Good morning. I hope you are well. This is Shima, of Oubaitori.
I will be honest: I overslept a little this morning. I hurried through gongyo and moved into daimoku. And while I was chanting the prayer for changing life at its root, the memory of yesterday came back to me — a man I had never met, sitting in our shop, talking with me.
“Ah — you are Mr. Shima”
Two days ago he telephoned. He asked to come the following afternoon. I waited for him, and he came.
I looked at his face and thought: I am sure I have never met this person. Then he said, before anything else, “Ah — you are Mr. Shima.” He watches the channel.
That is a moment that catches me a little. These are only morning videos. I speak plainly, without arranging anything. And someone on the other side of the screen is watching. And then he opens our door and walks in. I do not take that lightly.
We open the doors and show everything
He already knew the altar he wanted. He saw the actual piece and said, “This is good. So this is how it looks.”
He asked how the automatic doors work. So I opened it there and then, and let him look inside. This is how it is built. This is how the switch is adjusted. Nothing hidden. That is how we do it here.
He had time left, so he walked through the shop slowly. “Is that so. So there was a meaning to it.” He was surprised by one thing after another. I was glad to watch that.
The Kokū Zushi came out of my own weakness
He became interested in the Kokū Zushi. I did not recommend it to him as a product. What I said was this:
“The Kokū Zushi came out of the fact that chanting daimoku was hard for me.”
A strong man did not think of it. A man who could not keep going thought of it. A man who was slow to sit down in front of the Gohonzon. I made it because I wanted to do something about myself. That is the whole origin.
From there we came, on our own, to the prayer for changing life at its root. He said he had never heard of it. So I handed him the sheet, and we talked.
Before he left, he said this:
“I am truly glad I came today and heard this.”
And then he placed an order, and went home.
One person decides the whole day
Ten thousand daimoku is not about stacking up a number. It is a time when a face appears — the face of someone I met yesterday — and the prayer turns toward that person’s life without my arranging it.
That he chose an altar, I am grateful for. But that I was able to tell him about the prayer for changing life at its root — that is what I am glad about this morning.
One person at a time. That is all I know how to do.
Thank you. Let’s Daimoku.
🙏 From Yukihiro Shima — Oubaitori.com
Bloom your own way, at your very best.
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