Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō

That...

I speak either, sometimes it's chanting, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and you can feel the profile.

It's very different, and I demonstrate that too.

So that picture that you showed is in Ellicottville, like their town square.

So he and his wife And I think there were a couple of other people that were there and they just sat in the room with them and they had pillows, you know, meditation pillows that scattered about the room and they started chanting.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the chant.

And it was so magical and so moving.

And I remember my whole body started to buzz from the sound.

Now, that strain of Buddhism, what is it that separates that from other paths?

We chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and we don't have any priests.

We were actually part of the Nichiren Shoshu.

Nichiren Daishonin was the monk in the 13th century who started this Buddhism, and it went through all kinds of changes.

Nearly two hundred and fifty years ago the daughter of a rich merchant of the city of the shoguns, while visiting some temple festival, perceived in the crowd a young samurai of remarkable beauty.

and immediately fell in love with him unhappily for her he disappeared in the press before she could learn through her attendants who he was or whence he had come but his image remained vivid in her memory even to the least detail of his costume the holiday attire then worn by samurai youths was scarcely less brilliant than that of young girls and the upper dress of this handsome stranger had seemed wonderfully beautiful to the enamoured maiden she fancied that by wearing a robe of like quality and colour bearing the same crest she might be able to attract his notice on some future occasion accordingly she had such a robe made with very long sleeves according to the fashion of the period and she prized it greatly she wore it whenever she went out and when at home she would suspend it in her room and try to imagine the form of her unknown beloved within it Sometimes she would pass hours before it, dreaming and weeping by turns, and she would pray to the gods and the Buddhas that she might win the young man's affection, often repeating the invocation of the Nichiren sect, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

But she never saw the youth again, and she pined with longing for him, and sickened and died, and was buried.

after her burial the long-sleeved robe that she had so much prized was given to the buddhist temple of which her family were parishioners it is an old custom to thus dispose of the garments of the dead the priest was able to sell the robe at a good price for it was a costly silk and bore no trace of the tears that had fallen upon it It was bought by a girl of about the same age as the dead lady.

Nevertheless he ventured to sell the luckless garment once more.

Once more it was purchased by a girl and once more worn, and the wearer pined and died, and the robe was given a fourth time to the temple, Then the priest felt sure that there was some evil influence at work, and he told his acolytes to make a fire in the temple court and to burn the robe.

So they made a fire into which the robe was thrown, but as the silk began to burn there suddenly appeared upon it dazzling characters of flame, the characters of the invocation Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and these one by one leaped like great sparks to the temple roof, and the temple took fire.

Embers from the burning temple presently dropped upon neighboring roofs, and the whole street was soon ablaze.