Someone asked me how many times one should chant the Odaimoku daily? The answer is that the number does not matter. Over 20 years ago, I went to a golf range to hit balls a few times a week. But I did not improve much, so I quit playing golf. When you hit golf balls, before you worry about how many balls you should hit, you must first know how you should stand, how to grip the club, how to turn your upper body, how to aim towards the hole and so on. Otherwise you will not improve even if you hit 1,000 balls everyday.

At the Los Angeles Nichiren Buddhist Temple, we have Shodai-gyo Practice once a month. Shodai-gyo is a practice to chant the Sacred Title of the Lotus Sutra. We begin with meditation before chanting. We start the chanting very slowly. Gradually we increase the speed of the chanting and maintain high speed for a while, then slow down the chanting gradually and finally stop. It is like a long freight train that starts moving very slowly at the departing point. It gradually speeds up and then maintains that same speed. When it approaches the next stop, it slows down gradually before it comes to a complete stop. When we chant the Odaimoku vigorously with a loud voice, our body heats up and perspires sometimes, but we feel very good.

During chanting, it is very important for us to know how to inhale and exhale. When you chant in the right way, you feel very good, and it is good for your health both mentally and physically because blood circulates very well all over your body. The correct way of chanting is One Breath - One Odaimoku: that is to chant the Odaimoku once vocally very slowly while concentrating on each of the seven letters of the Odaimoku. When you chant it vocally, you are exhaling once. When you inhale slowly, you chant it once in your mind without voice. Then you repeat the chanting vocally once while exhaling and without voice while inhaling as many times as you feel comfortable. You can practice One Breath - One Odaimoku while you drive a car or while you walk or jog.

However, you must sit in front of the Gohonzon in order to concentrate yourself on the seven letters of the Odaimoku. Nichiren Dai Shonin says in Hokke Shoshin Jobutsu Sho, "When I call the Buddha-nature, "Namu Myoho Renge Kyo," within me, and when the Buddha-nature is called out of me and it appears, then it is called a Buddha." When we wake up, our Buddha-nature is within us, and when it becomes oneness with the spirit of the Universal Buddha, we are Buddhas, too, at least while we are chanting the Odaimoku.