In honor of Black History Month, Tricycle is presenting a special video series, “Teachings for Uncertain Times,” featuring 13 teachers of color, here on our blog, Trike Daily, throughout February. The videos are free to watch.

In the following talk, Myokei Caine-Barrett, current bishop of the Nichiren Shu order of North America and resident minister of Myoken-ji Temple in Houston, Texas, introduces the “bare bones” of a complex practice—Ichinen Sanzen—that asks us to view 3,000 realms in a single moment.

“In our tradition, we talk about the mutual possession of the 10 realms. That means simply that the realm of hell is also the realm of buddhahood as well as the realm of humanity . . .

We can think about a realm as something each of us fundamentally has but may not know about. Mine used to be anger, which came about as a direct result of spankings that I got as a child. It was something that I carried with me for a long time without realizing. The more I got into practicing, the more I began to understand the nature and the source of that anger. Because of that, I was able to heal from that anger,” Caine-Barrett says in her talk.

Download a transcript of this retreat. It has been edited for clarity.

Watch Myokei Caine-Barrett’s Dharma Talk, Foundations of Nichiren

Read “A Right to the Dharma,” Linda Heuman’s 2011 interview with Myokei Caine-Barrett, Shonin 

Watch other videos in the “Teachings for Uncertain Times” series

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