The Treasures of Our Lives "The Three Treasures" by Mae Takamoto

My presentation today is entitled "The Treasures of our Lives". This is based on the teachings of "THE THREE TREASURES"...........

The three basic elements that Shakyamuni Buddha taught his disciples as the spiritual foundation of Buddhism is the BUDDHA, the LAW, and the SANGHA. As you may all know by heart, in our prayer book we recite the chapter of "TAKING REFUSE IN THE THREE TREASURES." Have you ever wondered what type of treasures these are? Whenever I hear the word treasures, I envision a chest full of gold and jewels. This is probably the material value of the word treasures. But what the Buddha is teaching us is the spiritual treasures which we should all possess.

The Buddha's teaching "Make the self your light, make the Law your light."

This means we should make ourselves the light and depend upon our own self. (Ourself, does not refer to the self that is filled with illusions, but the self that lives in the Law.) We should not depend upon other people. We should also make the Law our light and depend upon the Law. When we depend upon other people, we do not know what to do if we are forsaken by them or if they go away. Therefore, the Buddha warned us to depend upon ourselves and walk the way through our own efforts. The Buddha taught that the Law namely, the truth, is what we should depend absolutely upon rather than other gods.

The first treasure is the BUDDHA......We must all have faith and believe in his teachings.

The second treasure is the LAW...The Law is the truth, or the universal law....everything in the universe is in perfect harmony. The universal law to me is the basics, the sun rises and it sets, the waves go in and out, what goes up comes down, to be born we must die. This is the truth.......to know the truth is learning the teachings and to practice it in our daily lives. As human beings, we are the highest being on this earth, and we are the ones who make wars and cause hardships, which in turn we are the ones who create harmony and peace.

The third treasure is the SANGHA..........The sangha is the community of believers who seek the same teachings. It is very difficult to seek the Law and to practice it in complete isolation. We will apt to become very lazy and fall into evil ways. With the Sangha we can steadily advance in the teachings and encourage each other. The Sangha is our mental foundation.

Being a member of Rissho Kosei Kai for many years, I have had many experiences of which not realizing at that time that having these treasures with me always have helped me overcome the hardships. Raising my daughter as a single parent at an early age, and having parents whom I took care of, made me depend upon myself. Through the help of the Buddha's teachings and the many people in the Sangha I don't know where I would be if I did not meet up with this teaching and believing in it. I realized after my mother, father, brother, and aunts and uncles passed away, that it is true that we must truly depend upon ourselves. This is what we are here at church for........to learn from our own experiences and gain wisdom, which in turn we help others with this strong belief or proof.....

The time has come again for our Reverend to leave us and this is a great time for us to reflect upon ourselves as to what we have learned and to truly "Make the self your light, and make the Law your light."

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