Good evening!
After a spell of chilly days going down below freezing point, we had a warm day
today with colorful autumn leaves on the trees and on the ground. Bare trees are
not dead trees, but the frost bitten annual flowers are dead. This morning we had a
dense fog, dangerous to drive in with some traffic accidents. We may be involved in
traffic accident and die, even young and healthy. Once dead or burnt, we or trees
lose life in a white wash like frosted plants or frozen planet.
What is life? I consulted the Britannica Encyclopedia and found it saying that there
is no generally accepted definition of life and that the average person also tends to
think of life in his own terms. Death may be clearer about things with no life
function. What is life function? Is it free and full? Isn’t our life and its function
limited and least learned? The Buddha said that all living beings are karma heirs,
karma relatives, and karma machines, thus limited by karmas. We must make it free
and full.
He opened the way to stop karma machines, to settle in nirvana, unconditioned
peace, and to see the Dharma (Form/Norm) of Dependent Origination, which any
one can witness and work for our free full function. The Dharma or Truth of
Dependent Origination is that all phenomena are interdependently co-originated,
which means there is no “self-same, self-sovereign, self-substance” or a permanent
independent Self or Soul, but all phenomena are interdependent throughout space
and time.
This means that we are not small separated skin sacks like limited bubbles as we
usually think, but wholly wholesome way worlds like the limitless sea with water,
wind, the moon, the sun, stars, and the whole universe of 15 billion years with gene-
shared sisters and brothers – bacteria, plants, animals, mountains, rivers, seas with
cells, organs, heads, hearts, haras (guts), bodies, brains, blood of 4 billion years
working with all here and now. Our delusions, desires, and divisiveness, however,
are limiting us and driving us to global problems and precipitation such as global
warming, wars, mass extinction.
Religion (from Latin re-ligare) is “re-union” with the primordial and ultimate
holy (= wholly wholesome) truth and unconditioned peace – holy harmony, health,
and happiness from sinful (= separated), selfish sickness and suffering. We can not
have the universally acceptable definition of life, but can have the concrete free full
function of life here and now. It is not arguing about the fingers pointing to the full
moon of truth and peace, true quality of life, but actually living it at each place and
each time.
Our bodies have 100 trillion cells, each of which has 100 trillion atoms, which change
each instant, working with 100 trillion or more bacteria in generation, absorption,
arrangement of nutrition, immune system, etc. Our genes and their atoms, which go
around the planet earth five million times, are constantly giving birth and death,
regulating its own death, etc. 6 billion times a day or more. Our minds changes more
or may not depending on bubble or sea state, and may witness neither birth nor
death state – ambrosia of immortality.
When we sit and stop karmas (physical, verbal, and mental), we witness nirvana –
neither self nor no-self, neither birth nor death, etc. and become awakened from
dreadful dreams and delusions of the limited self like bubble and liberated in
limitless life like sea witnessing wonders and working with all throughout time and
space – individual, social, ecological, material, mental, mundane, and supra
mundane. We can become like wolves, raised by wolves, and awakened ones, raised
by awakened ones here and now.
The choice should not be made by our limited karmas, but by the unlimited Dharma
for limitless liberation, light, love, and life of all for the benefit of all beyond
religions, race, gender, generation, species, space, etc. We should function free from
karmas (actions/habits) and full with the Dharma (Norm/Truth) and dharmas
(forms/phenomena) while alive. There are the Four Applications of karmas:
decreasing and stopping bad karmas, starting and increasing good karmas
constantly cultivating – the essence of religion.
10/30/13
(From the presentation at the Interfaith Gathering for Peace on the topic of Afterlife)
http://www.tais.ac.jp/education/faculty/a-3/blog/2012/07/01-000000.html