To protect the flow of the story, my editor wanted me to put a sequence I had in the first chapter in an appendix. Its major characteristic is that it reads like an essay on Nichiren’s life and teaching.

The following is an excerpt of the article in the appendix that will help me make a couple of points that follow:

Nichiren was distrustful of powerful people for their potential abuses. Of government, he said:

 “Buddhism primarily concerns itself with victory or defeat, while government is based on the principle of reward and punishment. For this reason, a Buddha is looked up to as the supreme leader of the world, while a king is called the one who rules at his will.”

He was equally distrustful of professional clergy, admonishing lay believers not to necessarily follow priests that assert their superior knowledge and authority concerning doctrine when Gosho contradicts it.

He wrote:

“…even though you chant and believe in Myoho-renge-kyo, if you think the Law is outside of yourself, you are embracing not the Mystic Law but some inferior teaching.”

In the The Infinity Option and the second volume to be published at a future time (The Progeny Framework) the question of whether when one practices one actually makes enlightened decisions or not is raised in a comparison involving a Muslim character, Omar Ebedi. He has compassion and sincerity in his heart as is demanded by his religion despite the image Al Qaida has tarnished it with.

Never does the story discuss what has happened in real life between the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood and the Soka Gakkai. But it is instructive as commentary on the framework required for coming generations of Gakkai.

When we chant we fuse with causation or the proposition that we have the power to be causative if we are determined enough. But the lesson Nichiren was teaching in the statement above did not mean that we possess some perfect illumination within us to tell us everything we need to know about choices we need to make about this or that, and right and wrong that chanting will automatically open up.

Rather our Soka Gakkai, our Value Creating Society is and needs to be a Value Protecting Society to prevent wrong-mindedness from eventuating even among those who chant, particularly those who lead. This is how we do it. Everybody is equal. Even the most senior leader is considered an equal and what he or she says and does is as much subject to peer review as anyone else’s behavior. There are no Ayatollahs.

Fortunately we can thank the trouble with the priesthood for the formulation of this model of our organization.

The priests, particularly the High Priest, received criticism for haughty and self-aggrandizing behavior by Daisaku Ikeda. The High Priest plotted to sever Ikeda from the Soka Gakkai and take over the organization in a contestation for influence over the lay organization. Ikeda won, but the lesson learned was, as Nichiren taught, do not rely on upper authority to do what is right. Judge for yourself and act accordingly.

That is the democratizing value of the Soka Gakkai by which anyone can draw a line distinguishing it from Islam even if they assert there is no difference between the exhortations of both religions to behave beyond the normal level of exertion to do good.

This may clear up a misunderstanding it is possible that people have about our Buddhist beliefs. We believe that in this lifetime if we chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo we can achieve something remarkable. We can change our own destiny or karma. We can become something we would otherwise not become, whether it is a professional designation or being a better parent or spouse, or just a happier individual capable of giving back to his environment in positive ways. We do not say we can become some all-seeing all-knowing right-minded abstraction called a Buddha. Rather we see a Buddha as someone who is always on a path of self development with a can-do attitude that so permeates one’s spirit as to be indomitable. Nevertheless fallible.

In The Infinity Option I describe a thought Deepak Chopra asks his audience to focus on as their first experience in meditation, “I am.” He says the incompleteness of the thought is what causes the mind to be tricked into focusing on itself. The book’s character, Shinjiro Miroku, a Soka Gakkai Buddhist asks his girlfriend, Jennifer Long, a Christian if Christianity justifies wrong by justifying its adherents being less than they can be.

Nichiren Daishonin teaches a chant, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, which once understood, means to the practicer that he or she is cause itself or is at least capable of being such a powerful causative force that he can influence not only his own life dynamically, but the whole of society, and can determine the course of history. If cooperating with others to achieve a happier society, all the more power is put into force. It might be said the eventual meaning of the phrase for a practicer is “I am cause itself,” or “I am cause itself if I am determined enough.”

