Fantasy World – Avoiding the Big Question
There have been occasions where I have been talking to people and I am asked the question what should I pray for when I chant to the Gohonzon? Perhaps several years ago I would not have thought twice about how to answer this, saying something like chant for whatever will make you happy. Now however, I am almost left speechless or at least at a somewhat loss for words. There seems to be a thinking or at least a desire that somehow when one begins to practice Buddhism problems will automatically be solved or at least easy to overcome merely by chanting the Odaimoku.
It is as if they believe or want to believe that somehow, because we have taken faith in the Lotus Sutra, we will somehow be magically endowed with the ability to avoid life’s problems. Yet this is unrealistic thinking and avoids the real issue of enlightenment and becoming Buddhas, which is the ultimate objective of practicing Buddhism. We are not automatically better people because we practice Buddhism and we certainly have no greater ability to avoid difficulties and desire that others endure and struggle against.
Frequently I give a flippant remark such as;
“How much Odaimoku do you think you would have to chant to avoid death?”
Often I am met with either silence or a blank stare. I am not sure whether this is because there is a failure to understand the question or if there is some realization that has occurred. Usually though, upon further exploration, I find it is a failure to even understand how my question relates to their specific problem.
Yet in some ways and perhaps many ways the answer to this question gets to the heart of understanding the power of Odaimoku in our lives. There is no amount of Odaimoku that we could chant that would allow us to live forever and avoid dying. And yet it is possible to embrace and understand death through Odaimoku, and the teaching of the Lotus Sutra that it represents. And death is the greatest of our personal fears and obstacles.
I believe our objective of practice is not so much about overcoming day to day problems but about becoming Buddhas in our physical manifestation here and now. The idea of having a car, a house and all the other attachments we can concoct are mere transient fantasies to an enlightened state of being. As a Buddha we will naturally attract the things necessary to our basic being. Our focus is and should always remain on becoming enlightened. When we look at our practice from such a perspective then how does the accumulation of material possessions even come into the picture, and certainly not as a permanent impediment to our joy. Yes we will all suffer the inconvenience of minor disruptions in our day to day travels throughout life, this is to be expected. The teaching of being happy and at ease does not mean we will be able to avoid natural processes of life and its many set-backs.
If we look at life as a process towards death, as we are all certainly going to die, then all the stuff along the way takes on a different perspective. Should not our focus then be on what is the most significant event in our lives, the one event that will stop us all, the one event that none can avoid, and the one event for which we least prepare ourselves for?
In all the problems we may experience in our lives the greatest problem is the problem we least consider and instead focus all our attention on anything but that problem, which is death and dying. Yet it is my feeling that in fact the single issue of death and our relationship to dying reveals the solution to all the other little annoyances of living.
As the editors Bryan Cuevas and Jacqueline Stone state in the introduction to their book
“The Buddhist Dead” state; “’Death’ is suffering, both as an end, separating one from all that one cherishes, and as a revolving door, spinning one back into yet another round of unsatisfactory rebirth, up or down in accordance with one’s deeds, until ignorance and craving are finally eradicated. In this sense, death is not merely the way things are, but it also exemplifies the very problem that the Buddhist soteriological project is to overcome.” (The Buddhist Dead, page 1)
On some level or another isn’t any problem we may have to face on a day to day basis an end of either something good or something bad, and doesn’t overcoming one problem spin us back into solving yet another problem sometimes hauntingly similar to the last one we overcame? Aren’t we constantly riding the waves of life up and down depending upon where we view our present condition and where we think we are heading?
So our biggest concern, the thing we consider the least is the actual thing we should be most worried about and the thing we should give our greatest attention. How do we attain enlightenment
“The Buddha has ‘attained to the deathless’; his conquest of Mara just before his awakening was not merely the conquest of desire but of death itself.” (The Buddhist Dead, page 1)
I believe that overcoming our fear of death and the unknown it represents is the greatest obstacle to feeling great joy. For overcoming death can enable us to really live life. I was once in a discussion with someone about their fear of death, that they had so much they wished to accomplish and they were afraid they wouldn’t get it all done. I was taken aback by this, because I thought that no matter how much time we were given there would always be something yet remaining to be done. If a person is diligent in this life, trying to maximize their worth and ability then there would always be something yet to accomplish, so there would be no end to things yet to do. Others fear death for other reasons such as the loss of loved ones, or the uncertainty of what comes afterwards.
Keeping life’s problems in perspective and focusing on the real promise of the Lotus Sutra is where we should direct our faith and chanting of the Lotus Sutra. The promise of the Buddha that we are all equal to the Buddha and possess equal potential to understand life and death, the ability to overcome all obstacles is where we should put our efforts. Realizing that all the other difficulties we may endure are as fleeting as morning dew when compared to attaining the indestructible joy of enlightenment is the ultimate objective of our practice of chanting Odaimoku and practice of the Lotus Sutra. An oft quoted passage from Nichiren says that we should never let life’s hardships disturb us that even saints and sages are unable to avoid can avoid problems leaves a lot unsaid and often misunderstood, I believe. For it is true that all must endure problems but what is different about saints and sages is that while they experience these difficulties they are most concerned with understanding the meaning of life and death and so are less affected by those same problems that we as common mortals think are the real sufferings of this life. The issue is not about avoiding problems but about facing the biggest problem of life, death.
