A Little essay about my Buddhism
(10/12)
In this world, there is not any leading ideology.
After the Cool war, a wall of ideology became low.
About nations, each country sustains ex. capitalism, communism, or a little land has militarism or monarcy.
What system will lead us to the happiness?
Now, instead of ideology, religions let fall into troubles. I feel.
Religion is expected to make us happy, but believers fight each other between different religions. The hate drags out only the hate. Especially between Christians and Muslims.
Some Christians tempt,
“ Women are empowered, and some women have gotten high posts in societies.”
Some Muslims threaten,
“ Obey, or such women will be marked as a targets.”
We, women aren’t strong, but I hope, women can decide to select.
I know only Buddhism, so I write and talk about stories of Buddhism
.
Buddha Sakyamuni said,
“ Life is suffering.”
This is the theme of this chapter of my essay. I am going to talk about the meaning of “suffering” of Buddhism. (to be continued)
From the first, I say the conclusion of the outlook of the theme.
We observe that life is filled with inconsistencies. I feel that it is the meaning of “suffering “ of the Buddha.
Can I trace to the original of Buddha’s words?
But now I talk about one modern teacher.
In 1945, on March, that teacher of philosophy was leaving from his life, He was 76 years old. He was faced with many difficulties. He was ill of rheumatism with pain, so he hardly wrote his book.
Japanese people were frightened at the attacks of enemy under the World War Ⅱ.
About that time, his daughter died suddenly who supported his daily necessity. The lost of her oppressed him.
The war ended in August of that year(1945), but the teacher died before the end of the War.
He had been writing during the war, and his last book was very dark, repeatedly with the words of “miserable life” “sadness” “painful heart”, over and over again.
He said,
“Buddhists must repent of the war”.
He criticized that Buddhism used as a tool of the war by greedy soldiers.
After the war, Buddhism and the followers of that teacher were exiled.
(2013.11.13)
Our life is one time. A dead person cannot return to life.
Someone say,
“A person will die for an idea in order to live in superior something.”
Such person dies as a sacrifice by oneself.
But a dead person entered into eternal nothingness. When one dies, that person cannot live. The personality cannot repeat.
We are making our real world from causes and results among time and space (namely biquadratic world, three dimensional spaces and time), as living with inconsistencies of the individual.
This world is called the law of causality (因果律)、by other religions, too.
Everybody get retribution.(因果応報)
Bad seeds bring the nemesis. It is a punishment of heaven, isn’t it?
Buddha says both good pleasant results and bad unlucky results by acts.
But during war, people were taken away their life unreasonably.
Buddha Sakyamuni did not think that one’s fate was destined. He was not a fatalist.
If someone does good act, she gets happy. If she does bad act, she gets desperation.
Our self is wanting to full of all desires endlessly. She is instinctive from the bottom of being.
On the other, she has the purpose in her mind, she has intention, she is endowed with reason, and she is not dependent.
The former she is selfish, the later she is moral.
But there is not religion there.
Religion heart does not originate in the thinking about the finite or the infinite, and about the relative or the absolute, etc…., but it is recognized firstly when she is asked by herself, or when the reason for being ( raison d’etre) is asked.
When we know the own inconsistency at the bottom of our being, the existence is a question. The individual is self-inconsistency to the end. The individual is born in order to know what the existence of her is denial.
The requirement never filled with. When she is filled with one, she wants more and more. She is going and returning between chaotic avarice and satisfaction. And she is worried about that.
Human beings are making ourselves like the reflection of the era in a mirror over the retribution.
And she is thoughtful, intuitive, conceptual, and she knows herself, and she is endowed with reason.
But rather how to think by Buddhism may contribute the progress of the world.
――Thus that teacher of philosophy said.
(11/20)
Before the war, Japanese people went wrong in the propagation of Japanese Shintoism(神道). It means folklore of Japanese ethnic gods and goddess of ancestors. In the war, the military government had failed to force to oriental people.
Above, Buddhism had also failed. It was unsuccessful for mission. Because Japanese characteristic factors of Buddhism were repelled by Asian people. Buddhism is universal religion. The way of inclination to peculiar to ethnic aspect without rationality and universalism will bear bad bitter fruit of trick inspiration or extreme behaviorism without calmness.
In Japanese, we regard the matter (事), more important rather than idea(理). But from now, the inclination to neglect the universal transcendence with rationality will not be equal to the world human advance of philosophy and religion.
By the way, Japanese nature is beautiful. Maybe travelers come to love the nature, we feel.
After the war, Japanese people had aimed to make educational system of children perfectly. Japanese people are polite, modesty. Almost Japanese people like peace, and sustain traditional culture. Japanese people are pleased to work. About the own happiness, Japanese people do not insist in the case of destroying of harmony of ready-made cultural moral. Japanese people keep balance of stability.
But out of those general talking, we cannot but seek the truth of existence fundamentally, can we?
The nothingness( the oriental nothingness) reveals itself as intention when the nothingness limits itself.
We, who are individual self and intentional self have influenced an effect upon self-limitation of nothingness with inconsistency and identity.
The self know and meet with the absolute contrarily step by step, and we realize true self as only one.
The belief is not an anxiety of subjective belief, but the belief is the touch to the truth of realization of this historical world.
Our world is the world of Karma(カルマ、業), we are existences of experiences.
This world is the world of Mumyo(ignorance無明) and Birth-and-death（生死、しょうじ）. This world is like hellish, isn’t it?
