Faith, Practice, and Study

Thinking about ourselves and the Simile of the Herbs, if we say we are Buddhist but have no practice or don’t follow the precepts we are like a plant with no stem or tree without a trunk. It won’t be possible for us to support our faith and wisdom without the connection the stem provides. So too our practice, our chanting Odaimoku, is the connection that allows our faith and our wisdom to grow. Our faith harmoniously supports our practice and wisdom. You could say that study is our mind, which is the branches holding the leaves or wisdom of our lives. Our manifestation of enlightenment is dependent upon our faith, our practice, and our study. Without all three we cannot effectively maintain the kind of life that is capable of manifesting our innate Buddha potential.

Lecture on the Lotus Sutra