Nichiren Buddhism

Part 3

The Eternity of Lifein Buddhism

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The Eternity of Life

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Modern View of Life and Death

• It is difficult to talk about Buddhism without talking of reincarnation or rebirth. Often it is a first question people ask when then learn you are practicing Buddhism, because they find it so intriguing

• More important reason to talk about what happens at the end of this life, as it has positive effect on life itself

• How we view death determines how we live our lives

• There are two common for the West views of Life and Death:

– The end is the end– The eternity of soul

• Buddhism talks about the eternity of life

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Nothing is Created, Nothing is Destroyed

• Even if it is not necessary to believe in the idea of reincarnation to begin to practice Buddhism, it is important to understand the Buddhist view of death and its relationship to life.

• Buddhism believes in the eternity of life: all forms of lives are born and die, but the life force within them goes on forever. Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed.

• In accord with the law of conservation of energy and matter in physics - all the matter and energy in the Universe is a fixed quantity. There is only transformation from one state to another.

• Buddhism teaches the same thing although it doesn’t seek the validation of science.

• It is remarkable that through his own enlightenment Shakyamuni was teaching the law of conservation of energy and matter many hundreds of years before it had a name.

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Two Phases of Eternal Life

• Life has two states:– periods of manifest existence - where it follows a cycle of birth,

growth, decline and death– latency, that we call death, where the life energy of our life sinks into

the ocean life energy that fills the Universe.

• It is like being awake and asleep.• The sleep is absolutely universal and vital. It is not simply the

absence of thoughts and actions - it is different state of being. It is ranked as an essential ingredient for life together with food and water. Our ordinary daily lives have two clearly defined and different phases of activity and rest.

• Buddhism teaches the same, life and death are two phases of eternal life. Death is not wholly different phenomenon - it is a different state of being: neither existence nor non-existence

• But what precisely is the nature of the bit that is ever lasting?• Buddhism calls it “Life Entity” or “Life Energy”

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Life Entity

• The term “life entity” can create a confusion. It might look like another way to describe soul. In reality these are two profoundly different concepts.

• Soul:– Appears at the moment the human being as a creation of external power– Identified with the particular person– Exists after death in a spiritual place as the essence of this and only this

person

• Entity of life– No creation, all matter and energy has already existed– Has always been and will always be– Manifests only when right circumstances appear– Is not identified with a particular person, but pass from one to another

• So, the main difference between the soul and the life energy is that soul is attached to one’s personality and life energy is not.

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Rebirth vs. Reincarnation

Life Energy in Buddhism

• ”Stream of consciousness" that links life with life

• Example: Flame of a candle which lights another candle

Reincarnation in Hinduism vs. Rebirth in Buddhism

• Transmigration of a “soul” or “spirit” (something tangible even though subtle) from one body to another

• Example: Water poured from bowl to bowl, always same water

Soul in Christianity

• Soul is attached to one person and when leaves the body remains out there as a part of this person

• Example: Water, which filled a bowl is preserved when bowl is broken and represents this and only this bowl

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Non-substantiality

• According to Buddhism, human beings do not posses absolute “self”, because self is only a temporary product of the combination of physical and spiritual characteristics

• During the phase of life an individual life entity unites with the necessary essential elements to form an individual person

• With death those elements separate or dissociate• Life entity moves off and begins a period of latency• When the conditions are right it unites and appears once more

with another set of essential elements to form another individual life. And on and on throughout the eternity.

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Five Aggregates

• The essential elements - 5 components are formed at the beginning of life, at the conception, and define each human being:– Form - physical body and the senses organs that enable us to receive

continuous stream of information about the environment– Perception - sensing an object as either pleasant or unpleasant or

neutral– Conception - the ability to interpret the information received from

perception and formulate ideas– Volition - the ability to initiate action on the basis of our continuous

stream of interpretations– Consciousness - the ability to go on doing all these thing: receiving

information, comprehend its physical and emotional dimensions, make judgements and decisions about it and initiate actions in response to it.

• Five aggregates stay together in a constant process of change and interaction as individual moves through his or her life.

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Two points about 5 aggregates

• Buddhist view: Coming together of 5 components is purely temporary matter. They only stay together for as long as our life lasts. Know as truth of Temporary Existence. Every life is unique fusion of these five components, because the causes and conditions which were the basis for this life will never be the same

• Scientific view: Science explains life as a temporary coming together of a relatively limited number or essential elements. Taking separately molecules and atoms we can’t find anything that can be called life. But when they come together they grow and differentiate in the way only partially understood to form a living individual who has physical, emotional and intellectual potential. At the end of the life, this essential elements dissociate as inanimate raw materials. Ready to be put together in some other form. They do not disappear. They are recycled. Similar to the idea of the 5 components.

