Excerpts from Recent Lectures and Guidance

The first line of what I just spoke about was Trials are callings, and the bottom line was I will change myself.

However, unfortunately, it is not easy for us to find out how to change ourselves for the better. There, something emerges to help us. It is the Twelve Bodaishin.

The Twelve Bodaishin represents grand nature; and the wisdoms hidden within it are symbolically expressed.

The Divine Truth cards which we offer you today are in fact the cards of this Twelve Bodaishin. They are the twelve ways to change ourselves. In other words, they tell us the twelve methods of transformation.

Here is the illustration of the Bodaishin of a Heart like the Sun. The Bodaishin of a Heart like the Sun is the Bodaishin of a heart of love. Heat and light energy radiated from the sun shines on all living things equally. No one can exist without the energy of heat and light from the sun. The sun keeps giving away its energy ceaselessly. It never claims that it would not give its energy any more as it would not have enough left for itself after pouring so much energy.

The Bodaishin of a heart of selfless love tries to reach out beyond one’s own boundary to family members, children, parents, neighbors, school PTA, the local community or company colleagues, delivering love by giving thought to those people. This is how I would like everyone to transform. This is what the card of Bodaishin of a Heart like the Sun means.

Here is the Bodaishin of a Heart like a Mountain. A Heart like a Mountain is a symbol of steadfast heart. We say our heart is restless, as described as a “mind that changes so rapidly.” When things are going well, we have thoughts such as “I did it!” and will be filled with rapture; and when things are adversarial, we feel helpless and can easily become depressed. We experience these ups and downs as we cannot keep our mind calm and judge the situation without wavering. With this steadfast mindset of a Heart like a Mountain, our capricious mind can be focused on truly important things and support us to make firm steps to live day to day.

This is the last one. Please look at this. This is the Bodaishin of a Heart like Ears of Rice. There is a phrase, “golden ears of rice bend down low as they ripen.” Here, Yamanashi is also the region blessed to produce a wonderful golden harvest. I believe the scenery of rice fields of golden ears is engraved in your memory and in your heart.

There is a saying to produce this harvest, “rice consumes 88 cares from us.” Rice requires many people’s hands to grow. We are the same. Our presence today is made possible by the support and help of many people.
We tend to forget this fact. We take on a feeling that we live on our own. However, if you try to think over, we owe so many things to so many people who lead us here. When we live our day to day life with this in our mind, we will transform our heart to the Bodaishin of a heart of gratitude.

April 13, 2014: The Gathering of Early Spring in Yamanashi