Testing The Truth of Buddhism
by Vincent Chang

My name is Vincent Chang and I have come here from the United States. I would like to tell you the story about how I made my initial determination and started practicing.  Actually, since I was born into it in 1981, it may seem like there’s not much to tell.  However, the truth is it took me over 20 years before I was able to truly understand this Buddhism with my own life. 

I grew up in the small town of Pinole in sunny California.  My mother and I lived just minutes away from Myoshinji Temple.  Since my parents were divorced, I would visit my dad on the weekends in San Francisco.  Separately, they both continued to uphold their faith and practice and encouraged me to chant with them.

Following the split with the Soka Gakkai, my mother joined the Hokkeko. Thereafter, my mother and I endured various persecutions.  Our car was damaged and stolen several times, our juzu beads were taken, and we found dirty diapers in our mailbox.  It even got to the point where we were afraid to pick up our telephone.  During this time, my mom endured tremendous financial and inter-personal difficulties and countless obstacles as a single mother. 

My father, on the other hand, stayed with the Gakkai and is an active community leader.  He engineered the San Francisco Airport and many great buildings around the United States and was financially successful. He remarried and became the pillar of his family.  He maintained a very strict daily practice, made sure I learned Gongyo, and took me to many Gakkai events on the weekends.

Comparing the lifestyles of my parents, it would seem only logical, based on general societal standards, for me to have joined the SGI.  However, I always had a nagging feeling that something was terribly wrong whenever my father took me to the SGI meetings.  On the other hand, I couldn’t figure out why my mother’s life was so difficult. 

As a fortune baby, I also wondered, “Do I really believe in this Buddhism?  Or is it just because my parents do?”  I knew there was something to this, but I wanted to make up my own mind.  So, I constantly chanted Daimoku, thanked the Gohonzon for its protection, and asked that someday I would be able to truly understand this for myself.

            By spring of 2002, I had it all.  I was the president of a very large student organization at UC Berkeley and was well known throughout the campus.  I had completed wonderfully successful projects with NASA and Internet startups, bought a fancy car, and was about to graduate from one of the nation’s top business schools. 

By summer of 2002, I lost it all.  I lost the girl, I lost the job, and I lost the popularity.  I almost had to drop out of school just a month before graduating.  I started suffering from insomnia, going for days with hardly any sleep, and started having chest pains and memory loss.  To this day I have a large skin discoloration on my side, which doctors tell me was from all the stress.  They also said they might have to operate on my bad knee.

Not knowing where to turn, I found the Gosho and started reading it.  As I did so, I felt a strange desire to start chanting.  So, I told my mom I was going to take my old beads with me to college.  She said that a priest once told her shakubuku that if one really wants see a difference in one’s life, he should try practicing consistently for 90 days.

So, for the first time in my life I found myself wanting to chant, but not having a Gohonzon to chant to.  I chanted to a cluttered wall in the beer-stained party house I was living in, and ignored what the other college kids might think.  I started studying the Gosho, attending ceremonies at the Temple, and even scrubbing the toilets in the Temple rest rooms.  I made a vow that I would try practicing with my life for 90 days.  I didn’t know if it would work, but I was determined to find out.

A few days later, my dad called out of the blue.  Although he resented my mom and Hokkeko, he said he would support me until I graduated.  While I had been searching unsuccessfully for a new apartment for weeks, I instantly found a much better apartment where I could chant peacefully in just a few days before my lease expired. 

Since I started practicing again, my mom redoubled her practice too.  The next weekend, we went to the Temple and heard about the 750^th Anniversary Overseas Members Tozan.  She said we had to go.  Given our dire financial situation, I laughed and said, “Sure, if I get a job tomorrow.”  I had been job-hunting unsuccessfully for weeks.  Two days later, I got a job I never even applied for.  One of the companies that did not hire me referred me to another firm. I was able to secure employment and, as a result, my mother and I managed to scrap together just enough to attend our first Tozan together.

Also, when I was growing up, I had many childhood friends who were in SGI.  However, there were hardly any kids my age at the Temple.  While I got to hear many adults give their experiences, I sometimes felt like there was nobody I could connect with.  But that summer, I met two girls at the temple who looked very familiar for some reason and it turned out they took care of me when I was a baby.  It was like meeting your long lost sisters.  Mystically, we came together and formed a very strong Young Adults Group.  I felt as though we were all called together for the 750^th Anniversary.

On the 88^th day after I made my determination to challenge myself to the 90 days of sincere practice, I was at San Francisco International Airport.  I was the last one in line to get on the plane to go on Tozan.  But when I got to the gate, the airport attendants would not let me board the plane.  My passport had expired.  I couldn’t believe it.  My mom had already boarded and had no idea I couldn’t get on the plane.  Our priest from Myoshinji Temple turned around and told me, “Don’t worry.  We’ll see you in Japan.” 

