SGI USA

My First Year Chanting

The following is excerpted and edited for brevity from episode 55 of the Buddhability podcast, published on Feb. 15, 2022.

Jihii Jolly: Today we’re talking with Nikolas Spayne, of Chicago, who started chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo at the beginning of last year when he remembered having heard about Buddhism and decided to look it up. Like many of us, the stress of the pandemic, the constant stream of negative news and big questions about his own life and future made him wish he could find a fresh path forward.

Eventually, he started practicing Buddhism, and today he walks us through exactly what that journey looked like.

Nikolas Spayne: I was first introduced to this Buddhism six or seven years ago. It was a very brief introduction. Fast forward to the beginning of last year, 2021. And the best way I could describe it was just that I was feeling really stuck. We were entering the second year of the pandemic, and everywhere I looked just in the news, there seemed to be just so much devastation and suffering.

So a thought just popped into my head: I wonder what that Buddhist guy [I] met six years ago is up to? I was like: “Wow. Some peace and happiness sounds good right now.”

So, I initially wondered if the SGI had any podcasts I could listen to since I really love podcasts, and sure enough, I typed it in, and Buddhability popped up, and I devoured all the podcasts. This was such a huge reason of why I started practicing. And it was a great introduction to the practice for me. So I listened to the podcast and was so inspired with each episode. And then I went to the online SGI bookstore, and I started reading introductory books. And then started chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in the morning and started receiving a lot of benefit from that in my life.

Jihii: What happened once you started chanting? You said you started experiencing benefits. What changed such that you decided to actually continue?

Nikolas: The biggest thing that I noticed initially was that after I chanted, my racing thoughts started to slow down, and I just felt much more present. I felt calm.

In this Buddhism, there’s this concept of winning in the morning. That’s one of the ideas that really stuck out to me. My mornings were a mess. Alarm goes off, snooze button three times, I’m running late. I’m waking up stressed. So, the biggest thing that I noticed when I started chanting in the morning, my mornings started to improve. I notice myself waking up on time and I’m committing myself to [chanting] even 5, 10 minutes at a time.

I really noticed it when my partner one morning, unprompted, was like: “You’re different. There’s something different about you in the morning.”

That was the biggest benefit that I noticed right away.

Find the full episode on buddhability.com and all major podcast platforms or scan the QR code.

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2022-05-20T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-20T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://sgiusapublications.pressreader.com/article/281578064259443

The World Tribune