Beg steal or borrow !

Ok .. for the lack of anything interesting to post right now, I've 'borrowed' a section of Peter (Newbuddha's) blog which is an article from the World Tribune talking about Kierkergaard a Danish religious philosopher ... it was the final section that caught my eye so I thought I'd re-produce it here. You can read the whole article on his blog here if you want to.

and for info ... my chanting to date (as last night)

Chanting Determination Update
Time Chanted to Date (day 12 of 184) >>>
Target to be chanted by end of day - 15 hours
Actual amount chanted so far - 15.25 hours

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Believing is seeing
Finally, if you want to look at yourself in the mirror…you must not promptly forget how you looked (p. 44).
Kierkegaard’ s final advice is his warning against our forgetfulness. When we study the Daishonin’s writings, we may intellectually understand that we are Buddhas full of courage and compassion. While chanting, we may feel confident that our lives are essentially no different from that of the Daishonin .
But minutes after we leave our homes for work or school, we often start acting in a manner unbefitting Buddhas. In the course of a day, we may also face one situation after another in which others disregard us as if we had not even an iota of Buddhahood. This is why our consistent Buddhist practice and study become important as powerful reminders of our innate Buddhahood, especially when our environment seems to suggest its non-existence. Our diligent, conscious efforts steadily transform our intellectual idea of Buddhahood into our action as Buddhas and our fleeting awareness of Buddhahood into our unmovable conviction in the face of great hardship. In this sense, seeing ourselves in the Gohonzon is often a process of gradual transformation, rather than an epiphany to attain once and for all.Kierkegaard’ s vision of an ideal Christian was a “doer of the Word” (p. 25). To this end, he set down those three requirements for Christians to see themselves in the “mirror of God’s Word.” By the same token, genuine Nichiren Buddhists must not be simply admirers of the Gohonzon who see it with awe yet fail to see themselves in it. Indeed what those admirers think of as their pious respect for the Gohonzon is a kind of fundamental disrespect that perverts its purpose. Nichiren Daishonin wished us to become “practitioners” of the Gohonzon who uphold this mirror of ultimate self-knowledge and appreciate their own reflections.
To this end, the Daishonin stressed the importance of faith, urging us (WND, p. 3) “to summon up deep faith that Myoho-renge- kyo is your life itself” . So the true value of this wonderful mirror lies in the heart of the beholder—the heart that knows believing is seeing .