What is Faith?

The question of MY faith has been on my mind for quite some time. I'm a Buddhist, practising Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism. And there's no doubt that this is a good religion; the question is: how good a person am I?

We have this sorta 'slogan' thing "Practise for oneself, and practise for others." meaning to not only conduct your Buddhist practice for yourself, but also for the sake of others' happiness. I am a leader in the organisation, whereby I have a few members 'under my wing', and I have to take care of them in terms of their faith, to ultimately ensure that they too, will gain happiness.

Sounds great doesn't it? I mean, I do think that this is a great organisation. Buddhism is all about compassion and attaining happiness in our lives. The people that I meet in this org, are sometimes too frightfully nice.. OK maybe not frightful, but there ARE people who constantly put others ahead of themselves, and are constantly trying to make this world a better place.

The problem now is I think this org is too ideal for me.. I'm a lazy and selfish person. And there's no innate goodness in me that makes me wanna help somebody else. Being put in a leadership position, I am now obliged to fulfil my duties of ensuring that my members are well taken care of. Which is so not me! Many a times, I've felt that I should give up my position. I should let someone else who can do the job better take this place! Why? Cos I feel sorry for my members when I don't put in enough effort to ensure their growth. These people are bright young individuals and I'm hindering their path to happiness because I haven't made much effort in leading them the right way. What's worse is because I'm their leader, they're deprived of the chance of having a better leader. Everyone else would be thinking that these members are growing well under my care but in actual fact, I've neglected them and their faith may or may not be weakening... (I don't even know this!) But at the same time, I feel that this seems rather escapist, and it's more of pushing my responsibility onto someone else. I dunno.. I've been facing this dilemma for some time but I haven't found the strength to take any positive action.. All I've done is blame everything on my work.. SIgh..

Recently my mum was telling me that I haven't been praying enough and I should be praying hard for my future. Yeah.. I guess I should.. I'm like nearly a quarter century old but yet still unaccomplished and ever so childish/ignorant. I know I should be praying hard, but I'm too lazy for that! And what's the best way for me to overcome my laziness? Pray hard! (You see my dilemma?!) My mum was then saying that this just means that I don't have enough faith in the power of the Gohonzon. But I don't think so.. I feel an apt analogy would be say, someone who has an illness and KNOWS of the available medicine to cure that illness, but is simply refusing to take this medicine because it is troublesome. I'm positively sure that this medicine is good, and WILL cure my illness, but I also know that this is not a one-off thing. For antibiotics to work, you have to finish the entire course of it. Imagine how tough it will be for someone who can't swallow pills. Would you rather die of the illness?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm thinking too much..

Sometimes I just wanna do the things that I feel like doing. Sometimes I just wanna be lazy and not do anything. I'm wondering if happiness means not being bound by any restrictions. Having no need to work, no need to bother about other people's problems. And of course, ignoring all my problems (like I've usually been doing..)

Can I not be good? Can I continue to stay my lazy selfish self and not strive for improvement? Is this what I really want? Ha. I've suddenly thought of another analogy. This is like entrepreneurship! To stay in the comfort zone of routine (but boring), or to break through the challenges and become an entrepreneur. Sometimes it's a real mental struggle. To be a better person, or not?

I guess my mind is still in a whirlwind.. to be continued.. (hehe)