http://www.rk-world.org/ftp/dharma4.htmlThe Dharma
THE SUFFERING OF DEATH AND LIFE. There is one problem of human life that cannot be solved through human knowledge and endeavor. This is the problem of death. Human life expectancy has increased considerably with the development of medical science and undoubtedly will be further prolonged in the future. Nevertheless, death invariably comes to us all. We instinctively feel death to be undesirable and frightening. Young people do not feel so horrified by death because they are so full of vitality and strong feelings that they do not think of death as it really is. They are not afraid of death because they do not think about it. If they gave it serious consideration, they would probably tremble with fear.
A friend of mine said to his twelve-year-old daughter, "There is a chance that hydrogen bombs will be dropped upon us in Japan." His daughter innocently asked him, "If that happened, what would become of us?" He answered her half-jokingly, "Well, we would all die. We would all die in an instant. Probably we would die an easy, gentle death." The girl suddenly turned pale and cried, "I hate death! I hate it!" He told me that he had never seen her face filled with such horror.
Even a twelve-year-old girl reacts this way when she thinks seriously of death. How seriously must people past middle age think of it! However healthy one may be, one sometimes thinks of death when one reaches middle age. The dark shade of death occasionally flits through one's mind. At such moments, one feels an indescribable thrill of horror, as though an icy wind were blowing on one's neck.
How much more fear must people who are seriously ill feel! Their hearts must almost burst with horror and loneliness when they think of death, which may come upon them at any moment. Moreover, the pain of their illness will torment them. The thought of death will double their pain during their remaining days.
Someone may say that he or she is not especially afraid of death. But people say this when they are not confronted by death. They will surely not be able to keep their composure when the moment of death actually approaches. Sometimes, though, the suffering of pain actually makes us forget the true pangs of death. When we feel extreme pain our minds are so filled with the desire for freedom from pain that often we are able to forget our terror of death.
When we think of condemned criminals who are in good health, we can easily imagine how keenly they must feel the pangs of death. Condemned criminals who are healthy do not have either sufficient suffering or sufficient pleasure to make them forget death. They constantly sit within the walls of their solitary cells and wait quietly for the coming of death. They are truly confronted by death; their suffering must be great beyond comparison.
In a sense, however, all people are just like criminals sentenced to death. The time will come when they will all surely die. When medical science makes further progress, their physical suffering at the time of death may be alleviated. But even so, they will not be free from the terror, anxiety, and suffering of death itself.
There is only one way to be free from the threat of death. This is a religion through which we can believe in eternal life--that we do not die, our lives only change in form. When we can perfect our consciousness through religion, we will be truly free from the terror and suffering of death.
We are shadowed not only by the pangs of death but also by the suffering of life. We are assaulted day and night by material, physical, spiritual, and other sufferings. Among these many sufferings, two, material and physical sufferings, should be alleviated through human knowledge and endeavor. Although these two forms of suffering cannot be entirely abolished in our present state of knowledge, they are being lessened bit by bit with the development and elevation of human knowledge. In fact, these kinds of suffering may almost disappear in time.
Spiritual suffering whose cause we can perceive with our conscious mind may be abolished through the eradication of its cause or through moral cultivation. However, there remains the spiritual suffering that we cannot control by our own power however hard we may strive for moral improvement. As mentioned earlier, when the subconscious mind erupts in violence, one cannot control it with the conscious mind however hard one may try.
Thinking earnestly that we do not hate some person, our hatred for him is growing in our minds. Warning ourselves sternly that we must not get angry, we suddenly burn with rage. Realizing that we do not have to be afraid of something, we cannot free ourselves from a feeling of terror or anxiety. We ordinary people often experience such conflicts. We cannot control even such sufferings of life, much less the terror and anxiety of death.
When people encounter a serious suffering that they cannot resolve however hard they may try, they feel as if they must depend upon something more powerful than themselves, something absolute, and they ask for help. They entrust themselves body and mind to this absolute power, as if to say, "Do as you please. I leave everything up to you."
What should we depend upon? To what should we entrust our body and mind? As mentioned before, primitive people prostrated themselves before the sun, mountains, animals, plants, or other human beings and the spirits dwelling within them. But such behavior is out of the question now. Believers in a more advanced form of religion depend on its "absolute power," on a god that is considered to be the almighty being who creates and governs everything in heaven and on earth. They manage to obtain a certain degree of mental peace by praying to this god and asking his help.
But even this peace of mind is limited. We cannot obtain absolute assurance and peace from such a god because this god exists externally, in some transcendental sphere like heaven. A god who majestically looks down on the world from heaven, a god who mercilessly punishes evil and rewards good--the more absolute the power this god possesses, the more dependent we become and at the same time, the more fear we feel because we do not know when we may be forsaken by the god or when we may be punished by him. For this reason, we live in great fear of the god, although we depend upon him with our whole heart. With such mental dependence on an external force, we cannot attain true mental peace (nirvana).
Can we depend upon anything inside ourselves? No, this is also unreliable because our mind is always subject to illusion. Our body is also unreliable, being destined to disintegrate eventually. If we could depend wholly upon something within us, we would have no need of religion and should be able to save ourselves by our own efforts.
What then should we depend upon for our salvation? We must here remember the Buddha's teaching "Make the self your light, make the Dharma your light" (Ji-tomyo, ho-tomyo), the words Shakyamuni spoke to Ananda, one of his ten great disciples, before dying. Ananda felt anxious, reflecting, "When the World-honored One, who is an unparalleled leader and teacher, dies, who on earth should we depend upon in our practice and life?" In response to Ananda's anxiety, the Buddha taught him as follows: "Ananda! In the future, you should make yourself your light and depend upon your own self. You must not depend upon other people. You should also make the Dharma your light and depend upon the Dharma. You must not depend upon others."
There is no better teaching than this to sum up the essence of a right religion in a few words. The Buddha first taught, "You can depend upon your own self." When we depend upon other people, we do not know what to do if we are forsaken by them or if they disappear. Therefore the Buddha admonished us to depend upon ourselves and walk the Way through our own efforts. But what should we depend upon in living our lives? The Buddha taught that this is nothing other than the Dharma, namely, the truth, and that we must not depend absolutely upon others. Here the word "others" means "gods," beings who are considered to exist outside ourselves and to be our masters. The Buddha taught emphatically that we must not depend upon such gods but only upon the Dharma, the truth.
Indeed, his words carry great weight. A single word of the teaching "Make the self your light, make the Dharma your light" is more valuable than all the innumerable teachings concerning human life and religion that have been promulgated by the many great thinkers of past ages.
Through this teaching, we understand that what we depend on, the Dharma, exists both within and outside us. It is the truth that permeates the entire universe, not establishing a distinction between inside and outside. Our body is produced by this truth and is caused to live by it. Our mind is also produced by it and caused to work by it. All things, including society, heaven, earth, plants, birds, and beasts, are produced by this truth and are caused to live by it.
A person who feels the word "truth" to be somewhat cold and abstract can replace it with the term "the great life," which makes everything in this world exist and live. When we are firmly aware in the depths of our mind that we are given life by this great life that permeates the universe, we can obtain the true mental peace that is not disturbed by anything.
