Elevate your emotions ― Jump start your life: Nichiren Buddhism 4.1 (Nichiren Buddhism of the 21st Century) Paperback – April 16, 2024

Now that I have read this book for a second time, I am ready to review it.In Nichiren Buddhism there is a major concept called The Ten Worlds. These "worlds" are actually 10 states of life or psychological realms that exist within you and affect you, your social and natural environments. The authors go into detail, in a manner that is understandable to non-experts, on what these 10 Worlds are, how they affect you internally and externally, and how they impact each other.In addition to the above, and of special interest for all who practice Nichiren Buddhism, the authors go into detail on how and where, each of these realms or worlds are represented on the Great Mandala Gohonzon (Object of Fundamental Respect). This Great Mandala is calligraphic, and Nichiren Buddhists focus on while performing our Buddhist practice. I have never been satisfied with the designation of a world/realm called Pratyekabuddha, a "state of creativity and partial enlightenment", in the Great Mandala, so I was surprised and very pleased that the authors have done some deep thinking about this and present a solution that I have never heard before, and that finally makes sense of the placement of this world on the Great Mandala.Bottom line: This is the most detailed, and yet easy to comprehend, explanation of this concept (the Ten Worlds.Realms) that I have ever found in print. It is also a practical book, complete with exercises for one to gain experiential knowledge of the concepts and not just book knowledge. Well worth the read for both novices as well as long time Nichiren Buddhist practitioners. Highly recommended!

This is the latest in a series that contain a wealth of material explaining Buddhist practice from a scientific standpoint. The book contains a wealth of material, is very easy reading and well presented. The correspondences between the emotions and their relation to the Ten worlds as they are understood in Buddhism, is amazing and will provide the reader a great deal of insight into their own emotional expression. I highly recommend this (and the entire series) to not only Buddhist practitioners, but anyone who wants to gain an understanding of how vital it is to balance their personal emotions in daily life.

What an amazing read!! Highly informative and provides excellent clarity on the life states and their associations with ego. As a practicing Buddhist for twenty years I can highly recommend this book for giving a fresh perspective and reinvigorating your Daimoku

In the early days of my practice I was repeatedly advised, “get out of your head.” I was willing to do that but I had no idea where to go instead. Now after 50 plus years of increasingly enjoyable and successful practice someone has shown me how to observe my Heart rather than my Mind, with wonderfully joyful (and practical) results. The spirituality of Nichiren Buddhism is explained deeply from a perspective that had not occurred to me, linking the various life conditions of the ten worlds to emotional experience.SGI members will be pleased to see occasional quotes from Daisaku Ikeda, among other scholars, supporting the authors’ insights. I am enthusiastic about the value of this book.

This book is a real game changer. The difficulty in writing a review is in trying to articulate how important this is. This fits like hand in glove with “Open your Heart Manifest your Dreams” The two books together are like the missing user’s manual for the Mandala’s (aka Gohonzon) the 12th Century Buddhist monk Nichiren inscribed for his followers. This is kind of like the difference in cutting firewood with a chainsaw with the engine running or not. There’s no question that wood can be cut either way but the gap in results is going to be HUGE.I think there are a number of people, myself included who may have been using these tools incorrectly. Much of what is stated in these books is in direct opposition to what I was taught by those I considered authorities at various points in the past. FINALLY, we get to emotions... which DO Matter! It does the heart good to discover that they were misguided… that the inner core which kept saying “something isn’t right here”… our primal instinct was spot on. This book goes on a new rich grand tour of “the ten worlds” in a way I’ve not seen before. Years ago, there was a gentle man I knew who would always have great words of encouragement. He would often say that life couldn’t defeat a person who *knew* they could do Hendoku Iyaku aka changing poison into medicine. These books effectively dispel the myth that all of this chanting is just so much “hocus pocus”. They remind one how fortunate it is if we can keep an open heart and mind: to be a new member every day. One benefits from not getting locked into tight boxes of definition which render Buddhism into a binary state where it’s all black and white as opposed to the reality of the Technicolor world; the Ceremony in the Air…A welcome addition.