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My Buddhist faith has been the foundation of my personal path toward revolution. But you don’t have to be a Buddhist to benefit from these principles. In fact, you don’t have to be a Buddhist to be a Buddha. As Daisaku Ikeda says, "When we realize that our lives are one with the great and eternal life of the universe, we are the Buddha. The purpose of Buddhism is to enable all people to come to this realization." This mind-set is open to everyone, regardless of religion or cultural background. The Lotus Sutra’s ancient wisdom belongs to all humanity, proclaiming that each person equally possesses the Buddha nature, with infinite potential and inherent dignity, lighting the way to true independence and absolute happiness for everyone.

Spirituality isn’t tied to any one religion or philosophy. It isn’t the property of a priesthood or clergy. Spirituality is a personal awakening and relationship with our Mother Earth and the universe that increases openness and positivity. My awakening began five decades ago through my practice and study of Buddhist teachings. Sharing the story of this most precious part of my life with you is a long-cherished dream. This book carries my personal guidance on how to create lasting happiness. It explains spiritual truths I’ve learned on my unlikely path to joy, from childhood to today.

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You have to be someone large on stage, not who you are in your everyday life. When I was performing, I believed that every song told a story, which I expressed through singing and movement. My audience wanted theater, and that's what we gave them. You start out not knowing who they are, or how active they will be, but you want to impress them. If they were quiet and they didn't move, then we had to work together, me, the girls, and the band, to pull them in and show them how to have a good time.

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My wildest dream was to have this kind of success – to pack a stadium, to walk out on a stage and look at the crowd, knowing that they came to see me. What a wonderful turn my life had taken. After so much unhappiness, after thinking that love of any kind would never be a part of my story, love was all around me.

Buddhism teaches equality — the empowering principle that everyone has the potential to attain enlightenment and become absolutely, indestructibly happy. When we come to see this potential in ourselves, we can see and respect it in everyone else, too. As the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) president Daisaku Ikeda says: "When we realize that our lives are one with the great and eternal life of the universe, we are the Buddha. The purpose of Buddhism is to enable all people to come to this realization." This is so important because it’s open to everyone, regardless of culture, language, even religion. It’s a reminder that everyone equally has the potential for Buddhahood, for enlightenment, and that our salvation is up to us.

If you are unhappy with anything — your mother, your father, your husband, your wife, your job, your boss, your car — whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find that when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.

My greatest beauty secret is being happy with myself. I don't use special creams or treatments – I'll use a little bit of everything. It's a mistake to think you are what you put on yourself. I believe that a lot of how you look is to do with how you feel about yourself and your life.

Each of us is born, I believe, with a unique mission, a purpose in life that only we can fulfill. We are linked by a shared responsibility: to help our human family grow kinder and happier. I first learned about the workings of the universe from my daily experiences growing up in Nutbush, Tennessee, a small rural town. I loved spending time outside, running through the fields, looking up at the heavenly bodies in the sky, spending time with animals—domestic and wild ones—and listening to the sounds of nature. Even as a little girl, I sensed an unseen universal force as I walked through the wide-open pastures each day. Communing with nature taught me to trust my intuition, which always seemed to know the way home when I was lost, the best branch on a tree for swinging, or where a treacherous rock was hidden in a stream. I learned to listen to my heart, which taught me that you and I are connected to each other and everything else on this planet. We are joined together by the mysterious nature of life itself, the fundamental creative energy of the universe. In this complicated world of ours, where contradictions abound, we find breathtaking beauty in the most unlikely places. The brightest rainbows appear after the heaviest of storm clouds. Magnificent butterflies emerge from the drabbest cocoons. And the most beautiful lotus flowers bloom from the deepest and thickest mud. Why do you suppose life works this way? Perhaps those rainbows, butterflies, and lotus flowers are meant to remind us that our world is a mystical work of art—a universal canvas upon which we all paint our stories, day by day, through the brushstrokes of our thoughts, words, and deeds.