Chanting for others.

Just yesterday I was happily rushing around doing my stuff in the city
as it was my first day back into uni! Yatta!!

I spent almost 2 hours just doing laundry (almost 2 weeks worth,
hahaha... I'm such a lazy arse) and by the time I got out of the
house, it was about 11 am in the morning. Well, before I did that I
really felt the urge to do some strong daimoku as I really wanted my
first day back into uni a blast!

I spent about 15 minutes of chanting and again I felt the same
sensation as I did earlier this year, the discovery of the joy of
chanting. Basically I didn't want to stop. My life condition was so
elevated... I practically had to force myself to stop chanting because
otherwise, I wouldn't have much time to do my errands before going to
uni (which is RMIT Bundoora campus; and that means I'll have to travel
1 hour by tram... *sniff, sniff*).

Anyways, benefits started rolling in immediately after stepping out of
my house; the shoten zenjin were certainly supporting me. Firstly,
the weather was great! Not cold for a Melbourne winter. Secondly, I
met up with a great shoten zenjin, a lady at the RMIT "hub." I heard
before that to get my student card was going to take weeks. But when
I talked to her, she told me to come to another room and *click* my
picture was taken, within 5 seconds the student card was printed out.
^.^

Then I got my public transport concession card. What a benefit!!
Almost +50% in savings from full fare tickets. ^.^

Then I went to the post office to certify some documents. As I needed
to catch the 12:45 pm tram to Bundoora for my 2 pm orientation, I was
in quite a rush. I went up to the post office counter and asked for
the post office lady to certify my documents. Not to say she was an
idiot, but she was obviously slow... maybe it was a long day for her.
Anyways, I handed her two sheets of photocopied documents (my passport
and student card) with the originals on top of each corresponding
sheet.

Get this, what she does is takes my student card from the student card
sheet and tries to match the photocopy of my passport!! She stares at
it for a while and looks at me and asks: "Is this you?" pointing at
the passport photocopy. I thought she was joking or making pleasant
conversation (but then, my passport photo was a bit old) So I joked
back: "Well... so who do you think is more handsomer?? *Grin* It
could be me, or it maybe it isn't! *chuckle*"

The post office lady smiles, looks back at the paper and has a
confused look on her face. It was then I realized that she thought my
student card was my passport (huh?? I don't know why she did that,
even though my student card had big letters on it saying 'RMIT STUDENT
CARD'). I had to point out her mistake before her expression became
"enlightened".

Anyways, after my clarification (by then I was thinking... wtf is
wrong with her?... in a nice way) she proceeded to stare and compare
the documents saying random things. By then the clock was ticking at
12:40pm. I decided to try and speed things up so I say: "Would you
hurry it up a bit, because I need to..."

Post office lady cuts in and tells me in a patronizing/shocked manner:
"Hey, hey! I need to do this carefully! We are doing YOU a favor!
Don't rush me ok??!!" I try to finish my sentence "...because I'm
running late and need to catch a tram in 5 minutes to Bundoora which
is really far away."

But of course by then, she wasn't listening and probably already
presumes I'm a rude bastard. I was feeling a bit wronged... ok, maybe
I didn't start my sentence correctly enough to give the wrong
impression, but at least 'listen' to what I say first before making a
judgement lady!!

Anyways, she goes back inside to the office area and spends 5 minutes
doing the certifying which I'm sure she did it on purpose because I've
got 5 pages of documents certified at the same post office for less
time than she did it!!

When she came back, I tried to apologize to her (afterall I probably
sounded a bit rude to her) but she just looked off to the side of me
at the next customer, vaguely nodded at my apologies and said: "Next
please."

I won't write down all the expletives that ran through my head cursing
her as I flew like the wind to the tram stop (just so that you know, I
did managed to catch my tram, barely).

Anyways, this event was troubling me as I was on the tram and I did a
bit of thinking. In terms of buddhism, any events that happens to
you, in other words you environment, is a reflection of your inner
life condition/spiritual aspect of yourself. In the case of this
'incident' I felt that perhaps my life condition wasn't strong/high
enough to embrace those that encounter, let alone raise them. The
purpose of buddhism is not only to practice for yourself, but also
practice for others.

After identifying this 'source' of destability, I started thinking of
the best solutions for these types of encounter. I concluded that
chanting for other people's happiness (along with your own) is the
best way/solution. So how does it work? Chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo
for yourself is the way to call out your inherent buddhahood/nature.
When you chant it is a form of respect to your "higher"/"elevated"
self. A self that draws on your own true potential which is basically
the potential of the universe. What this means, is that any
challenges that one encounters, one can strive to overcome it with
hope. By chanting for others at the same time, we are actually
conducting or aligning ourselves with the actions of a Buddha because
to do so stems from having compassion for others. A Buddha's
compassion is basically to do whatever there is to be done so that
others will be able to achieve the same 'enlightened' state as
him/herself.

Anyways, back to the unhappy post office lady, I've decided to chant
for her happiness. Why?? It doesn't make sense huh? But if you regard
what I said previously, by elevating her life condition I'm actually
elevating/creating a conducive environment for myself. In such an
environment I am able to elevate my own life condition much easier.
It's a win-win situation!

On the way to uni, I felt quite satisfied and happy for myself from
finding this "solution" which was something I should have done
initially. It gave me an insight into the buddhist concept of the 3
Truths - kutai, ketai, and chutai (or ku ke chu in short). Just to
confuse and clarify somethings about the 3 Truths, they are actually
not 3 separate things, but interelatted aspects of one thing - in
other words the 3 Truths are actually 1 truth.

Confused? Well, to sum it all up the one truth = Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo.