By Gwynne

I joined SGI in August of 1985 in Chicago at the Culture Center on the north side of town. I was introduced by my late mother and my sister.

Recently, I found I wasn't realizing any of my goals and decided to challenge myself with an added hour of diamoku. At the same time that I made the decision to add another hour, my granddaughter called and asked if I would chant with her everyday and call her to wake her up so she could do her 10 minutes of diamoku. I agreed. I knew if she did the 10 minutes faithfully each day she would want to do more.

One morning I called to wake her up so that she could start on her 10 minutes of daimoku for that day, and she said that she wasn't seeing any benefits from her daily daimoku. I suggested that she give herself a target date to see what had been accomplished from the 10 minutes that she was doing. I told her that I was going to set a date for myself — that would be my birthday just to see what my daimoku had done for me in that short time.

We agreed to set a date.

I started my daimoku campaign on the 21 of June and my birthday was on the 17th of July. On the 14th of July, my brother called and told me he was coming to visit the family and me for my birthday. 

He said, "I know it's at the last minute", but he and his son would be here at 8:50 PM that night. I was so shocked hearing that he was coming at a moment's notice. I called my daughter and told them that their uncle was coming so that they could get done whatever they had to do before he came. 

After he arrived that night, there was a knock at the door. My daughter opened the door and the postman had a large package that had to be signed for. My brother was so elated he and told my daughter that the package was a birthday present for me. He proceeded to open the package and turned to me and said "Happy Birthday." To my surprise, it was a new computer system.

For the past few months I had been wanted a newer system but could not afford it. I needed more RAM -- I only had 16 megs of RAM and could barely download.

I also had only 144 MHZ and a Pentium MMX. I had purchased my system 2 years ago and now it was outdated.

When my brother gave me the new computer, I was able to give my old one to my daughter. With my old computer only being 2 years old, I had put every program on it that anyone could need.

Not only was my daimoku working for me but, it also got my daughter the computer that she wanted.

My brother also had another trick up his sleeve, he had sent for my oldest sister whom I had not seen in a couple of years.

When my granddaughter looked at what had happened for me, she had a renewed spirit for chanting.

And lastly, I had a chance to show actual proof in the Gohonzon to my daughter and my granddaughter as well.

My new system is a Pentium 3 with 700 MHZ and 112 megs of RAM, plus all the new software that I could possibly want.

The reason that I practice this Buddhism is because of Actual Proof.

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

Gwynne