- for Mary Ann and Michael Kurose -
The first and lowest of Nichiren’s worlds is Hell.
Each one of us can get there in a spell!
Most of us arrive on foot, though Lucifer fell.
The second world is Hunger – our modern “desire.”
Hell is low, but Hunger’s hardly higher.
It causes gluttony and venereal fire.
In the third world, Everyman now turns Everybeast.
Morality, logic have simply ceased.
We fawn on who has the most and prey on the least.
All others, in Anger, the fourth world, are a threat.
We’ve heard of love but cannot feel it yet,
concerned with what everyone else is out to get.
Tranquility in the fifth world gives us a break.
The sight of the moon, a breeze on the lake –
suspending both what was and what will be at stake.
In Rapture our second-world Hunger is relieved.
It feels as if for months we haven’t breathed!
In this sixth world we can’t recall just why we grieved.
In the seventh world we learn what there is to Learn.
Siddhartha, Plato, Faust for knowledge yearn.
They look down on the lower worlds and watch them burn.
Realization in the eighth world puts to test
what in Learning was found to be the best
for helping us navigate life. Forget the rest!
In the ninth world we encounter our highest joy
as Bodhisattvas – every girl and boy.
We strive for the good of our human hoi polloi.
These nine in the tenth are comprised and understood.
And your and my tenth worlds are just as good!
In them we claim with Nichiren our Buddhahood.