The human being is originally inclusive self-contradiction.
For instance, on Buddhism it is said that the sins of the parents are visited on the children, but this is irrational.
There are ourselves of existences there. It is same as the original-sin.
The escape and salvation of Buddhism is said one-awakening-in-a-moment（忽然念起、こつねんねんき）, or Nirvana is equal to Birth-and-death(生死即涅槃、しょうじそくねはん),
In conclusion, the religion is the inconsistency-but-identity of self. That is made by transcendence or by the origin, contradictorily, only personally, individually.
Why do we seek religion?
Why are we worry about religious question according to the introspection of self deeply and according to the consciousness of oneself, then demand of religion breaks out?
That teacher of philosophy said as follow.
Self of us is the existence with self-contradiction. We cannot remove inconsistency at all. And that self contradiction is the reason for being (raison d’etre, 存在理由).
But our life is valuable to live with joy, isn’t it?
That illustration of philosophy is one modern interpretation of that “suffering” of the Buddha.
Nagarjna’s interpretation is different from this modern scheme.
Buddha’s “suffering” is the core of Buddhism, but the interpretation maybe change as long as that is linked to the words of Buddha. I think so.
Nagarjna says in “The Middle Way”.
Several groups of schools of Buddhism advocate each doctrines about that “sufferings” of Buddha.
One says, “sufferings is made by one’s own self.”.
Another people says,
“Sufferings are forced by others.”
Such people attribute sufferings to the outside of the mind, those. They deplore that the partner, family, or friends,…or foes burden them sufferings. They lament surrounding as the cause of sufferings.
Another people say,
“The causes of the sufferings are assured by the binding conditions.”
Sufferings are not concluded due to own self or others. The causes and the conditions are co-arisen.
Another people say,
“The causes of sufferings are unknown.”
Those are obscure, and sufferings occur suddenly without reason.
Everybody is dislike sufferings.
People want to avoid sufferings. They are trying disappearance of sufferings, but Nagarjnya denied these four errors of these opinions. Nagarjnya thought that they are mistaken understandings of the causes of sufferings.
By the way, modern people regard poverty, diseases, discrimination, and international troubles as sufferings, don’t we?
But we may not get the solution of sufferings from Nagarjnya directly.
Once, there was a dialogue.
“What is the Buddha?”
“It is that tree outside of the window.”
“Don’t indicate the object(客観。境).”
If she seeks for the Buddha as the object, she does not attain her true self.
Buddhism co-operates with science, and Buddhists will participate in the arguments about the solution of many social sufferings with conscientious scientific knowledge. Buddhists call that conscience as the second enlightenment(intellect).
When it is said that a suffering is made by oneself, can we trace to its source among our five elements ( 五陰、ごうん。five Skandha )? Our body and mind is realized as the gatherings of five elements.
All things are in the Pratitya_samutpada ( 縁起、えんぎ), Buddhists think so, and is a suffering thing_in_itself ( 自体、自性、self nature)? It cannot be coincident.
Buddha Sakyamuni said, “ life is a suffering”, but also said, “ the mind is peaceful released from a weary suffering.” There is not a suffering in Nirvana ( 涅槃、ねはん). Where does a suffering go away at the case of Nirvana.
Since Buddhism is in essence “a religion of awakening,” it poses necessary limits to the role of the professional teacher. When all is said and done, Buddhism is a matter of practicing oneself. It is always and forever a question of the awareness of one’s true self, which no teacher or specialist can ever replace.
Muddleheaded spirits who complain, “but I am a sinful fool and have to rely on the words of holy people, will forever find the Buddha’s way close to them.
Ultimately, there are no sinner or saints, only “ original Buddha ( true self).” To awaken to this fact in oneself is what Buddhism is all about.
When Mahayana Buddhism( 大乗仏教) was born around the beginning of Common Era in India, it was a reform movement centered on the laity. It was different from the primitive Buddhism.
Wherever it spread, it put less stress on the minority of monks than on salvation of the greater masses of people. By nature, the Mahayana tradition was a “ lay “ Buddhism for those “ at home.”
They are us. Mahayana Buddhism does not recommend to pass our life unmarried as a bachelor or a spinster like a monk or a nun of past time.
Young people maybe fallen into love with sufferings. But they are not fear of love, and young couples get their partner, they guard and fulfill the duty for the family, and they work for the progress of the world, and so on. They are laity, but they are sufficient for the Buddhists.
Especially it is difficult for women about the belief and practice of Buddhism, because there were very rare of past living examples of the Buddhists of women.
Nagarjna was a great Buddhist of such Mahayana Buddhism.
If the suffering is inquired into the matter of causality, there is not fixed and solid anything of the suffering. Why is the suffering given by others? For others, they won’t say the suffering is made by their self. It is impossible that the suffering is made by the suffering itself.
In conclusion, there is not a suffering at all.
It is said that “ all sentient beings have the Buddha nature,” as well as the passage that “sentient beings are inherently Buddha(true self).”
Here we have one of the foundational idea of Mahayana Buddhism.
When she becomes aware of herself, she cannot find a suffering. Because “the self’s original nature” ( 自性、じしょう、svabhava), is not proved. Nagarjnya said that the true self is nothingness( 無自性、むじしょう、asvabhava).
When there isn’t a suffering, we are relieved, aren’t we?
( “The Middle Way” 12th chapter, “About sufferings” is end)
11 / 12
