There Is No Hardship We Cannot Surmount

The following are excerpts from a speech by Ikeda Sensei at a training session in Nagano, Japan, Aug. 16, 2005. It can be found in The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 2, revised edition, chapter 15, installment 4, pp. 130–32.

With strong faith, Ikeda Sensei says, we can overcome any hardship, transforming it into an opportunity to open up the life state of Buddhahood within us.

Explaining the principle that strong faith leads to strong protection by the positive forces of the universe, Nichiren Daishonin writes:

I say this for your sake. I know your faith has always been admirable, but now you must strengthen it more than ever. Only then will the ten demon daughters [protective deities in Buddhism] lend you even greater protection. (“The Supremacy of the Law,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 614)

However hard we may have exerted ourselves in the past, the important thing is how we challenge ourselves from now on. We need to rouse even stronger faith than we have before. The heavenly deities, or benevolent functions of the universe, will protect us if we do. The appearance of the “three powerful enemies” and the “three obstacles and four devils”—of any kind of hardship—is simply a test of our faith, all necessary for us to bring forth the life state of Buddhahood.