by Robin Davis
Washington, D.C.
Perhaps you’re too young to remember—and perhaps that’s for the best—the rise of a cardinal rule of campaign politics, famously distilled: It’s the economy, stupid.
In any case, these were the terms in which I understood, in a flash in 2000, the central lesson of the preceding four years, in which I’d lost touch entirely with my Buddhist faith and practice. It’s kosen-rufu, Robin! came the exasperated inner cry.
Time and again, old friends in faith had come to visit but found me each time exhausted by grief, blind to the possibility of transformation and, also, to the joys and sufferings of my three kids. Four years earlier, we’d come into money—my husband had received an inheritance—and it was not long before the money took a toll. Slowly but surely, I was carried off by the winds of prosperity, so much so that, when my marriage faltered, I turned not to the Gohonzon but to retail therapy, prescription drugs and thoughtless investments. Fundamentally, I’d forgotten I had the power within to transform my destiny. It was not until the turn of the century that it occurred to me, out of the blue: It’s kosen-rufu. I reconnected with old friends in faith, impressed by how much they’d grown since I’d seen them last. All that is but one.
One person was unchanged—a brilliant, principled, bossy and cantankerous woman—a writer—who was forever feuding with this person or that. In fact, she reminded me of some inverted image of myself—me minus my aversion to conflict—who struggled, like me, to make friends. She’d grown up in the remote hills and hollers of the Appalachian Mountains. I was the only child of a military family that had uprooted year after year.
It was for the happiness of this old friend that I began to chant in earnest, for the first time in years, sensing that I might be the one, despite all my shortcomings, who might say something to help her break through.
The opportunity came in 2005, when I went to her place to chant. She said something on our way to the elevator—a typically critical remark about a member of our district, and I stopped, took a deep breath and said, “I fear that this is what will hold you back.” To my astonishment, she sighed, then said simply, “You’re right.”
When she passed away, it fell to a few friends and me—not an organizer by nature—to oversee her memorial. A fitting final challenge, I thought, from a friend who’d so often challenged me to grow. I pulled together a beautiful memorial, in the proper meaning of the word, in which we went around and shared our memories of our friend, so sorely missed and so fondly remembered. And it occurred to me then that this friend had reminded me how to care for another person—to truly care, enough to confront my doubts and fears. Her friendship paved the way, in ways I still do not understand, for profound breakthroughs in my own life.
In 2005, I was working a good job for a good boss—an attorney who showered me with praise. It came then as a bolt out of the blue, when she exploded one day, upbraiding me in such a way that left me in a speechless panic. What exactly I feared, I could not say, but it was an ancient, existential fear—fight or flight or freeze. A fear I’d felt just once before.
I mentioned I was born to a military family that uprooted year after year before any one place could be thought of as home. But in fact, there was one town, a tiny coastal town in Florida, where I did stay long enough to consider it home. But just as soon as I’d done so, we left, in the middle of my freshman year of high school, in the brusquest way yet, with no farewells at all. My mother filed for divorce and took me with her to Virginia.
Told to leave my father, then told again to testify against him in the proceedings, I took the stand and froze, speechless, my mind blank, my heart racing. It was the same thing I was feeling now, with my boss. The only difference was that now, I had the Gohonzon.
I began chanting and in a very short time, understanding struck: I was experiencing what in Buddhism is termed “lessening one’s karmic retribution.” I was not experiencing this pain for nothing but transforming something deep within. Suddenly, the pain, as though it had expended the last of its strength, was replaced with immense joy; and that joy was followed by a memory I’d long forgotten: a vow I’d made as a young mother, in November 1989, when reports of the fall of the Berlin Wall raced around the world. It was an event, I reflected, that Ikeda Sensei had predicted years earlier, in 1961, when he’d visited the wall just months after its construction. At that time, he’d said, “I am sure that in 30 years this Berlin Wall will no longer stand” (The New Human Revolution, vol. 4, revised edition, p. 319).
How could he be so sure? I remember thinking at the time. And I’d made a determination then and there to advance my own education—to be able to perceive, as my mentor did, the deeper, slower movements of history. By the age of 50, I’d determined, I will receive my undergraduate degree. Well, I was past 50 now, and I realized it was now or never. I typed “university temp jobs free tuition” and up popped “Georgetown University.” I knew nothing about Georgetown, other than it was six miles from my home. I had stumbled upon a prestigious school with a Socratic-style humanities degree program tailored for people who worked full time. I was hired, got a free ride and, over the course of the next 10 years, completed my degree. And all the while, I continued to share Buddhism, with one person at a time, for the sake of paving the way to a more humanistic future.
Speaking for myself, I can’t do anything much on my own. I’m too easily distracted by the dozens of house chores pending on any day of the week—stocking bird feeds, watering plants, cleaning windows… They’re good worries—I keep a beautiful home for a reason—but they are worries nonetheless that will, as often as not, take me away from the Gohonzon just as soon as I’ve sat down to face it. What I do—what I’ve found works best for me—is to chant, as often as possible, with others. At times I go to them; at others, we meet at mine. The key for me is to do it together and then to return with fighting spirits to our daily lives.
It’s for this reason that I keep a home with birds and flowers and views of both: for people. For SGI members, of course, but also those from all over the world who stay a night or two or three in the guestroom I keep here in Washington, D.C. It’s a place where people come to gather strength and return to their lives with hope and purpose. Several of these travelers have even joined the SGI. My children are happy and well and my grandchildren too. Remaining in the orbit of the SGI, I feel I’ve gained the “cluster of jewels” that the Lotus Sutra describes as coming mystically, unsought.
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