Cherish the Person Right in Front of You
Rev. Nikkyo Niwano
Founder, Rissho Kosei-kai
Shakyamuni Buddha is a person who attained the highest majestic wisdom, so for those of us who seek to follow his path, single-mindedly studying the Lotus Sutra is the first step toward the Buddha’s wisdom. And there is another thing that is essential: a heart of compassion, which is comprised of two feelings: “benevolence” and “mercy.”
“Benevolence” is an all-embracing love for living beings. Having this universal love is what it means to live the Buddha’s original vow.
However, because love is a feeling that arises naturally and cannot be forced, even if we have vowed to love universally, we cannot necessarily feel love for every person we encounter. This is why it is important to begin by cherishing the person right in front of us. When we interact with someone, we should try to sense whether that person is happy or not. And when we get a sense that they aren’t, if we thoughtfully consider what may be troubling them, the desire to do something to relieve that person’s suffering will naturally arise. This feeling is none other than “mercy,” the second component that makes up the mind of compassion.
But even if we aspire to relieve others of their suffering like this, we cannot liberate people so easily. What we can do, to start, is make the effort to cultivate a heart that can feel another person’s troubles as our own. This is what we might consider sharing the suffering of others through empathy.
All we have to do is emulate Kenji Miyazawa’s words in his poem, “Be Not Defeated by the Rain”: “If there is someone dying in the south, / I will go and tell them there is nothing to fear. / If there is an argument or dispute in the north, / I will encourage them to stop, / because it is pointless. / When there is a drought, I will provide moisture by offering my tears, / And in an unseasonably cold summer, I will supply warmth by restlessly hurrying about.” Kenji Miyazawa’s poem shows us the figure of an ordinary person being a bodhisattva.
The person who appears right in front of our eyes is connected to us by profound ties of karmic affinity. Therefore, liberating that person is our role. We must never think, “This person is a lost cause.” Shakyamuni Buddha never thought that about anyone. Take the monk Chulapanthaka, who couldn’t even remember his own name. Shakyamuni was able to lead him to awakening by giving him a broom and teaching him to clean the monastery.
There is not a single person in this world who cannot be liberated. This is because everyone possesses the precious gem of buddha nature. No matter how unfortunate a person’s circumstances may be, even if they themselves think, “I’m hopeless,” once they awaken to their inherent buddha nature and savor the joy of living, their innate talents and abilities will blossom.
This is why I always say, as I have the habit of doing, “Let each person guide another.” Since doing so is assisting the Buddha’s aspiration to liberate all people, we can think of it as the most exalted way of living the Buddha’s original vow.
Bodai no me o okosashimu (Kosei Publishing, 2018), pp. 110–112
