All people want to become happy. Therefore they study or work, making tremendous efforts. If they didn’t mind being unhappy, they wouldn’t exert themselves. The question, then, is whether effort alone can enable one to achieve happiness. Not all people who devote their full energy to their work succeed. Some of them end up incurring heavy debts. Others seek happiness in marriage and, after marrying, strive to make their relationships happy ones. But not all married people find happiness in marriage. Parents invariably do everything they can to raise their children to be excellent adults. Then do all children live up to their parents’ expectation? Not always. Thus we can see that effort, while important, is not the only requisite for attaining happiness.
People generally want to live as long as possible. Therefore they watch their diet and take care of their health. Then is one guaranteed a long life free from illness as long as he eats properly and guards his health? No. In the early days of our organization, some members, when encouraged repeatedly by their leaders to attend discussion meetings, do gongyo and study Buddhist doctrines, stopped participating in activities altogether. They argued, saying, “I have to work, you know. You tell me to do this and do that, but it’s not as if the Gohonzon feeds us.
A man can’t live unless he eats.” Mr. Josei Toda used to ask such people, “Then will people live as long as they eat three square meals a day? I know of a man who dropped dead in the middle of a sumptuous dinner.” Food is necessary to survive, but adequate food in and of itself doesn’t necessarily guarantee a long life. Similarly we may exercise great caution but sometimes cannot avoid traffic accidents. In order to be happy, we must naturally eat, take good care of our health, exert ourselves in whatever we do, and be always on guard against accidents. But this is not enough.
There are undeniably some areas beyond the reach of human power, things which cannot be avoided even with the greatest caution. This is precisely why we must pray to the Gohonzon sincerely. Hence the importance of our chanting and our activities of faith not a self-centered and casual faith without reflection on the past or determination for the future, but a pure and strong faith which we maintain from day to day.
