On Buddhism Love and Relationships

By Anthony "Amp" Elmore Sr.  (Revised from 1999)
In the Gift of Rice Gosho Nichiren Daishonin writes:
The true path lies in the affairs of this world. The Golden Light Sutra states, “To have a profound knowledge of this world is itself Buddhism.” The Nirvana Sutra states, “All of the non-Buddhist scriptures and writings in society are themselves Buddhist teachings, not non-Buddhist teachings.”
When the Great Teacher Miao-lo compared these passages with the one from the sixth volume of the Lotus Sutra that reads, “No worldly affairs of life or work are ever contrary to the true reality,”he revealed their meaning and pointed out that although the first two sutras are profound, since their meaning is still shallow and fails to approach that of the Lotus Sutra , they relate secular matters in terms of Buddhism, whereas the Lotus Sutra explains that in the end secular matters are the entirety of Buddhism
The Buddhist lecture is no official view of Nichiren Buddhist doctrine.  This lecture is written by Anthony "Amp" Elmore who has been a Nichiren Buddhist for 40 years when this lecture is be reposed on the Proud Black Buddhist website.  Elmore takes the opportunity to introduce an African American no Japanese lay prospective of the Buddhist Teachings.

Greetings from Memphis, Tennessee. Today I found this Buddhist lecture in my computer on my Micro-Soft Word file. I posted this lecture on the web in 1999. One of the ways that I learn Buddhism is to write lectures and later read the lectures. There has been a part of me that “Sub-Conscientiously” had me writing Buddhist lectures for years. This lecture has been on our “Proud Black Buddhist website. I decided to revise this for our 2014 “Proud Black Buddhist World Association“Website. I hope you enjoy this lecture

If there were a subject that I have no business writing about I would think that the subject would be Love & Relationships. For some unknown reason I will attempt to write a Buddhist lecture on Love & Relationships. I remember a few years ago in 1996 during a visit in Tokyo, Japan at the Nichiren Shoshu head temple in Taisekiji Japan we were on a bus with Nichiren Shoshu Priest Rev. Shoshin Kuwabe. Rev. Kuwabe just shook his head regarding the subject and moved to a seat by himself declining to get involved in a discussion about “Love and Relationships. When it came to the subject I was “all ears”, because I was anxious to hear what a Nichiren Shoshu priest had to say about the subject. On the bus in Japan the sisters had section themselves off talking about relationships and Rev. Kuwabe was smart enough to distance himself. In the course of the conversation I offered some honest opinions and the sisters blasted me off.

Exactly what is the role of “Love & Relationships” in Buddhism? Doing my NSA/SGI Buddhist days Daisaku Ikeda wrote two books on the subject. One book was titled the “Family Revolution” and the other was called the “Creative Family”. Both copies of my book got away and it is difficult to find writings defining a “Buddhist Prospective” on relationships. We have some idea of the Islamic view of love and relationships and if women were to practice the Christian view it would not be that much more different from the Muslim prospective.

I remember clearly back in the day when a sister would find a Christian Spiritual awaking resultantly life would really become miserable for a brother. When I was a teenager before I started chanting and practicing Buddhism a sister did a flip on me. In a short time the sister told me that she was “ Saved, Sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost”. The sister told me that she of “Of this world but not in this world” meaning that she had become a “Saint” and she did not partake in worldly things any longer. “ The sister explained to me that she had turn her life over to “Christ” and if I wanted any dealings with her I too must confess and give my life over to “Christ”. I remember so clearly in Memphis, Tennessee in the 1970’s I went to this church one Friday night and people were shouting, crying, jumping up and down and for the first time I witness the “talking in tongue”. That “talking in tongue” scared the hell out of me. Adding to my 1999 lecture the girl’s name was “Linda.” We was at the Church by a charismatic Preacher who was later called the “Apostle of Christ.” The Preacher later became head of the C.O.G.I.C. or the “Church of God in Christ denomination that started in my home town of Memphis, Tennessee.

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