Fireflies’ Fireworks

Good morning!

We can see the morning star shining forth brightly in the east. The Buddha is said to be enlightened or awakened, seeing the bright morning star shining for billions of years.

We compare the Buddha mind to the full moon reflecting the sun of truth. Compared with the full moon, the firefly’s light is small and short, dim and dangerous.

There is a zen koan: a master led his disciple, showing the way with a lamp. Suddenly he blew the light out. The disciple had to rely on his own inner light to find his way ahead.

The European Committee of Radiation Risk has predicted 200,000 more cancer deaths in a decade due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and double that in half a century.

The nuclear power company offered compensation and condolence money to the victim evacuees, but some have refused to receive it. How can we compensate life’s light with money?

Compared with the two million year history of humankind, two millennia of civilization with wars, etc., are only a thousandth, and two centuries of industrialization just a ten thousandth.

We are blinded by birth and death of fame and fortune, not knowing the truth of birth and death. Our delusions are contaminating the whole life system, causing mass extinction.

We are still deluded by our own bad karmas. That is why we need to sit and stop karma to see the truth in the brightest light. We must take refuge in the true self – the true dharma.

4/5/11