My passport was so old I couldn’t just renew it, I had to get a new one.  Since this was after 9/11, the process would normally take 21 days.  But, if I couldn’t get my passport by tomorrow morning when the second Tozan group was departing, I would forfeit my ticket.  The airline and fellow members who were there all said it was impossible.  “If this Buddhism is true and I was meant to go on Tozan,” I wondered, “why am I unable to go?” 

Then I thought, “Well, I promised I’d give it 100% for 90 days, so I’ll try and get a new passport anyway.  I guess I have nothing to lose.”  My friends thought I was crazy, but I told them to drive me to my dad’s house.  Since he opposed me going on Tozan, I had to somehow sneak in and get my Social Security Card.  Then I got my picture taken and the passport photo lady laughed at me.  But I didn’t care and kept chanting the whole time.

At the passport office, the heavily armed guards wouldn’t even let me in since I didn’t have an appointment.  So I silently chanted Daimoku and waited until one guard came up to me and suddenly took me to the manager.  The manager asked, “Why do you need a passport?”  Without hesitation, I stated, “I must go to the Temple in Japan tomorrow.”  Then, the manager simply told me he’ll see what he can do and that I should come back in a few hours at closing time. 

When I came back, there was a huge sea of people struggling to pick up their passports.  The fireman in front of me was very angry because they didn’t have his passport ready, even though he put his request in three weeks ago, and he would miss his flight tomorrow.  When it was my turn, I sheepishly asked if my passport was ready.  What do you think they said?  They said, “No.”  I was heartbroken.  But then I remembered what our priest had said and I turned around and told them, “There must be some mistake.  My passport is there somewhere.”  And it was.

Right when I got my passport, my cell phone rang.  I was picked out of hundreds of people for a prestigious job that would more than double my salary. If I did not miss the airplane, I could not receive this phone call.

On my 90^th day, I did morning Gongyo at Taisekiji.  Forever into the future, I will never forget the first time in my life I ever cried out of pure happiness and appreciation.  I had realized with my heart how fortunate I was to have been born into this practice and how I had taken it for granted.  I told the Dai-Gohonzon, “If I never receive another benefit in this lifetime and even if I lose faith, I can never repay my debt of gratitude and I will never, ever stop practicing.” 

Upon returning, I found my health improved.  I no longer required knee surgery!  One day, I noticed a strangely beautiful smell before I opened the door to my new apartment.  An ugly, old plant my grandfather gave me had bloomed and the fragrance was overwhelming—even though it hadn’t been watered this whole time.  I realized I had to go through a similar drought in my life before I could truly understand and appreciate the power of this practice. 

It’s been four years since then.  While I’d like to say that my life has been perfect since my last Tozan, it hasn’t.  I encountered so many obstacles, switched so many jobs, moved so many times, and made so many mistakes, it would seem as if I hadn’t learned anything from my 90-day experience at all.  But, I kept chanting and chanting and chanting and told others they should chant too.  I began to realize that I could never stop practicing, even if I felt like giving up.  How fortunate I am not to have been brainwashed by my fame in college or by my childhood with SGI!  Perhaps my mind needed all these years to finally catch up to what my heart already knew. 

You see, I couldn’t understand my parents’ practice or relate to other people’s experiences, until I experienced it myself.  I had to truly embrace it with my own life first.  When I look back now, I realize it wasn’t about the job or the passport, or the material benefits, but rather, it was finding the proof that I had not recognized until then and that I had been searching for all along. The experience functioned to prove to me that, in my life, my practice and my family are true treasures of the heart.  Not only did my mom and I overcome our personal difficulties with each other, we were able to form a deep bond and establish a true foundation for our practice together as a family.  My mom’s shakubuku witnessed my 90 day experience and is actively practicing to this day, by the way.  And while my dad still won’t come to the Temple, he’s noticed a deep change in my life and our relationship has grown tremendously. 

Today, I can proudly say I’ve grown up.  Chanting is no longer a chore and I love to chant as much as possible and share it with others too.  I’ve come to deeply appreciate all the obstacles in my life and that is the greatest benefit any child could ever hope for.  I am grateful to my mother for always keeping us close to the Temple, no matter what obstacle arose.  And I am also grateful to my father.  He still belongs to the Gakkai, but I am determined to never give up and perform shakubuku on him once again, so that I could repay my debt of gratitude to him.

Nichiren Daishonin states in “The Selection of the Time”:

Therefore, I say to you, my disciples, try practicing as the Lotus Sutra teaches, exerting yourself without begrudging your lives!  Test the truth of Buddhism!  (MW-3, p. 181)

I am sincerely grateful to Nichinyo Shonin, our Sixty-eighth High Priest of the Head Temple, for this opportunity to share my experience with you.   I would like to conclude sharing my experience with you today by setting forth my earnest determination to stand up and test the truth of this Buddhism every single day for the rest of my life.  Thank you very much.