One day early in the morning Nichiren Daishonin ascended mount Minobu. As he witnessed the rising sun at the submmit of the mountain, he would have wondered how he could fulfill his mission as the votary of the Lotus Sutra. (as predicted by Shakyamuni Buddha at the Ceremony of air.) He would have been asking all the Buddhas in the universe to help him and to guide him. In the beginning he would have started venerating the Lotus Sutra by uttering Nam, which means I honor, and then started reciting Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo, the first 5 syllables of the Lotus Sutra. Then he would have noticed that the wave created by these six syllables could contact the supreme power or universal power or the Buddha energy.
After that, while descending from mount Minobu, he kept on chanting "Nam Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo"; he introduced this as the Sadaswara Manthara (sadaswara means six syllables) and encouraged his disciples to chant.
Sadaswara Mantra - Nam Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo
The first 5 syllables of the Lotus Sutra "Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo" follows the salutaion "Namu". The sound waves created by these six syllables enable us to contact the Supreme Power or Universal Power or the Buddha State.
"Namu" means "to be devoted from the soul" (salutation)
"Myo" means "the Mystic Dharma"
"Ho" means "day to day challenges in life"
"Ren Ge" means "Lotus Flower or the Purest Buddha state inherent within every one of us"
"Kyo" means "comes to the surface"
"Nam Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo" represents the Law of Cause & Effect in two folds. Conspicuous & Inconspicuous, as follows
i) Conspicuous Cause & Effect
Namu Myo Ho
- We overcome our day to day challenges in life by venerating the Mystic-Law
- Our day to day challenges in life is the cause
- Overcoming our day to day challenges in life is the effect
We can experience this cause and effect which is conspicuous to us
ii) Inconspicuous Cause & Effect
Ren Ge Kyo - The inert Buddhahood which is in a dormant form within us comes to the surface
The inert Buddhahood, which is in a dormant form within us, is the cause; what is coming to the surface is the effect.
This is Inconspicuous Cause & Effect
"Namu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo" is also referred to as the "Daimoku".
"Namu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo" could be considered as the mobile number of the Buddha which is given to us to dial as and when we need help and direction to face our challenges in life. We have the mobile so dial for help regularly and keep contact with the Buddha energy and send as many SMS's as possible.
When an SMS is sent it is transmitted immediately in wave form. In the same way the "Nam Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo" wave reaches the universal energy instantaneously.
Every thought, world and deed that we create, is stored in our aura, bound to the energy of our soul or our eternal form, in the way a computer collects data in a folder. We go on living our lives but without our knowledge, our soul collects the data and stores it in our aura. Buddha has shown us how to hack into our own computers and delete all the folders where our bad karmic data has been stored.
We are like caterpillars that eat and thrive and get into a cocoon of "Nam Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo" or the cocoon of prayers. Once the cocoon cracks, a beautiful butterfly is released to the environment. The ugly soul of a caterpillar is converted to a beautiful butterfly. The way we hide our ugly karmic soul in the cocoon of the Buddha energy and get the bad karma eradicated to release our beautiful soul or pure form, with the help of the nourishment which we get from the cocoon of Buddha energy is like transforming poison into medicine, This enables us to ascend to a higher energy state of existence.
