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On Faith Akimasa Iwasa |
Learn to free yourself
from material thingsBodhi Day is the day that Prince Siddhartha became the Buddha, the awakened one, at the age of 35. His birthday as a human is April 8, but Dec. 8 is his birthday as the awakened one.
Siddhartha left his home in search of truth, even though he had every material thing he could desire in life. Yet he was not satisfied with his life. His purpose of searching was to solve the fundamental suffering of humans. We believe that he, at least, awoke from the dream of life's all-too-frequent sufferings and all-too-fragile joys and saw the truth for himself.
This truth that he awakened to was the truth that resolved all his previous concerns about the meaning of life and death. This truth was the solution to the problem of suffering that he had been seeking. All of his subsequent teachings and all the efforts of the 2,500-year-old community that has passed on those teachings are all for the purpose of helping us to see the truth for ourselves as well, the very same truth that the Buddha realized.
There is an allegory that depicts human life. A man who has committed a crime is running away. The guards are following him, so he tries to hide himself by descending into a well by means of some vines growing down the sides. As he descends he sees vipers at the bottom of the well, so he decides to cling to the vine for safety. After a time when his arms are getting tired, he notices two mice, one white and the other black, gnawing at the vine.
If the vine breaks, he will fall to the vipers and perish. Suddenly, on looking upward, he notices just above his face a beehive from which occasionally falls a drop of honey. The man, forgetting all his danger, tastes the honey with delight.
The man in the story is the one who is born to suffer and to die alone. The guards and vipers refer to the body with all its desires. The vines represent the continuity of the human life. The mice, one white and the other black, refer to the duration of time, days and nights, and the passing years. The honey indicates the physical pleasures that beguile the suffering of the passing years.
We may laugh at this story, but I think our usual life is like this man. We tend to refuse to look straight at our concerns about the meaning of life and death.
Our life is not to get a mountain of gold, but to know the way to manage our heart, which needs more than the mountain of gold that strangles and blinds us.
Recent studies say that the number of students who take religion classes in college is increasing rapidly. Many young people may start to question the meaning of life and death and are seeking ways to live a spiritual, and not material, life.
The Rev. Akimasa Iwasa is a minister at Honpa Hongwanji Betsuin Hawaii.
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