Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
The Seasons of Life
In our beautiful, moderate weather of Southern California, we have become accustomed to year round temperate weather. Although it does get a little colder in winter, and is warmer in the summer, basically, we really don’t have four seasons like in other parts of the world. I grew up in Oregon where we had four distinct seasons, and also experienced the four seasons in Japan.
A farmer is especially in tune with the four seasons. I
can remember what we did on the farm in each of the four seasons. In the
spring the ground was barren, but we began to work the ground and plant our
crops in early spring. Before you knew it, sugar beets, onions, and corn
plants would begin to sprout from the ground.
The summers were always hot in Oregon, and we spent most of
our time irrigating our thirsty crops. During the summer everything grew
so quickly. Corn grew so fast you could almost see it grow. The
fields were a lush green with everything in full growth.
In the fall, it would begin to cool down, and we would begin
to prepare for the fall harvests. Potato vines would mature and turn
brown, as did the onion plants. Corn was harvested, as well as onions,
potatoes and sugar beets. The fall harvest was always an exciting time,
with trucks going in and out of our farm, trying to harvest as quickly as
possible, while the good fall weather held out.
Late fall meant plowing and preparing some of the ground for
the next year. All plants had been harvested, and the ground was a barren
brown once again. Soon the frosts and snow would come, and we were in the
dead of winter.
When you think about it, our life is like the four seasons
capsulated into one lifetime.
When we are born into this world, that is the spring of our
life. We grow up from infancy, through our childhood years and
adolescence. Just as spring brings forth new life in nature, our entrance
into this world was like the blooming of a spring flower, or a budding of a new
plant.
The summer of our life is our young adulthood, in which we
might meet the love of our life, marry, and begin to raise children of our own.
During those summer years of life we focus our efforts on our careers, on our
life’s work.
After the summer, we begin to enter the fall of our years, in
which we face retirement, the graying of our hair, and the physical maturity and
weakening of our bodies. However, just as autumn is beautiful in its own
way with brilliant fall colors of red and orange, so too can our later years of
life be beautiful.
The winter of our life is the finality, the completion, the
fruition of this one life that we have. Just as a plant lives from being
a
One of my recollections of the four seasons on the farm was how quickly one year passed. During the hot summer it felt like the days went slowly, and I would look at my watch anticipating either the lunch break or quitting time, but before you knew it, the summer went by and we were in the fall harvest season.
Isn’t that true of our life as well? In Rennyo Shonin’s Letters (Gobunsho), there is the passage, “Life swiftly passes, and who among men can maintain his form for even a hundred years?”
How true these words of Rennyo’s are. During Rennyo’s time, the life expectancy was perhaps around 50 or so, and not like the 70+ years of expectancy that we have now. A life of 50 years can truly fly by.
I am pushing 50 and I can see how life swiftly passes. It won’t be long and I will be passing from the summer to the fall of my own life, with graying hair and declining health.
One of the famous Shin Buddhist Myokonin, or exemplary
followers of the Nembutsu, was a woman named Okaru, who wrote poems of her
understanding of the Dharma and the Nembutsu. One poem goes as follows:
Consider well,
p. 39, Myokonin Okaru
While still alive.
When life ends.
It is too late.
by Hoyu Ishida
While we have our health, while we have the strength, the
time and the energy, we should take the opportunity to listen to the Dharma,
before the winter season of our life. In so doing, we will meet a timeless
truth, we will meet the infinite light and infinite life of Namuamidabutsu.
Gassho,
Rev. Marvin Harada
