nowhere" to overwhelm our intent and cause us to act differently than we wanted to. It seems as though such feelings are outside the influence of our determination, as if they have a will of their own. Despite our best intentions, there are a multitude of negative feelingsselfishness, greediness, stinginess, laziness, jealousy, vanity, and so onthat "suddenly" arise to hinder our improvement and success and spoil our human relationships.

We may sometimes notice, however, that the source of these sudden feelings is very deep-rooted within ourselves and somehow connected with our character and temperament. The development of our character and temperament is influenced by our life experiences withinour environment, and it is also based on our heredity. Since we inherit our genetic makeup from our forebears (all our ancestral genetic information is within us), it is quite natural that we reflect our ancestors' qualities, including aspects of their various characters and temperaments.

Psychologically speaking, the genetic influences from our ancestors combine with our individual life experiences to create certain attitudes, inclinations, and tensions called "complexes." These complexes reside in an internal storeroom in our "sub-conscious mind." Many of our feelings and actions are influenced by these sub-conscious complexes. Since they exist at the sub-conscious level we are not aware of them, so we can neither identify them nor control them, but we are influenced by them nonetheless.

Imagine that the house you are living in is an inherited old house that has been in your family for generations, and you intend to make it a more comfortable place to live. The house has a basement. It's a dusky storage place with a musky smell that fills the entire house, and it contains old trunks and tattered boxes holding all kinds of things collected and left behind by your ancestors over the years. It may contain valuable antiques or treasured heirlooms, as well as old accumulated dust, junk, and decaying things that invite the presence of annoying and unwelcome disturbances like rats and cockroaches. Before your home-improvement efforts can be called complete, one of your most important tasks will be the thorough cleaning of the basement storeroom.

Our sub-conscious mind can be compared to the basement storeroom. It is the basement of our "self," where the treasures and accumulated dust of our heredity, and the root causes of our attitudes, inclinations, and tensions (our "complexes") exist. All of our altruistic actions from the past (which can support and influence our positive actions in the present) can be considered as our treasures. Accumulated dust, on the other hand, is the collection of past self-centered actions which supports and influences the way ego's self-centered nature functions. If too much of this dust accumulates and is not cleaned up, it strengthens the momentum of ego's self-centered force. Like the basement of the house, our internal storeroom needs to be thoroughly cleaned in order to make our good intentions and efforts toward self-improvement effective and complete.

Innerself development is a way to clean our "sub-conscious storeroom." It is a process that allows us to free ourselves from the unwanted influences of the accumulated dust, the harmful "complexes," and the annoying disturbances that have been contained there for so long. It is a means to reduce the negative influence of the self-centered nature of ego and ultimately transcend it. We can then fully enjoy the benefits of the treasures the storeroom holds and proceed unhindered with our process of self-improvement and progress.

In order to clean the basement storeroom of your inherited house, you have to get into it through its door or other entryway. Similarly, even though it has no real door, we also need an entrance to our subconscious internal storeroom if we want to clean it. For that purpose the Innerself development process uses a tool called a Sokaimyo (ancestral plaque). It is inscribed with symbolic characters representing our maternal and paternal ancestry. Since most of the things contained in our internal storeroom came from all our ancestors, their representation in the form of the ancestral plaque directs our attention toward recognition of their legacy which is within us. It thereby serves as a channel through which our thoughts can access our sub-conscious level of mind.

After entering the basement, you need to turn on some lights so you can see what it contains. Similarly, we need to shed some light on the contents of our inner storeroom so that we may see what it holds. The Innerself development process uses a book called the Lotus Sutra to illuminate our mind and the internal subconscious storeroom that is part of it. The Lotus Sutra is used particularly for this purpose because of the unique way it functions.

Among the various works which contain Shakyamuni's ideas and teachings, the Lotus Sutra is said to be the most practical and comprehensive text that contains his ultimate message. Ironically, however, Shakyamuni's ultimate message cannot be easily found, or understood conceptually, simply by studying the text of the Sutra.

