Today, I would like to tell you about a famous story written in a Sutra.

Long, long ago, there was a King in India, and he had a white elephant. The elephant’s personality was really wild, and when a war took place, he always took an active part in it. W hen there was no war, he usually stepped on and killed criminals.

In India long ago, criminals were punished by elephants, and the white wild elephant was an executioner. One day, the white wild elephant’s pen was burned down from a fire. So, they built a new pen for the white elephant right next to a Buddhist temple. In the Buddhist temple, many priests chanted Sutras every morning and evening. Apart of the Sutra that the priests chanted was, “If you do good deeds, you will be reborn in heaven. If you do bad deeds, you will fall into hell.” The white elephant heard the Sutra every morning and evening and his personality became calm. And, finally, he quit stepping on and killing criminals even if they were thrown into the elephant’s pen. The King had a dilemma. It was okay for the King if the elephant quit killing criminals but the problem he had was when a war took place. If neighboring countries attacked the King’s country, the calm elephant would not be useful at all. The King really had a hard time because the elephant who used to be as strong as an atomic bomb had become even more useless than even a small gun. “What can I do with the calm elephant,” the King wondered and gathered his vassals to talk about that. One of his vassals suggested, “How about moving the elephant’s pen ? Isn’t it a good idea to build the pen near a slaughter house ?” This suggestion was adopted, and they built a new pen for the white elephant near a slaughter house. At the slaughter house, animals were killed everyday. Looking at these scenes, the white elephant became as wild as before, or perhaps even wilder than before. Human personality is surely influenced by the surrounding environment.

This story teaches us that people who grow up in a bad environment tend to have wild personalities or behave badly because they are naturally influenced by the bad environment. To situate ourselves to a good environment, should we move from the bad one to the good ? If our neighborhood is bad, should we move to a nice environment? What about the people left there ? If this world is dirty, should we abandon this world and go to heaven ? What about people living in this dreadful world ? Shakyamuni Buddha did not like this idea at all. Our founder, Nichiren Dai Shonin did not like this idea, either.

Shakyamuni Buddha says that this world itself is the Eternal Buddha’s Pure Land. We should make this world be the Eternal Buddha’s Pure Land without going away or abandoning anyone. We can do it because this world and the people in this world have the potential which are the Buddha-natures, in other words, the seeds to attain Buddha’s enlightenment. The End.