A practicer views a Christian’s world view as a lamantation, “If I am not ______ enough, I will be forgiven. Therefore I can give up on being _____.” When the blank word may be anything praiseworthy in accordance with Christian belief.

To My Buddhist Friends

On July 26 the “Daily Wisdom from the Writings of Nichiren Daishonin” quotation reminded me of a way to explain to fellow Buddhists a primary reason I wrote The Infinity Option –Be More Than You Are! as a fiction.

“Faith in this sutra means that you will surely attain Buddhahood if you are true to the entirety of the Lotus Sutra, adhering exactly to its teachings without adding any of your own ideas or following the arbitrary interpretations of others.”

(WND,1030)
Letter to Niike
Written to Niike Saemon-no-jo in February 1280

I read about the history of perception. I learned that visual perception may have been drastically different in the century when the Lotus Sutra came into existence. The Ceremony in the Air always troubled me. Our leaders tell us to take it as a metaphor. What bothered me is that would not be accepting the sutra exactly as presented. It occurred to me that because visual perceptions change, the narrative could be true according to the perceptions of the narrator. What was witnessed however would be explained in the twenty-first century differently because we have different information.

I could not bring myself to assert my theory because it is only that, a theory. However in a story, in a Buddhist neuro scientist’s thoughts when facing death, it could be examined without making the assertion.

Then there is the more central issue, why Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is a superior practice to all other forms of Buddhist meditation explained in twenty-first century terms. In the story we can see the development of the cast of characters. Each has a karmic issue preventing happiness. Each enjoys a pivot once he and she begins chanting because unlike other forms of Buddhist meditation Nichiren prescribed chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo because it is designed to incorporate the Three Thousand Realms In A Moment. Put less technically, it interacts with the person’s consciousness, unconsciousness, deep unconsciousness, will and desires to achieve happiness for themselves and others whereas other forms of Buddhist meditation are designed to achieve insight or center the person and go no further. It is the difference between a bow’s string stretched by the archer with the arrow pointed at the target and a bow sitting on the ground with the arrow at rest in the quiver. While I have just recited the concept it cannot be brought home to someone who has had no contact with the practice.

Last, there is something Nichiren Buddhists don’t know that has been proven among Dalai Lama Buddhists by neuro scientists with electroencephalographs attached to their scalps. Their brains develop gamma waves. I had the same electroencephalograph test done on me. I have chanted over forty years. My brain floods with gamma waves. The significance of the brain producing gamma waves according to psychological testing and neurological dissection of the brain follow.

Children with high gamma wave counts described their classmates with more compassion and planned their projects more collaboratively than children with “normal” gamma wave counts. Dissection of dead people’s brains who had meditated for a substantial number of years consistently revealed more dendrites and neurons than other people. That is analogous to athletes who exercise having more muscles. It stands to reason that the brain does more, thinks more and better when someone leads a life involving Buddhist meditation. When the meditation is connected to cause-and-effect in-life as it is with Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in Nichiren’s Buddhism as distinguished from merely centering oneself or gaining self awareness in other forms (which is included anyway in Nichiren’s) it leads to a better life.

The Infinity Option –Be More Than You Are! was written for shoju, education of people who do not practice Nichiren’s Buddhism as much as for practicing members of the SGI community. Therefore I used fictional characters and a story to capture interest. Expository essays on Buddhism are not the fodder for popular literature, let alone something that has the potential to be made into a movie.
In Buddhism the First Millennium Sensei said,

“What we need now is an outstanding literary figure who can translate the ideals and philosophical principles of Buddhism into the form and language best suited for the minds and hearts of modern Japanese. The same applies to the other countries and peoples of the world: wherever Buddhism is transmitted it should be presented in the form most compatible with the tastes and temperaments of the people to whom it is addressed, though I realize that this may take many years to accomplish.”

