Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
This spring I am teaching a class in our Buddhist Education Center titled, “Buddhist Views of Life and Death.” At the first class, I began with the following words. “For those of you attending this class, this might be the most important class that you have taken in your entire life. I do not mean that from an egotistical standpoint like I am some kind of important teacher and therefore this is the most important class. What I mean, is the following. Think about it. We have all gone to school for many years. Twelve years of public education. Perhaps four years of college. Maybe some of you have a Masters Degree, or even a Phd or law degree. In that case, you might have been in school for maybe easily 18 or more years. But in all of those 18 years that you might have been in school, you have never taken a course on life and death, especially not a course that will address your own life and death. In that sense, this could be the most important course you have taken in your life.”
When you think about it, how strange it is that we learn so many things in life – math, science, English, chemistry, history, geography, psychology, sociology, philosophy, just to name a few, but we have never taken a course that addresses our own life and death. Buddhism addresses the matter of our own life and death head on. In fact, it is called the great matter of one’s life and death. To ignore this most important matter is to ignore perhaps the greatest thing of life. We cannot escape it. We cannot run from it. It will not go away. We must face it. Reflect on it. Embrace it. Become one with it, and then transcend it.
First of all, we mistakenly separate life and death. We think that life begins at birth, and death is something that comes to us someday in the future. Buddhism teaches us that life and death are not two separate things, but are two sides of the same coin. In reality, I began to die, the moment I was born. Death is right underneath my feet, every day that I live. Therefore, to reflect on the matter of one’s death, is to really discover the deepest meaning of one’s life.
Shakyamuni Buddha left home at the age of 29, as Prince Siddartha. He left behind his wife, child, social status, all of his wealth and jewels, all the comforts of his home and palace, to go on a religious search. Perhaps the great motivating force behind his religious search was the great matter of his own life and death. What does it matter to have a beautiful palace and servants if someday I must die? How to resolve this great matter, this great question, was perhaps the primary driving force in his seeking. The Buddha’s enlightenment, therefore, was the great resolution of this problem. In his enlightenment he found a truth that transcended the duality of life and death. What did the Buddha discover in his enlightenment that enabled him to transcend life and death? How did he resolve it?
Other religions might seek immortality. No one wants to die. From time immemorial man has sought some kind of fountain of youth, or something that would give us immortality. In China they once drank flakes of gold, because they thought that would give them immortality. Since gold is a precious material that doesn’t tarnish, they thought it would give one immortality.
But Buddhism does not try to find immortality. Instead, what the Buddha discovered, what he received in his enlightenment was immeasurable life, meaning life that cannot be measured. The ocean is too vast and deep to measure the amount of water in the ocean. There are too many stars in the sky to count. They are immeasurable. The Buddha discovered immeasurable life, not immortal life. Immeasurable life means that you cannot fathom the depth of life, you cannot measure the breadth of life of this great immeasurable life. Immeasurable life means you cannot measure the meaning, the value of such a life. For a person who touches and lives with great immeasurable life, there is no birth nor death, there is only bright and shining life.
Once the Buddha gave a sermon in which he spoke not a single word, but instead held up a single flower in his hand. All of his disciples looked at him, puzzled, wondering what he was trying to say. On that day, only the disciple Mahakashapa smiled and understood the Buddha’s message.
The Buddha was pointing to immeasurable life, by holding up a single flower. A single flower expresses the essence of life. It lives its life with the totality of its being. It does not compare itself to the grass or trees, the rocks or water. It simply lives its one life, with beauty and radiance.
When we touch this great immeasurable life, we transcend life and death. That is why Saichi, the Myokonin writes,
When I die, I will become the immortal
Namuamidabutsu.
Saichi doesn’t write that he becomes immortal. Saichi writes that he becomes the immortal Namuamida-butsu. Namuamidabutsu is the truth that enables him to transcend life and death. Yes, his physical life comes to an end someday, but there is oh so much more than just this physical life, there is the truth of Namuamidabutsu. Even beyond death, his life becomes one with that truth, and that is why Saichi here and now transcends life and death.
I have but this one life to live, but while I have this one life, I can open my heart and mind and receive the truth of Namuamidabutsu, the truth that enables me to transcend life and death, to receive immeasurable life.
Namuamidabutsu, Rev. Marvin Harada