It is even difficult to concretely define the teaching of the Lotus Sutra, because, unlike other texts, it is not written in a way that directly conveys a particular philosophy or teaching in dogmatic form. Rather, it constantly implies that the "real Lotus Sutra" and its "real teaching" exist in the mind of each and every person. That is to say that the realizations attained as the part of process of self-understanding the improvement are the real teaching of the Lotus sutra. In other words, there are unique ways of self-discovery and self improvement for every individual. The "real Lotus Sutra" and its "real teachings," therefore, are the personally appropriate ways that each individual will realize for himself or herself through its use. In this sense, the text of the Lotus Sutra is the tool for understanding one's self. Learning about one's self is more essential than learning any great teaching. It was the basis of the Shakyamuni's ultimate message.

The ways to self-understanding will naturally differ from person to person, as will the realizations each individual achieves. There can be an innumerable number of realizations for all different kinds of people. Even for the same person, there can be different realizations every moment. All these various discoveries are motivated by the same Lotus Sutra, which is why it is sometimes described as the "sutra of immeasurable meanings."

In the Innerself development process, the Lotus Sutra's text is recited aloud (in the presence of the ancestral plaque) rather than read silently. It is recited aloud so that the words of the recited text can penetrate our mind and stimulate us to seek our own inner knowledge of the Sutra's teaching. In other words, the sounds and

images of the recited text impel us to reflect upon and learn about ourselves. The sounds of the recited text also reverberate all the way to the inner storeroom of the sub-conscious. Once there, they act as a catalyst to bring insights and realizations about the storeroom's contents into the light of consciousness and awareness. Thus, in the effort to find the "real Lotus Sutra" within ourselves through recitation of its text, we become aware of all the aspects of ourselves that were hidden in our mind and in our sub-consciousness. In this way the Lotus Sutra is a torch to bring hidden knowledge of ourselves into the light of understanding.

By accessing our internal storeroom through the ancestral plaque and illuminating it through recitation from the Lotus Sutra, we become aware of the storeroom's contents so that we can begin working to clean it up. We can discover what our treasures are, and also how much dust has accumulated. We can identify which attitudes, inclinations, and tensions are hindering us and should be overcome, and which ones we need to promote for our own improvement.

But the process of clean-up is not necessarily an easy or quick one. Just having an understanding of our condition is not enough to create a change in it. It will require perseverance and determination and, more importantly, enough positive will power to change our behavior.

As long as the self-centered nature of our ego leads us to isolate ourselves by caring for or worrying about only our own problems, the unconscious momentum of self-centered actions that negatively influences our behavior will continue to grow stronger. To overcome it, we must develop a strong, positive force of will to enable us to change our behavior patterns. To do this, first of all we must change our perspectiveinstead of caring only for ourselves, we should try our best to care for others.

In the Innerself development process, the first step in creating this caring attitude is to try to open our mind when we recite from the Lotus Sutra. We should have in mind not only the betterment of ourselves but also of all other people and beingsstarting from our own family members (including our ancestors) and ending with even an unknown small insect. From that first step comes a feeling of appreciation for all beings and things, because everything has an irreplaceable role in the entire interconnected network of existence. Development of this "altruistic" attitude is an essential part of the Innerself development process. The practice of recitation then becomes not only a way to understand oneself, but also a way to develop compassion for others.

Daily recitation from the Lotus Sutra, while envisioning and making a determination to act for the well-being and betterment of others as well as ourselves, gradually starts to produce an altruistic counter-force to counteract the self-centered force of ego. This counter-force will minimize ego's selfish influence and strengthen our willpower with positive momentum. It will enable and encourage us to redirect our lives toward constant improvement and progress for all.

Each effort that we make toward self-improvement, each adjustment in behaviorno matter how smallwill bring us closer to the goal of perfection. Step-by-step, and one-by-one, we can get rid of the negative elements we discover within ourselves. Each effort will also bring us positive feelings of satisfaction for having realized some improvement in ourselvesfeelings which will be reflected in our way of being and in our interactions with the people around us. They will see and react to our new behavior and tell us of the changes they have noticed, providing us with proof that our improvement process is working, and also with motivation to continue our efforts. The people around us become an important part of our improvement efforts, and that is how the sharing aspect of the Innerself development process begins.

