You may be familiar with Buddhism.
To do with monks and renouncing certain things in life,
not being able to eat meat, abstaining from sexual relations,
living in monasteries.
With this Buddhism,
you are allowed to have anything you want, you can have long hair,
you can go down the pub for a few drinks, eat meat... it's really your choice.
There is no god, it's the power of yourself.
Instead of seeking help from outside of yourself, it's determining within yourself,
I will change this, I must change this. This is going to change.
I practise the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin.
It started in 13th century Japan.
I was not born into a Buddhist family, I was born into a Christian family.
One of my childhood friends, Koichi, he was born into a Buddhist family
and we went through a lot together when we were younger.
We sort of came out the other end in one piece,
he told me about Buddhism and we started going to meetings together.
My life was chaotic.
I got expelled from several boarding schools.
I go into drugs and alcohol. I went into children’s homes.
I went to a juvenile detention centre.
I had a bit of a revelation,
I'm just going to keep on doing this, keep going through these cycles,
never have any sort of security, and I didn’t want that so I started chanting.
I became Buddhist when I was 17.
The process of becoming a Buddhist is your action.
If I see someone helping out a man who has fallen over in the street,
I think that's great Buddhist action.
Everyone can become enlightened without fail,
women, children, men who have led evil lives, you don’t have to be born into a high status.
Everyone can become enlightened.
Being a Buddhist is just having faith.
The daily practice of morning and evening Gongyo,
which is a recitation of two excerpts of the Lotus Sutra.
I chant, "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo"
"Nam", derives from a Sanskrit word "Namu", it means devotion.
"Myoho" is "mystic law",
"Renge" is "lotus flower",
"Kyo" is "sutra".
It's supposed to represent, projecting it out to everyone,
it represents that everyone can grasp and attain Buddhahood.
I was chanting for a flat, it was a council flat.
I'd come out of care, in a halfway house sort of thing,
I was trying to get my own place.
Through chanting for your desires,
you can grow as a person and change your karma,
change the tendencies in your life.
Everyone has different negative tendencies,
I'm quite unmotivated and quite arrogant as well,
I always think I'm right no matter what.
But through chanting for this flat,
I realised things about myself that I didn’t really know before.
I've opened my eyes to things and been able to accept that and then change them.
It's the process of...
revealing your Buddhahood in your daily life.
It's more important than the end result.
- Did you get the flat? - I did, yeah.
I am happier as a Buddhist.
It's much harder, because...
when I was taking drugs it was easy, it was...
all I need to do was get some money, take some drugs,
and I'd be away with the fairies for a while.
With Buddhism it's really real,
so you really have to work and get happiness,
become truly happy, like really satisfied
through challenging difficulties in your life when problems arise,
you don't just turn the other way and try avoid them
and try make the easiest path in life, you really face them head on.
I've done so much more in the last two years of my practising Buddhism
as I have I the rest of my life.