How to Master Barriers to Human Revolution

In this vlog, I am going to define human revolution. Then we’ll discuss ways you might be blocking yourself from moving forward, and finally how to take the steps to expand your life.

Transcript download: Master Barriers to Human revolution

Human Revolution is.…

“Human revolution is a never-ending process of continual self-improvement – a Buddhist way of life that eternally seeks growth and personal development. This fundamental change comes only from transforming our innermost weaknesses into deeply rooted strengths.”SGI-USA website

This might mean that a trouble maker begins to help others and become an asset to the community. Or a person who can’t make decisions and is lost and wandering in life learns to challenge that trait and start to move forward finding purpose in life. There are thousands of ways that each of us can improve.

“If we succeed in challenging ourselves on a fundamental level, we can change from someone who is buffeted about by the environment or the people around them to someone who can positively influence their situation and surroundings.”
World Tribune April 2016,

As Josei Toda, the 2nd SGI President says, “The end goal of human revolution is ‘to realize a state of eternal happiness. This existence is fleeting as a dream. We practice faith to awaken from this dream and firmly establish a state of eternal happiness. This is what it means to “attain Buddhahood in this lifetime.”

This all sounds wonderful, but how do you do it?

Look at your life

Is your life working, or not working? Are you satisfied with some areas but dissatisfied with others? Your human revolution is going to come about through addressing the concerns in everyday life and growing in ways to deal with them more effectively.

The first thing is to realize that the results you are receiving in your life right now are the results of causes through thoughts, things you’ve said, and actions you have made in the past.

According to the law of the simultaneity of cause and effect, when you make such a cause the future effect is simultaneously planted in your life to manifest when the time is right. In order to achieve different results, you have to make different causes. According the Buddhist concept of oneness of self and its environment, the circumstances of our lives arise from inside of us to manifest in the outerworld. If you are deadlocked or not producing results, you may have gotten off track without realizing it.

To Get on Track

Awareness is the First Step

To begin we need to become aware of how we might be blocking ourselves. Since this is subtle, it might be hard to recognize without help from other practitioners. One way is to go to meetings. In any given meeting, some people are going to have a strong practice while another might be wavering. Hearing how a strong practitioner is chanting about an experience or a comment in a presentation might help you be aware of where you are blocking yourself.

For example maybe you hear an experience where someone challenged their problem and you become aware that you tend to back off due to fears rather than press ahead. Or that you are envisioning a god helping you.

When you feel as though you are not changing a situation, get guidance. Another person will be able to identify the block.

How We Can Block Ourselves

Here are some of the ways you might be getting in your own way. We block ourselves by viewing the Law as being outside of ourselves. Here are some things to look for.
1. As you chant you are envisioning a divine being helping you.

2. You hope or expect other people to rescue you or solve your problem.

3. You blame another person for your problems. “Nothing will change until
he, she changes in these specific ways.”

4. You blame the environment. “I can’t get a job because of the bad economy.”

6. You doubt that you have the Buddha nature and don’t believe that you have    the power to change your situation.

7. You have fears which you allow to prevent you from moving forward.

8. You aren’t taking responsibility for your life. “I guess it’s supposed to be
this way – fate.”

9. You grumble and complain about other people, rather than changing the
situation from inside you

The moment you blame a person or something outside of yourself for your situation, you have stopped connecting with the Mystic Law embodied within you in your Buddha nature to solve your situation. You have given away your powerto change the situation to someone or something else.

It’s easy to fall into this without realizing it because our culture has taught us from childhood that outside circumstances and people can control us. We can see it all around us. This level of life is visible. It appears real, although it is really an illusion. On the other hand the Mystic Law is invisible, we can’t see it working behind the scenes, so its harder to remember we have the power to create our lives from within.

Steps of Human Revolution

We are going to look at the steps of human revolution through a common problem. Let’s say you don’t have enough money. This has been a constant in your life. There is never quite enough.

1. Set a goal

To change the situation you first need to be quite clear about what you want. Don’t look at what you lack but at what you will have when you achieve your end goal. Don’t be vague just hoping for more money. Vague chanting produces vague or no results. Instead, be specific. How much money do you want and by when?

Chant for something you can see yourself achieving, if you stretch your vision a little. If you are homeless and chant for 10 million dollars you will never really believe it can happen. Start with $5000, or whatever you can believe with a small stretch, and when you achieve that, up the ante. If you are a beginning mountain climber, you don’t try Mt Everest your first climb. In this way, step by step you, will build your faith and your confidence that you can trust the practice.

If you aren’t clear, chant for clarity.

2. Make a determination

Make a determination that you are going to do whatever is necessary to achieve your goal. This determination lays the groundwork for your human revolution. When you make a commitment and follow through you can transform the habits, beliefs and characteristics which are blocking you.

2. Get Ideas

You will get ideas for steps to take, whether during your chanting time or during the day. If you are chanting about a concern, pay attention to anything that comes to you about your interest. You have started a dialogue with the universe and will get a response. Don’t second guess yourself and talk yourself out of these ideas. When you chant about something you are tapping into your universal connectionand the answers that you receive are coming from a deeper wisdom than your everyday mind.

 3. Take Action

Now you may face all the reasons why you haven’t taken action in the past. Here are a few. Perhaps you are undecided, not sure of the right direction, or don’t know how your action will be received if you put yourself out there. What if you second guess yourself and wonder if it is the wrong decision. You have anxiety or fear. You can’t see how your goal is going to come about.

If you’re dealing with fear, chant for courage. Then challenge yourself and take the action.Until you take action and get some internal feedback, how are you ever going to know whether this direction is the right one for you. You can trust that your heart will tell you when you take the action. Either it will feel right, or you’ll feel resistance and know this isn’t for you. Either way you will have learned something about yourself through this experiment. If it feels right, trust that quiet inner voice. Your inner, higher self knows what is right for you.
When you start to move forward the universe creates the connections you need to achieve your goal.

Don’t worry about not knowing how it will work out. The path will unfold under your feet. You will see to a corner but not beyond. When you arrive at that corner you will see further.

As you go through this process over and over with ever bigger and more challenging goals, you do your human revolution, developing your inner strength, and your character, and come to understand how create your life as you want it.

Summary:

In today’s vlog we look at what human revolution is and then discussed the steps to accomplishing it. We examined how we can get off track and then used a common experience to discuss the steps to accomplishing your human revolution.

Here are some other related vlogs

Is There any right Way to Chant? https://wp.me/p3V1J9-WJ
Difficult Problem? 5 Steps to Nailing It https://wp.me/p3V1J9-UZ
7 Ways we block Ourselves When Chanting for a Goal https://wp.me/p3V1J9-Ud

Now I want to hear from you. Thank you for those of you who have made comments or suggestions for topics. I’m doing my best to work them into the vlogs.

Thank you listening. See you in two weeks.