How and why many of us continued, aspiring to attain the Mind of the Buddha—Perfect Enlightenment. This is not the same as “Nirvana.” As the Buddha says in the Lotus Sutra, “All existences from the beginning are ever of the nirvana nature.” One cannot reach Perfect Enlightenment as the Buddha did under the Bodhi tree unless, along the path, one recognizes this true nirvana nature. Following are some of the words that inspired many of us to continue on this path, free of debilitating attachments, quiescence—Perfect Enlightenment—the Buddha’s intent: “Ever making this my thought, how shall I cause all the living to enter the Way supreme and speedily accomplish their Enlightenment?”

Science jump-starts practice

  In 1982-83 the process of learning and study jump-started by the Timothy Ferris article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, “Beyond Newton and Einstein” and from his PBS special, “Creation of the Universe,” luring me into a world of cosmology and quantum physics. Cosmologists study the history of the universe; quantum physicists, the very small, seeking a theory of a grand, unified force field derived from primordial energy, resulting in the formation of all matter in the universe. Following this in 1983, further insights from Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time; Timothy Ferris’s Coming of Age in the Milky Way; Fritjof Capra’s The Turning Point. Further significant writings over the years to the present day, not surprisingly resonate with the teachings of the Buddha.

  When particle physicists began to explore the inner workings of atoms which make up everything in the universe, quantum mechanics and theories of relativity opened up “two very different paths for physicists to pursue, leading to, as Fritjof Capra says in The Turning Point, “the Buddha or the Bomb, and it is up to each of us to decide which path to take.”

  These explorations led physicists to conceptions of the universe as an interconnected web of relationships—webs of energy we call matter—and to the conclusion that these “cosmic webs of energy” are intrinsically dynamic and can be understood only in terms of movement, action and interaction.

  Timothy Ferris reminds us in Coming of Age in the Milky Way that quantum physicists discovered in their observations that what is perceived in experiments depend on the point of view of the observer, and this “tore down walls, reuniting mind with the wider universe . . . we do not see things in themselves, but only aspects of things. What we see in an electron path . . . is not an electron, and what we see in the sky are not stars.”  (One is reminded here of the central lesson of “The Magic City” – Chapter 7 of the Lotus Sutra – to see beyond appearances.)

  Just as the Buddha taught: things, phenomena, are what we choose to call them, in reality, not really what they are; that the true aspect is the one law, namely, nonform. These insights emerged from the most significant of all, discovering in 1985 the writings of Nikkyo Niwano, co-founder of Rissho Kosei-kai, a Buddhist layperson group numbering several million throughout the world. Niwano, tireless worker for world peace, devoted his life to the Lotus Sutra. He called himself a “Lifetime Beginner,” the title of his autobiography. His Guide to the Threefold Lotus Sutra and Buddhism for Today, a modern interpretation of the Threefold Lotus Sutra and his other writings, insured my own “lifetime” dedication to the sutra, and to the Buddha’s teachings.