A while back I had a part-time job delivering pizza. My hours were mostly in the evening since that was the only time I had available to work. In the summer it wasn’t so bad making the deliveries at night because it didn’t become dark until almost the time I was scheduled to get off. However, in the fall and winter, when it got dark early, it was very challenging. The problem was folks would order pizza and their houses would either not have house numbers or numbers that were difficult to see from the street, or they would not turn on their house lights.

Our daily service in praise of the Lotus Sutra begins with preparing the altar for service. Then we engage in the practice of reciting the sutra and chanting the sacred title. It is like we are making sure our house numbers show clearly and our lights are turned on as we invite the protective deities of the universe into our lives.

Without the proper directions, markings, and lights it is difficult for the pizza to be delivered. So too, without opening up our lives, and calling upon the universe using the proper praise it is difficult for the protection to be available.

Because we seek the power to control things in our lives we fail to seek that which can ultimately give us the ability to end suffering. We seek mistakenly to eliminate suffering by clinging to mistaken views. We may think that if we only had just a little more money or a better house or a better job or a different spouse that all things would be well. We merely look at the surface and think that the conditions that surround us are the things we need to change, never looking at our lives and seeing what we need to change within ourselves. Seeing that we are fundamentally enlightened beings who are living lives of common people can allow us to see the heart of the cause for suffering and free our minds from the attachments that actually are the root of sufferings.