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This text was posted on The Power of Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo Facebook Page.
In Nichiren Buddhism, it is said that no prayer goes unanswered. But this is very different from having every wish instantly gratified, as if by magic. If you chant to win in the lottery tomorrow, or to score 100 percent on a test tomorrow without having studied, the odds are very small that it will happen.
Nonetheless, viewed from a deeper, longer-term perspective, all your prayers will have served to propel you in the direction of happiness.
Sometimes our immediate prayers are realized, and sometimes they aren’t. When we look back later, however, we’ll be able to say with absolute conviction that everything turned out the way it did for the very best.
Buddhism accords with reason. Our faith is reflected in our daily life, in our actual circumstances. Our prayers cannot be answered if we fail to make efforts appropriate to our situation.
Furthermore, it takes a great deal of time and effort to overcome sufferings of a karmic nature, whose roots lie deep in causes made in the past. There is a big difference, for example, in the time it takes for a scratch to heal and that required to recover from a serious internal disease. Some illnesses can be treated with medication, while others require surgery. The same applies to changing our karma through faith and practice.
In addition, each person’s level of faith and individual karma differ. Through chanting daimoku, however, we can definitely bring forth from within a powerful sense of hope, and move our lives in a positive, beneficial direction.
It is unrealistic to think that we can achieve everything overnight. If we were to have every prayer answered instantly, it would lead to our ruin. We’d all grow very lazy and self-complacent.
Suppose you spent all your money playing rather than working, and are now destitute. Do you think someone giving you a large sum of money would contribute to your happiness in the long run? It would be like making superficial repairs to a crumbling building, without addressing the problem at its root. Only by first rebuilding the foundation can you begin to build something solid upon it.
Faith enables us to transform not only our day-to-day problems, but our lives at their very foundation. Through our Buddhist practice, we can develop a strong inner core and a solid and inexhaustible reservoir of good fortune.
There are two kinds of benefit that derive from faith in the Gohonzon: conspicuous and inconspicuous. Conspicuous benefit is the obvious, visible benefit of being clearly protected or quickly able to surmount a particular problem when it arises–be it an illness or a conflict in our personal relationships. Inconspicuous benefit, on the other hand, is less tangible. It is good fortune accumulated slowly but steadily, like the growth of a tree or the rising of the tide, which results in the forging of a rich and expansive state of life. We might not discern any change from day to day, but as the years pass, it will be clear that over time we’ve become happy, that we’ve grown as individuals. This is inconspicuous benefit.
When you chant daimoku, you will definitely gain the best result for you, regardless of whether that benefit is conspicuous or inconspicuous.
No matter what happens, the important thing is to continue chanting. If you do so, you’ll definitely become happy. Even if things are not solved in the way you had initially hoped or imagined, when you look back later, you’ll understand on a much more profound level that it was the best possible result. This in itself is tremendous inconspicuous benefit.
The true benefits of Nichiren Buddhism are not so much of a momentary and conspicuous nature, but those of a lasting and inconspicuous nature that accrue in the depths of our lives. Conspicuous benefit, for instance, might allow you to eat your fill today but still leave you worrying about where your next meal will come from. Inconspicuous benefit, on the other hand, more resembles a situation where, though you may only be able to eat a meager meal today, you will steadily develop your life to the point where you will never have to worry about having enough to eat. The latter is surely a far more attractive prospect.
The more we exert ourselves in faith, the greater the benefit we experience.
Of course, it’s possible to get by in life without practicing the Daishonin’s Buddhism. But sometimes we are confronted by karma over which we seem to have no control, or are buffeted about because of our own inner weakness. What a tragic loss it would be if we could never change ourselves, if we could never exclaim confidently at the end of our days what a wonderful life we’ve led. That is precisely why a solid guiding philosophy in life is so essential.
–SGI President Daisaku Ikeda
Excerpted from Discussions on Youth (SGI-USA, 1998)
Soka Creation 
