Mary ran away from home at the age of 17.  She didn’t understand too much of her first Buddhist meeting.  When she got back to where she was staying, she took out the paper that had Nam Myoho-renge-ky written on it and chanted.  She became so full of emotions that she burst into tears and then fell into one of the best sleeps she had in a long time.  The next morning she forgot all about it.  She ultimately returned home, but things were still not good there.  One of the members traced her back home and contacted her.  Mary started chanting again and after about a month discovered that her face hurt.  She didn’t know why until she realized that she had been smiling more than she ever had before.  Her mother asked her if she was on drugs.  Mary thought that that was funny because all the time she was on drugs, her mother never suspected her of using drugs.

Alma was walking down the street with her young son, when a stranger stopped her and started to tell her about Buddhism and chanting.  She tried to ignore the stranger, but her son took a liking to him and was actually hugging the stranger’s leg, saying “Mommy let’s try chanting.”  Alma started chanting, but was fearful that God would disapprove and kill her, so she found an old Catholic prayer book that she hadn’t used in years and would recite “The Lord is my shepherd … and etc.” after each diamoku session.  After a month of chanting this way, she realized that God wasn’t going to kill her so she stopped doing the Christian prayers.  She said she was always miserable in church anyway.

A man with chronic headaches noticed that they would go away when he was in the presence of certain people.  He made a list of those people and decided to ask them about their spiritual practices.  One of those persons was an SGI member and she invited him to an Introductory Meeting.  His headaches were gone all the time he was at the meeting.  One of the members told him that he could control his headaches with chanting.

Alexis’s roommate chanted, so she heard the sound of daimoku and gongyo every morning and evening.  She was very skeptical about Buddhism and asked lots of questions.  She thought chanting was like a crutch.  Her roommate did her best to answer the questions, but Alexis was not satisfied with her answers.  One night Alexis’s roommate brought over a person and told her that “This person can answer all your questions.”  It took three hours, but at the end of it, Alexis was satisfied with the answers.  She was told that chanting could be a crutch, but it could also be a tool to help a person achieve happiness.  After the guest left, Alexis thought to herself: “She answered all my questions.  What is keeping me from chanting now?” The answer was “Nothing!”.  So she started chanting from that night on.  She refused to do morning gongyo because that would involved getting up earlier than she liked.  But she never missed evening gongyo After a short time of chanting this way, she developed enough wisdom to deal with a situation that had been plaguing her for five years.

Janet was walking down the street when a stranger asked her if she would like to come to a Buddhist discussion meeting.  She said: “No!” and kept on walking.  The stranger said: “You can leave anytime you want.” So she said “OK”.  She went to the meeting and saw all kinds of people – young, old, black, white, Chinese, etc.  She liked that because she had many friends of different colors, but every church she had ever been it was always the same race as she was.  A Korean woman, who sat next to her, told her “You need to chant.”  “How did she know that?” Janet wondered. She started chanting and started to gain wisdom.  She used to do whatever she felt like doing regardless of the consequences, now she could see how doing certain things caused other things to happen.  She said that the wisdom that she gained from chanting has saved her life.

Ralph was not prejudiced – he hated everyone equally. He met a waitress who invited him to a Buddhist discussion meeting.  His attitude was “Bahh Humbug!”  But the waitress kept pestering him to chant.  So he said he would just to shut her up.  He chanted to prove it wrong, but that didn’t work.  He came to realize that much of his misery was self inflicted, and that chanting had the power to lift him up out of his despair.