Morning Daimoku #1,163 | Pink or Blue | Oubaitori.com — Soka Gakkai Buddhist Altar Specialist

Good morning. I hope you are well today. This is Shima, from Oubaitori.com. This is my record of chanting 10,000 daimoku each morning.

Yesterday I delivered a Buddhist altar. It had been a while since I last went out to do this myself.

Two visits, and then a delivery

They are a wonderful couple. They came to our showroom twice. They looked the altars over carefully. Then they said, “We would like to ask you.”

Yesterday was the delivery. I had been watching the weather. It held.

The old altar was collected and taken to our own altar disposal facility. The new one, we carried in ourselves.

The curtain would not move

What weighed on them was the old altar.

In front of the Gohonzon hangs a curtain — the donchō. It rises and lowers by a mechanism. That mechanism had broken. It would not move. And so the Gohonzon could not be taken out of the zushi, the inner cabinet.

That breakdown is what began all of this. The altar itself had been bought by her mother. Fifty years ago.

With that behind them, they had one wish: that I come myself, and move the Gohonzon.

This time, I was able to go. Kimura and I carried the altar in and set it properly in place. Everything they had hoped for, everything they had worried about, was settled. They gave us their deepest thanks. My heart was glad — glad that I do this work.

Devotion to their work. Responsibility. Research. Trial and error. Management.

After the delivery: “Let’s have lunch together.” They took us to a lovely restaurant. We talked over the meal. They run another business as well, and afterward they showed us around it.

They told me what they have lived through in running a company. Their devotion to their work. The responsibility. The research. The trial and error. The management of it all. Valuable time. Good time.

There are so many worlds I know nothing about. I have come to carry that awareness with me. On Tuesday it was the world of wood veneer. This time, the making of equipment that automates the manufacturing of electronic components. And I was able to hear it on site, directly, from the people who do it.

Stories that only that world holds, set in like jewels. My curiosity was at its highest. My ears were wide open. The wife’s side of the work, the husband’s side — different divisions, and then places where the two connect. “Amazing.” I learned a great deal. This learning, too, will become knowledge in my life, and rise further into wisdom. Of that I am convinced.

Looking at the “Prayer for Transforming Life” sheet together

Within what drama of a life does a person come to think about a Buddhist altar — and then about what their own life will be from here. Their life until now, and their present reality. How they hold their faith, as members of the Soka Gakkai. We were able to talk about all of it.

I had brought the “Prayer for Transforming Life” sheet with me. We looked at it together, and I spoke from the Gohonzon, from Nichiren Daishonin, from gongyo and daimoku, from President Ikeda’s guidance.

Her eyes opened wide. “What a wonderful faith this is. Thinking of my mother, I will chant daimoku and create value in my own life.” She was glad.

It became a very good day

It became a very good day. I look forward to today with all of you.

Let’s Daimoku!

Thank you.