It’s important not to present the teachings of the Buddha as difficult theories but instead share them in ways that everyone can understand. Making the Buddha’s teaching easily understood means explaining them for people so that everyone can actually put them into practice in their daily lives. People can grasp the magnificence of the teachings through personal experience only if they learn and practice them as taught.
We can’t help believing what we ourselves have actually experienced, and when we wholeheartedly believe beyond a shadow of doubt, results are certain to follow.
We can’t stop ourselves from sharing this with others, and when this happens the people who encounter the Buddha’s teachings come to experience its results, one after another.
If you talk about the things that everybody is searching for, what they really want to hear, then everyone will lean forward, giving you their undivided attention. When you speak from the heartfelt desire that everyone may receive the benefits and merits of the Buddha’s teaching, people will gather one after another to listen to you.
A Dharma talk that doesn’t give people anything they want—just saying what we want to say, going on and on about things that don’t interest others—won’t influence people, no matter how hard we try.
Nikkyo Niwano
Kaisozuikan 9 (Kosei Publishing Co. 1997), pp 130-31
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