Updated April 17, 2025
The men I mention here are real. Their names are not.
Not long ago, I asked Larry, who I considered a friend, to ask his friend, Steve, who had been bullying me, to back off. Larry is in his early 40s. Steve is in his late 30s. I could be their mother. Originally, I hesitated to make my request. I was afraid that, if I asked Larry for help, he wouldn’t step up. I’d seen him avoid teeny tiny conflicts, to quote Springsteen, “like a dog that’s been beat too much.”
My fear was justified. I said to Larry, “Will you please tell Steve to leave me alone” His reply? “I don’t want to get involved.”
Larry’s refusal tail-spinned me. Memories that lived just below the surface vied with one another to flash back:
I’m in 4th-grade. My classmates have nicknamed me Mattie Moose. I walk into our classroom and they all moo. I freeze. They point and laugh. At other times, they chant at me, “Slow Poke! Slow Poke! Slow Poke!” They’d copied that from our teacher, Mrs. Taylor, after she says — while I walk the plank to the chalkboard — “Mattie, don’t be such a slow poke!” I’m in 8th-grade. A juvenile-delinquent girl punches me. Then a crowd of students jump me. We go down. Buried, I lock eyes with a boy I’d gone to school with for years. I reach towards him through discombobulated bodies. My eyes beg, “Pull me up!” He turns away.
In that moment, I fell off a cliff. More than a decade went by before I landed.
When I was growing up, my parents never asked, “How are you feeling, LaVora?” There’s no way I looked anything but miserable with all the bullying going on. They missed the clues. I no longer blame them. No doubt they simply copied the way they’d been parented and pasted it into our family. For the same reason I forgive my classmates and Mrs. Taylor. Only the wounded would treat someone the way they treated me.
Larry’s refusal stirred up memories of times I’d bullied and beaten my little brother when we were kids. I stopped when I was 17 and he was 13 because he could hurt me back, and did. Larry’s refusal stirred up memories of when I failed to show up for people who needed me. It stirred up the time I abandoned one particular person at one of her lowest moments.
Steve beats women, including his own mother. Larry knows. I surmised that he cared so much about staying on Steve’s good side that he couldn’t simply say, “Hey, Man, why don’t you leave her alone?” “Her” being me.
“You’re a coward,” I told Larry after his refusal. “I don’t want to speak to you anymore.” I haven’t spoken to him since.
In the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha taught that we are all Buddhas. He said the purpose of everything we experience is to awaken us to our eternal Buddha nature. This awakening is called enlightenment.
”The buddhas, the thus come ones, simply teach and convert the bodhisattvas. All the things they do are at all times done for this one purpose. They simply wish to show the buddha wisdom to living beings and enlighten them to it.”
–The Buddha, Lotus Sutra, Chapter Two, “Expedient Means”
Everything is karma, cause and effect. Our thoughts, words, and physical actions create it. I knew that the bullying I endured was the effect of me bullying others. Larry’s refusal to speak up for me was the effect of my failure to be there for others.
However, in the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha taught oneness. He taught that past, present, and future aren’t separate. Nam Myoho Renge Kyo is the title of the the Lotus Sutra in Sanskrit (Nam) and Japanese. Chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo helps me see that karma is deeper than the obvious backwards-facing tit for tat. Reckoning with karma is about facing the present. It’s about asking, “How do I see myself right now?”
“A coward cannot any of [her] prayers answered.”
–Nichiren, “The Strategy of the Lotus Sutra”
What I perceived as Larry’s cowardice reflects my own fear. For instance, I fear that the things I’m telling you about my life will make you pity me or, worse, think I’m a loser, or even worse, think I’m a bad person. Similarly, I imagine Larry feared Steve would reject his friendship if he (Larry) spoke up for me. In, reality, I have no idea what’s on Larry’s or anyone’s mind, unless they tell me.
Lately, I’ve wondered if I should continue to keep my distance from Larry. He’s becoming popular. I fear people won’t like me if I’m not friendly with him. (I’m not mean towards him. I just don’t acknowledge him).
But then I think about the two bullied girls within me. I think about how I was wrong to bail on people who needed me. I can’t go back and support those people like I wish I could. But, right now, I can support those girls.
“If there are those who can copy, uphold, read, and recite this sutra, offer alms to it and expound it for others, then the thus come one will cover them with his robe, and they will also be protected and kept in mind by the buddhas.”
–The Buddha, the Lotus Sutra, Chapter 10, “Teacher of the Law”
What if those girls were living in the corporal world, not only in my mind, and Larry knew they were being bullied but didn’t try to stop it? Would I make nice with him so people would like me?
No. I would not. I’d feel like a traitor to the girls if I did that. I’d be betraying me.
I chant for Larry and Steve, sending warm beams of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo into their lives. After all, because of the oneness of self and others, when I pray for them, I’m praying for me. However, avoiding Larry is the right call. Avoiding him protects me from circling the orbit of someone who doesn’t mind being buddies with an abusive man.
By avoiding Larry, I’m being a good mother to my two girls. I’m being a good mother to me. I’m telling myself:
“I see you. I’ll always protect you. You’re so precious to me.”/
Free Lotus Sutra Study Guide
I’ve practiced Nichiren Buddhism for 38 years. During this time, I’ve lived Nichiren’s words: “Without practice and study, there can be no Buddhism.” I’ve created a Lotus Sutra study guide. It has sutra chapters and concepts in it that Nichiren emphasized.
Download the study guide here.
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
“Devotion to the Wonderful Law of the Lotus Flower Teaching of the Buddha”
Hear Deva Pramal, Mitten, and Manose chanting
Quotes are from The Lotus Sutra and Its Opening and Closing Chapters, Translated by Burton Watson (2009) and The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Vol 1. Free online versions of both, and the Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism, are at NichirenLibrary.org.
Connect
lotussutrabuddhism@substack.com
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