As others notice the signs of our improvement and our new attitude, they may be inspired to want to have similar feelings for themselves. Or, based on our own feelings, we may want to take initiative to invite our friends to begin their own efforts of self improvement. We can show our friends how to access and illuminate their own inner storerooms with the ancestral plaque and the Lotus Sutra. We can share how we acted to try to reduce the effects of the negative elements we found in ourselves. We can talk to our friends about how their reactions helped us see how our efforts were working. As we help or motivate our friends to begin their own Innerself development process by sharing our experiences and feelings with them and giving them feedback on their efforts, we also benefit. As they share their experiences, feelings, and feedback with us, we begin to learn things from them that we can apply to our own efforts. Through this kind of sharing, the efficiency of everyone's process is increased. Moreover, we come to understand how many things we have in common with other people.

III. Gaining a Sense of Interconnection

In the same way that we have many qualities in common with our ancestors, we also have certain qualities in common with the people who are close to us. The close relationships are the result of (or sometimes the cause of) similar or complementary psychological make-ups. So we will find many of our own qualities reflected in the people around us, and, in a sense, they could be looked at as being our "other selves." That is why sharing the Innerself development process with other people and helping them improve themselves is simultaneously contributing to our own betterment. Furthermore, we can share the joy and happiness of realizing improvement together.

By reciting the Lotus Sutra in the presence of our ancestral plaque, we can recognize how our ancestors are part of ourselves. Through sharing the Innerself development process with others, we can recognize that even the people around us are also somehow part of ourselves. In other words, sharing the Innerself development process not only assists us with our personal improvement, but it also helps us "re-discover" and experience for ourselves Shakyamuni's principle that we are all interconnected, and that, whether people are aware of it or not, we always share problems and happiness with one another in a very real sense.

<"Me! Me!" make us forget this interconnection.>

As mentioned previously, by immersing ourselves in our own problems, or seeking only for our own personal happiness, we overlook our interconnections with others. As a result, we may feel lonely or isolated. This is a typical symptom in modern society. The more that people focus on themselves, that is to say, the more they become caught up in their own ego, the more they end up feeling isolated and alone.

One of Shakyamuni's most important discoveries was the illusional, seductive, and misleading nature of ego, and that the causes of human "suffering" derive from the ego's influence and our blind attachment to it. We can gain some insight into how this works by using a little creative thinking about our own body. Suppose that one day each one of our fingers suddenly develops "intelligence" and a consciousness of itself (i.e., an ego-consciousness), and each finger then starts to compare itself to the others. The middle finger may think: "I am the tallest and the smartest. Compared to me, the thumb is fat and ugly. The little finger on the end is too small and weak. All the other fingers should respect me." The little finger may think: "I am the smallest and the weakest of all. I'm useless. I'll never be happy." As this continues, each finger starts having its own problems, feelings of worry or sadness or happiness and more "opponents" may be created to compete with. But, in reality, all their so-called problems, worries, conceits, ambitions, and satisfactions are baseless and are only derived from the influence of their illusional ego-consciousness and their attachment to it.

Without realizing this, the more the "individual" fingers become attached to, influenced, and misled by the false perceptions created by their ego, they may encounter all kinds of other serious problems. It will become more and more difficult to fulfill their selfish desires and they will feel more frustrated and isolated.

Rather than just worrying about their individual "self," however, if the fingers begin to consider one another as their "other selves" and begin to work together for mutual betterment, then the influence of their ego-consciousness, and their attachment to it, will slowly decrease. They will gradually realize the fact that they are all interconnected in some way. As the fingers gradually understand that, as individual units, each has an irreplaceable role, there will be no reason to feel special attachment toor place importance only onthemselves. Eventually they will realize that the self-promoting influence of their ego-consciousness is illusional, and they will develop a feeling of oneness as a hand. And when the hand, in turn, starts taking other parts of the body as its "other selves," it will develop a feeling of oneness with the others and understand that the reality of its "self" (and all the other parts) is connected to the entire body.

Similarly, through the Innerself development processcaring for one another, sharing problems, improvements, and happiness together, and becoming aware of the interconnection of everythingthe influence of our ego-consciousness, and our attachment to it, will gradually be replaced by a feeling of oneness with all the people around us. By extending our feelings and actions of caring and compassion to all other beings, our feeling of oneness will be expanded infinitely.

If enough people in this world use the Innerself development process to develop and share this feeling of oneness, even world peace in the real sense can be more than just a dream. That is the ultimate aim of the Reiyukai movement.

T.Hashiguchi

E-mail: hsgch2@hotmail.com