[p.94]
Hoping that I might become a writer for the American temperament, The Infinity Option –Be More Than You Are! is my personal effort to show my gratitude to Sensei and repay my debt.
I have written a thriller novel that amid science, science fiction, suspense, and some camp humor, and even a little bit of risqué sizzle that follows adventures of a YMD scientist, a secular scientist, and a few more characters, the story introduces and explains following Buddhist concepts during action:
• The Ten Worlds
• The Ten Factors
• Three Thousand Life Moments (Ichinen Sanzen)
• Lotus Sutra
• Kosen Rufu
• Fusion of Subject and Object
• Fusion of Body and Mind (Shiki shin funi)
• Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
• The Gohonzon
• Chanting
• Bodhisattva
• Bodhisattvas of the Earth
• Jogyo
• Mappo
• Gongyo
• Zenshijiki and Akushijiki
• Gosho
• Ho-Nin-Myo
• Faith in Buddhism
• Fortune Baby
• The Life of Nichiren Daishonin
• The founding of the Soka Gakkai
• The imprisonment of Makaguchi and Toda, and the reasons
• Toda’s inspiration in prison and determination to achieve 750,000 families upon release
• The election and accomplishments of Daisaku Ikeda
• Paraphrase various Gosho passages
o Easy to accept. Difficult to continue.
o Concepts from the Ultimate Law of Life Gosho
• From the Lotus Sutra
o 19 of the 32 negations that Toda realized describe life
o Ceremony In the Air
o Treasure Tower
• The benefit and necessity for people newly introduced to the practice to stay close to the SGI for support.
• Soft power.
• The correct understanding of karma

I have borrowed from a factual discovery by NASA’s Voyager interstellar space exploratory vehicles of an ominous vast hydrogen cloud in the path of the solar system in its orbit around the Milky Way galaxy, due to intercept within seventy years. Scientifically the hydrogen can penetrate the magnetic solar barrier and reach the Sun and Earth, although the Solar System and Earth each have magnetic barriers to minimize the dangers. The story involves the prediction by secular scientists and an other-worldly being that the worst is in the offing. The solution by the scientists requires humanity’s cooperation to an extent that only if there is Kosen Rufu can all nations collaborate on the scale and with the sincerity required. The other-worldly being, IS, wants to kill sixty thousand humans to remove their DNA, and transport the DNA to another planet that will be a more hospitable habitat, thereby saving the human species. IS depends on gamma waves to energize, so when our SGI YMD hero neuro scientist, doctor Shinjiro Miroku discovers this fact, he makes a grand bargain with IS. If IS will remove the DNA without killing the people, Shinjiro will dedicate himself to Kosen Rufu to guaranty IS a planet of gamma wave producing humans while the other scientists persuade and organize the necessary international collaboration.
Throughout this book we will have been following the lives of an interesting cast of characters who are much like many people I have met who might consider Buddhism in real life. Their life appears good. They don’t have pressing problems like I had when I joined. They enjoy material comforts. But they do not realize the karmic issues in their life. They feel they can handle whatever comes along, and that is what they do, not understanding their errors. But because they are on a plane with Shinjiro at the time this grand bargain is struck and as a part of it they are required to chant IS spares everyone aboard. This leads them to continue to practice. Some timidly. Others with dedication. The reader gets to see what begins to happen as their perceptions and conduct change their families and immediate environment.

When I negotiated with my publisher I wanted to write a 160,000 word book. They convinced me to write two books of approximately half that length. I have just told you what happens in the first book. The second book, The Progeny Framework will take their stories further. And it will spell out the superiority of Nichiren’s Buddhism in more indelible terms while it continues the saga about the danger of the cloud and how nations react to its dangers.

As a fellow Buddhist you can help move Kosen Rufu along by recommending my website, www.HowardPrager.com or www.TheInfinityOption.com or my Facebook Like page, www.Facebook.com/HowardPragerauthor. Of course you can recommend the book which will be for sale later this year.