• It brings us to a closer look how Buddhism defines consciousness

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The Nine Consciousness

• The first five of these consciousnesses are the familiar senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.

• The 6th consciousness or the mind as we are used to thinking of it, which functions to enable us to make sense of what is coming to us from external material world through our senses. When as growing child recognises hot as hot and blue as a colour.

• The 7th consciousness is directed towards our inner, spiritual world. This is the place where the conditioning we experience as we grow up is stored. Here we formulate ideas, use our imagination, evaluate as right or wrong, etc. Through this consciousness we have our sense of who we are, our gender, our national identity and so on. Here are also delusions and fear of death. This consciousness in a certain way is limiting, setting the boundaries. Example - a tied elephant.

• The 8th consciousness (alaya) is a vast storehouse. It register all our sensorial impressions filtered through conscious mind in all lives. It registeres all our personal experiences, so all the causes and effects (karma) which affect the way that the world comes to us. Sub-consciousness? Collective consciousness?

• The 9th consciousness (amala) - the Buddha nature, or Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. It is like the source of energy which supports our mental, spiritual and physical activities and what sustains us for the eternity. Some says that we connect to this consciousness restoring our energy.

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Life is Eternal

• Life is eternal. Life has always been and will always be. Not the physical reality that looks like me this lifetime, but the entity of life which is manifested as me.

• Nichiren gives name to Life - Myoho-Renge-Kyo or Law of Life• Our life is a manifestation of the Law of Life.• NOT that we contain the Law inside but WE ARE the

manifestation of the Law.• To explain it Nichiren used the metaphor of the ocean.• We will use interchangeably terms Life = Law of Life = Myoho-

Renge-Kyo

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The Metaphor of the Ocean

• The ocean gives rise to waves. Each wave arises and melts back in. It has a limited life span. Each wave is unique and different from every other wave.

• If you cross section the ocean - you see that the ocean manifests as a wave. The core of a wave is the ocean. What distinguishes wave from wave is simply physical parameters - dimension, shape and the amount of froth on the top of the wave.

• This is like our life. Meaning, that out of this ocean of Myoho-renge-kyo life arises, like the wave. Most important thing to realise is that just as the wave is a manifestation of the ocean, each human life is manifestation of this Myoho-renge-kyo.

• Life manifests with the rhythm, up and down (non in linear fashion). This is the eternal rhythm of our own life. We come from the periods of quiescence, melted back in this universe, until periods of manifest.

• Does our wave disappear in the ocean? The life of ocean has currents just like the ocean has its currents.

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Interconnectedness of Life

• Think about two waves or two hundred waves - at the same time. Are they connected?

• If you stand on a cliff looking down, they look disconnected. But if you make a cross-section of the ocean, you see that each of them is a manifestation, of that ocean.

• Every wave has the same core. The difference has to do with the physical characteristic of the wave, not the fundamental being of the wave.

• So as life. It is interconnected. There is no life that exists independently from any other life.

• As a result, all human beings are interconnected and inseparable sharing that common fundamental core.

• So, to think that we are a stand alone, completely separable from everybody else entity is a delusion. Every human life is intimately connected to every other human life and all other life forms.

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Oneness of Self and Environment

• All life has an environment in which it functions and all of that physical reality is also a wave.

• To understand life is to understand that a human life is inseparable from its environment. And our life itself is an environment for other people.

• To live a life based on this understanding is to live a life ultimately of compassion. I cannot become indestructibly happy by myself, because I don’t exist by myself.

• That what Nichiren Daishonin called “Dependant Origination”:– we cannot have a manifest life without other lives to support us. All life

sustains my life and makes it possible for me to have life.

• So, our environment and us are deeply interconnected. When I change myself - my environments changes!

• Buddhism says, my environment is a reflection of myself. When I don’t like my environment, my circumstances, I have to search INSIDE what is in me that is reflected in undesirable for me way?

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Human Revolution

We are extremely powerful because all changes we want lay inside us and we have the power over ourselves. If we believe in this…

“A great revolution of character in an individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and further, will cause a change in the destiny of all humankind.”

Daisaku Ikeda “The Human Revolution”

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Questions and Answers

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The End