Welcome to the Ninth Consciousness

Hola! Some of you may already sort of know me from Fraught with Peril. I am still over there, but decided I wanted a spot of my own as well. This weblog, the Ninth Consciousness, will mostly be about Buddhism; but also other things that interest you, the reader, and I, the would be writer.

I have officially been a Buddhist for more 35 years now.As with many, my official entry level Dharma Gate was Nichiren Buddhism, brought to me by Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Shoshu. While I remain in the Nichiren camp, so to speak, I have moved in a more independent direction, and am probably headed toward Nichiren Shu. In between, a lot of things have happened.

As of right now, I expect the topics here shall cover some of the things I write about at Mettawaves from Robin's Nest. These would include what I do as Buddhist Practice, the method I employ, and why I do those practices. Basically, I follow the Eightfold Path, or more accurately, the Threefold Training; from which, the Eightfold Path is a derivative. That is Ethics / Precepts, Meditation, and Wisdom / Insight. The center of that is Meditation. I do the basics -- samatha / samadhi / dhyana and satipatthana / vipassana. Those are a mix of sanskrit and pali terms, which are helpful, but not necessary to know. I use them because translations are not always consistent. Those words might be rendered into English as: Stillness / Concentration / Absorption, and Mindfulness / Insight. As an aside, I do not think Insight is really a meditation in itself, it is more the result, and equivalent to the Third Training of Wisdom.

As for methodology, I pretty much stick to a form of Chanting Meditation called Shodai [唱題?]. This consists of three primary components; the mudra or hand gesture, the honzon or object of concentration, and the mantra or chant. The mudra corresponds to the training of ethics / precept; and the primary one I use is the Gesture of Reverence called Anjali Namaskara or Gassho. The primary honzon I use is a calligraphy mandala designed by Nichiren, based on the core chapters of the Lotus Sutra. The Mantra I primarily use is Namu Myoho Renge Kyo [南無妙法�華経], which is called the Daimoku [題目] . As you might suspect, I shall be going into this in minute detail.

As to why I do this, when I chant; the sun shines everywhere I go, people are kind to me, I always get green lights, lines are short, I get ideal parking spaces, and money falls from the sky! Seriously though, the practice, when i do it, puts me in a good mood, it is quite healing, it helps me improve my cognitive skills, and it promotes self reformation. We shall be going into that a bit more here, perhaps even discussing why it works.

Another thing I shall be doing here is studying the life and legends of Nichiren, the 13th Century Japanese Buddhist monk who founded the type of Buddhism I practice. Since the use of a honzon or religious icon is part of the practice, I will be getting into iconography; to include the a study of the extant Mandala Gohonzons inscribed by Nichiren himself and his successors. We shall also be discussing other honzons, as well as other mantras I find useful. We can also go off into Buddhist altars, ritual implements, the rosary, special confessional rites, and so on. My goodness, that is enough to keep me busy here for several years!