Ikeda Sensei: Each person’s life is precious and irreplaceable. All human beings experience the sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death. We are all fellow inhabitants of planet Earth at this particular moment in time. In the dimension of life, everyone is equal; there are no economic or social distinctions.
When we view everything from the universal criteria of life, we can communicate, as one human being to another, with anyone.
The Lotus Sutra regards one-to-one dialogue as one of the noblest activities for developing our character and humanity. Shakyamuni states:
If one of these good men or good women in the time after I have passed into extinction is able to secretly expound the Lotus Sutra to one person, even one phrase of it, then you should know that he or she is the envoy of the Thus Come One. He has been dispatched by the Thus Come One and carries out the Thus Come One’s work. (The Lotus Sutra and Its Opening and Closing Sutras, p. 200)
In other words, those who make sincere efforts to talk about the Lotus Sutra (Nam-myoho-renge-kyo) for the sake of one person, one friend, are envoys of the Thus Come One, of the Buddha.
Ultimately, our most vital, front-line effort for worldwide kosen-rufu, in every country around the world, is one-to-one dialogue. It is speaking with a spirit of genuine care and concern to the person suffering in front of us—no matter where, when or who it may be. It is listening to their problems and struggles, sharing their pain and sadness and chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and rejoicing together.
The unconditional, all-embracing nature of such humanistic actions, based on the spirit of treasuring each person, is one of the reasons that the SGI has spread around the world. (August 7, 2015, World Tribune, pp. 4–5)
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