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Essentials for Business Owners From Founder’s Dharma Talks
Six Vows
- From now on, I will never tell a lie.
- I will work with all my strength.
- I will undertake tasks that other people find disagreeable.
- I will never struggle with other people. No matter how severe my experiences, I will hold the firm belief that they are all according to the wishes of the gods and the buddhas.
- I will work steadily and hard, no matter whether people are observing.
- No matter how unpleasant the task, I will see it through once I have undertaken it.
Lifetime Beginner
Practicing the Six Paramitas in the Workplace
The six bodhisattva practices have been revealed to us as: making donations, keeping the precepts, forbearance, diligence, meditation, and wisdom. Offering your things and your abilities to other people, strictly obeying the rules as they have been decided, enduring what is painful or difficult, making an effort without slacking, being unshaken by changes happening before your very eyes, remaining calm, and making real wisdom your own—these are the six bodhisattva tasks. They are the Way to improve upon ourselves and, in addition, everyone can put them into practice every day at work.
In particular, the first of these is essential, because if you are able to practice donation, the other five will come to you naturally later on. This is because making your best effort at doing your own work is enough to lead you to the Way of becoming a buddha.
The Staff of Life
You Are Your Own Main Character
“In the midst of this vast universe I am here. I myself exist. This is certain. So I must be here for a reason. I am alive, I have life, because I have a reason for living, a mission in life.” Try telling yourself this as you examine your existence within the depths of your heart. Gradually you should come to have a keen sense that your existence is an essential part of the universe. Simply to feel this inside yourself is to experience a great awakening.
What Is Human Worth
Working with a Clear Mind
At workplaces, people are apt to let their desires flock around having a little bit more monthly salary or a promotion. In this case, you are willing to do things that other people find disagreeable, with the mind of a bodhisattva.
Even if that may seem at first to be a waste of time, you shall continue to work through steady practice, keeping in mind that you want to become the kind of person who can work for the sake of other people. By doing so, you feel truly fulfilled and your mind becomes clear. Then, thanks to your being such a person, the workplace becomes cheerful and business goes smoothly.
If you are corporate managers, you shall think about the happiness of employees, and then the employees shall also make an effort for the sake of the company and thus benefit society through their work. That effort absolutely does come bouncing back to you.
Yakushin, May Issue in 1983
Seeing Into the Mind of the Customers
Some companies produce nothing but best-selling products. Looking into the matter, they have something in common, which is that they thoroughly listen to their customers’ complaints. And then, they thoroughly look at the entire process of companies with good sales, from how their products are made to how they are sold.
It is painful to listen, one by one, to the complaints of grumbling customers. However, by sincerely performing the “practice of humility” before your customers, gradually you can see into their minds. This gives you a hint to produce products that they are satisfied to buy.
This is what “We shall be able to approach enlightenment when we see, hear, or touch this sutra” means, isn’t it.
Howa shirizu: Ho o toku yuki
(Howa Series: The Courage to Expound the Dharma)
Roses Are Beautiful
You can tell if people are leading lives of happiness or unhappiness by whether they experience joy in the little things every day or pile up their complaints about how things are unfair. That’s why, when you see roses, it is important to have the mindset that accepts their beauty as it is.
Invisible Eyelashes
Roses Are Beautiful
You can tell if people are leading lives of happiness or unhappiness by whether they experience joy in the little things every day or pile up their complaints about how things are unfair. That’s why, when you see roses, it is important to have the mindset that accepts their beauty as it is.
Invisible Eyelashes
Four Prescriptions
If you encounter some great suffering or problem:
1. Face the difficulty honestly and boldly without running away or evading the issue.
2. Discover, analyze, and amend the cause of the trouble.
3. When a solution is forthcoming from this analysis, devote all your efforts to carrying it through.
4. When you face a spiritual challenge that seems insoluble, leave it alone and devote yourself to altruistic service to other people.
I want you to never forget these four prescriptions because they will make your life something splendid.
Living Like a Human Being
Make a Serious Effort
The fresh air of the forests, the sudden steepness of the rock-strewn path, the gentleness of a cooling breeze, the charm of the small animals occasionally glimpsed among the flowering path-side plants—these are things you can hardly see if you ride the ropeway to the top of the mountain.
So is it, too, in the journey of human life, in which the most important thing is accurate self-understanding and a sense of independence—feeling that you are making your own way through the world by applying your own ideas and your own two hands and feet.
Kosei, June issue in 1985
The Service of Smiling
As you give thought to someone, you bring forth something like a flower of life, don’t you? I think that the more you think about that other person, the more that a beautiful story emerges and one of life’s brightest flowers blooms.
Invisible Eyelashes
Grasping the Mind of the Employee
In nearly all cases, people believe that their own way of thinking is the most correct and, therefore, when they come up against someone whose way of thinking is different, they tend to decide that the other person is wrong. But if you take a step back from the situation and reconsider it from the perspective of why the other person thinks that way, you gain clarity and can stop yourself before you make a mistake.
The Staff of Life
Being Head Over Heels in Love
One of the first conditions for enjoying life is to be loved by many people. “The person who loves is beloved” is a truth that has been valid in the past and remains valid today. Someone who wishes to be loved must first have a heart capable of loving.
Some people are showered with the affection of others though they seem to do nothing to earn it; but simply waiting for that to happen will not lead to success in love or in the world.
Living Like a Human Being
Obeying the Law of Nature
All things are constantly in motion. It is motion that causes the essence of each thing to exist and that supports its relationship to everything else. Air is moving and water is moving. Light moves in waves and sound moves in waves. Hard substances such as stone or iron may appear not to be moving, but looking at them microscopically, they are composed of a collection of atoms and, inside each of those atoms, electrons are moving around the nucleus.
In other words, there is nothing in the universe that is not in motion. Motion is none other than existence. The fundamental root of all existences and phenomena are made up of energy, and therefore it is natural that all things are in motion. Indeed, they cannot but be in motion.
Of course, there are some things that innately appear to be moving for no apparent reason, but when we see them in connection to other things in their surroundings, we understand that their motion is performing its own function.
In order for relationships of coexistence and co-prosperity to be established, it is imperative that each thing has its own role and fulfills it.
This is exactly the same as the relationship between one human being and another.
The Purpose of Life
