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Changing
Poison into Medicine |
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.
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