Nichiren Daishonin explained in his writings that the environment and the lives of the people living in it are

absolutely inseparable. When people sparkle with life and vitality, so does their environment. While we are influenced by our environment, the influence also works the other way: we influence and change the environment. The Daishonin`s writings liken human beings to the body and the environment to a shadow cast by the body. When the body bends the shadow bends too. When we change ourselves at a profound level, it affects the totality of our environment. This change based on chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo changes the condition of our lives; our dominant life state moves towards the higher life states, we overcome our negative and destructive tendencies (which previously we may not even have been aware of). Therefore we are much more willing to change ourselves Even if everyone around us continues as before, we now have a profound awareness that our individual lives have the power to influence all of life. 1. Jaya could you please tell what do you understand by oneness of self? Padma - Jaya - Our hearts and our minds are mostly in conflict and so sometimes we are ruled by the mind and sometimes by the heart. By chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo we begin to align our own selves first into harmony. And wisdom starts welling up from the depths of our lives. So now our actions are based on this inner wisdom and understanding of life. Slowly we reach a stage where we are able to master our mind rather than our mind master us.

2. Deepa could you please tell us what do you understand by environment and do you think it influences us? Jaya Deepa - Environment is everything around us. Our family and friends, our place of work, society. And yes environment definitely affects us. Even something as simple as hearing a sad news on TV makes us go into a depression and we keep thinking about it all day through. And if in the evening our child comes home with a trophy after winning a competition we are elated. So at every moment our emotions keep going up or down depending on what our environment shows to us.

3. Padma could you now please tell us whether we can influence the environment? Archana Padma - Yes we definitely can and this is one of the most empowering concepts of Buddhism. The way environment affects us we can also influence our environment in a profound way. And how can we do that, i.e. influence our environment. Archana Padma Buddhism says that we and our environment are not two separate entities but are dependent on each other. So if they are one then we can influence the environment in exactly the same way that it influences us. Sensei Ikeda says that there exists in each one of us a grand palace of happiness. And faith is the key to the door of that grand palace. So when we change our state of life, our environments will naturally start changing as well. At all times our outside environment is reflecting our deepest inner life. So its truly empowering to know that if something is bothering us in our environment. We can change completely transform it by changing something deep within. It could be our anger, irritability or fear. So by constantly doing our own human revolution we can keep seeing positive changes in our environment. -

INTERNAL