Nichiren Shoshu

Always the ten worlds, from moment to moment-

Hell, hunger, animality, anger, tranquillity,

Rapture, learning and realisation,

Boddihisattva, buddhahood!

Infinitely fluctuating mind, feverish merry-go-round...


You worry at dire imaginings,

Slander yourself with grimacing glee...

From hell to heaven the road is short but steep.


Hunger, hunger...desire loves only itself...

Who but you can turn poison into elixir?


Shakyamuni, walking in the Deer Park,

Came upon a deer lying stricken by an arrow;

Two learned Brahmins stood there, arguing

Earnestly the nature and meaning of death,

And ,turning to the stranger, asked his opinion.

Shakyamuni, silently, simply knelt

And pulled the shaft from the suffering animal’s side.


The urge to live and live, and never die,

Clumsy destructive greed,

All the animal dread in your instincts,

Making hostile and blind...

Angry idiot, attached and detached,

Suprerior, so superior (to what?),

Feigning benevolence, righteousness, propriety,

Disfigured underneath...

Contemptuous one, is it fame you want,

Is it success?


Human, be true, be tranquil,

Excellent and wise in every motion.

Do you smother yourself in sloth?

Do you fear the risks of change?

Rapture of fulfilled desire-

All formlessness and form-

The ridiculous orgasm-gone!

Your goodness may imperil you more than your evil.

In everyone is a mother’s devotion,

The vacuum is a plenum of love,

Absorbing all evil, unlocking all prisons

In an everlasting instant.

When there is war in a single particle,

How can there be peace anywhere?

If the soul condescends or begrudges,

So much good will is undone.


The entire world is latency,

The seen from the unseen, here and not here,

Memories now unconscious, now manifest,

Cherry blossoms appearing and disappearing as they will.

The cause is the effect.

Miraculously, exquisitely strict and harmonious-

The laws, the connections everywhere!

Each moment offers the gift to choose

And become.