Friday, December 30, 2011
A Difficult Music Piece

This story is about a girl named Lily. Lily likes music ever since she was a kid. She aspired to be an outstanding musician someday. Truly, when she grew up, she entered a university where she studied music arts. On a typical schooling day, she walked herself to the classroom and prepared to practice with her piano. When she arrived, she found a piece of music score left by her professor. However, she sighed “Another difficult challenge? Is the professor trying to bully me?”

Suddenly, a thought flew by. She could recall herself meeting the professor for the first time. The professor had given her some music scores, but she played awfully on the first day. So the professor told her “No, no, no. It’s all wrong. Take it back home and practice on it.” She was depressed, but she had never given up. A week later, she looked for the professor again after her intense practice. She did not get to play anything when she met the professor, but the professor on the other hand, had given her some more challenging music scores. Weeks after another, she kept on receiving a harder challenge each time she meets the professor.

This time, Lily thought that the professor dislikes her, so she felt dreadful. Yet, she wasn’t giving up, because music is her dream! One day, the professor gave her a piece of music score that was previously given to her 3 months ago. She was finally asked to play again. She was confident, firm and was ready to play the music out loud. As she finished the first piece, she continued on the second one, the third one, until the most recent piece given by the professor. When she’d done playing all the music score, she glanced at her professor with anticipation.

The professor commented “After all those training, you’ve finally excelled today. I trust if I allow you to choose what you could handle, you wouldn’t be able to achieve such massive advancement in your skill.”

Lily was enlightened at that very moment. She finally understood her professor’s intention. In the end, she graduated and became a truly outstanding musician.

This story enlightens that:

Lily’s ambition was to become an outstanding musician. So she had to train herself facing those challenging music pieces. It is inevitable that she might run into disastrous failure and pressure, but it is such hindrance that allows us to strive forward for advancement. What’s important is that she had never given up on her dream disregarding the difficulties she faced.

Ikeda Sensei once said “Disregarding of your profession or field, you’ll make it to your majestic aim if you could strive vigorously towards it. Effort, endurance, and persistence will aid you in defeating your own weakness. In conclusion, you must give the fullest and it is such people that are truly strong.”

If we’re allowed to choose what we could handle, then we’d never gain improvement. As we get used to a comfortable life for too long, we’d get used of being satisfied and never wanting to strive for any improvement. Worse, we could even lose the will to change for the better and refusing to accept new challenges. When the environment turns worse, we’d not be able to accept such drastic change. We could end up feeling lost and helpless. But actually, there is infinite potential in everyone of us. This is because we possess infinite possibilities with a life in the Buddha’s state. If we were determined and never give up on our way, we could turn pressure into motivation and take hardship as a kind of training. Till then, our life will be enriched with continuous advancement.



Postscript:

I was actually touched after reading the article. Man will only achieve growth and advancement through training. This is the truth in our life. However, we’d always forget such rule when we’re challenged. If we’re weak, we could easily think of giving up and running away from the problems. It always requires a great courage and determination to accomplish a task or overcoming difficulties. This is the best time we chant in front of Gohonzon. As we chant the Daimoku with power that could shake the galaxy and our life, determination is much easier to obtain. From there, we must defeat our own weakness.

On our journey of life, we’d encounter numerous challenges and difficulties. They exist to test our soft heart and faith. To keep on walking forward on our journey, we must be the strong ones that never give up. As we strive with hope, courage and determination, we’ll be able to get to the flag of victory which lead us to a brilliant life.

Shared by,
Hong Jie.

Labels:

Written at 3:44 AM by Paper Pilot.