"The process of changing poison into medicine begins when we approach
difficult experiences as an opportunity to reflect on ourselves and to
strengthen and develop our courage and compassion. Suffering can thus
serve as a springboard for a deeper experience of happiness. From the
perspective of Buddhism, inherent in all negative experiences is this
profound positive potential."
SGI members often speak of "turning poison into medicine" when they
describe how their Buddhist practice has enabled them to transform a
difficult, negative or painful situation into something positive.
In its most fundamental sense, "changing poison into medicine" refers
to the transformation of deluded impulses into enlightenment. The Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom,
attributed to the third-century Indian Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna,
compares the Lotus Sutra to "a great physician who changes poison into
medicine." This is because the Lotus Sutra opens the possibility of
enlightenment to people whose arrogance and complacency had caused them
to "scorch the seeds of Buddhahood." In earlier sutras such people had
been condemned as being incapable of becoming Buddhas. An important
implication of this principle, thus, is that there is no one who is
beyond redemption.
In his writing, "On First Hearing the Teaching of the Supreme
Vehicle," Nichiren develops this idea, stating that by using the power
of the Mystic Law of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, one can transform the three
paths of deluded impulses, karma and suffering into the three virtues of
the Buddha, i.e., the Dharma body, wisdom and emancipation.
This can be understood to mean that any unfavorable situation can be
changed into a source of value. More fundamentally, it is by challenging
and overcoming painful circumstances that we grow as human beings.
How we respond to life's inevitable sufferings is the key. Negative,
painful experiences are often necessary to motivate us. One Buddhist
scripture describes illness as awakening the desire to seek the truth.
Likewise, people have been inspired to a lifetime commitment to peace
and justice by their experience of war and injustice.
The process of changing poison into medicine begins when we approach
difficult experiences as an opportunity to reflect on ourselves and to
strengthen and develop our courage and compassion. The more we are able
to do this, the more we are able to grow in vitality and wisdom and
realize a truly expansive state of life.
Suffering can thus serve as a springboard for a deeper experience of
happiness. From the perspective of Buddhism, inherent in all negative
experiences is this profound positive potential. However, if we are
defeated by suffering or respond to challenging circumstances in
negative and destructive ways, the original "poison" is not transformed
but remains poison.
Buddhism teaches that suffering derives from karma, the causes that
we ourselves have created. The Buddhist teaching of karma is one of
personal responsibility. It is therefore our responsibility to transform
sufferings into value-creating experiences. The Buddhist view of karma
is not fixed or fatalistic--even the most deeply entrenched karmic
patterns can be transformed.
By taking a difficult situation--illness, unemployment, bereavement,
betrayal--and using it as an opportunity to deepen our sense of personal
responsibility, we can gain and develop the kind of self-knowledge from
which benefit flows. Buddhism teaches that self-knowledge ultimately is
awareness of our own infinite potential, our capacity for inner
strength, wisdom and compassion. This infinite potential is referred to
as our "Buddha nature."
The original meaning of the phrase "to turn poison into medicine" relates to this level of self-knowledge.
In the "Belief and Understanding" chapter of the Lotus Sutra, Subhuti
and others of the Buddha's long-time disciples respond to the prophecy
that another disciple, Shariputra, will attain the ultimate
enlightenment. The disciples admit that they had long ago given up on
becoming Buddhas themselves, but that on hearing the teaching of the
Lotus Sutra they renounced their earlier stance of resignation and
spiritual laziness: "[T]heir minds were moved as seldom before and
danced for joy." Nagarjuna and T'ien-t'ai (538--597) therefore compare
the Buddha to a good doctor capable of turning poison (the laziness and
resignation of the aged disciples) into medicine (a sincere aspiration
for the ultimate enlightenment of Buddhahood).
This teaching of the possibility of profound transformation makes
Buddhism a deeply optimistic philosophy. This optimism propels Buddhists
as they seek to transform the negative and destructive tendencies
within their lives as well as those in society and the world at large.
Source: http://www.sgi.org/buddhism/buddhist-concepts/changing-poison-into-medicine.html
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