Milky Way over Half-Dome

(Niwano – 4}

last of this series

It is in these pages I read words that forever changed my way of thinking and view life: Nichiren’s, life at each moment permeates the universe and is revealed in all phenomena, while traveling on a bus to a temp job in downtown L.A. in 1976;  Niwano’s cause to live, sitting on the terrace surrounded by geraniums in a friend’s apartment in San Francisco in 1982.

Mind – Desire to Live

Buddhism for Today, A Modern Interpretation of the Threefold Lotus Sutra, Nikkyo Niwano; John Weatherhill, Inc., New York and Tokyo; and Kosei Publishing Company, Tokyo. Copyright 1961, 1976 by Kosei Publishing Company.  [Kojiro Miyasaka’s English translation very slightly amended] – from Chapter 16, The Life of the Tathagata:

  Shakyamuni Buddha expounded the doctrine of dependent origination, meaning that all phenomena are produced by causation – a thing arises from or is produced through a cause. A thing does not take form unless there is an appropriate condition. This truth applies to all existence and phenomena in the universe. The Buddha perceived this so profoundly that even modern science cannot probe further.

  Thinking this, our lives may seem to be capricious. . . to  indicate that all things are  products of mere chance. But this is not so. When we look carefully at things around us, we find that water, stone, and human beings are produced each according to a certain pattern with its own individual character.

  Through what power or direction are the conditions that  produce various things in perfect order from such an amorphous energy? When we consider this regularity and order, we cannot help admitting that some rule exists. It is the rule that causes all things to exist. This is indeed the Law taught by the Buddha.

  We do not exist accidentally, but exist and live by means of this Law. As soon as we realize this fact, we become aware of our firm foundation and can set our minds at ease. Far from being capricious, this foundation rests on the Law with which nothing can compare. This assurance is the source of the great peace of mind that is not agitated by anything. It is the Law that imparts life to us all. The Law is not something cold but is full of  vigor and vivid with life.

  Just consider that billions of years ago, the earth had no life . . . when the earth cooled about two billion years ago, microscopic one-celled living creatures were produced through the working of the Law. They were born when the energy forming the foundation of lava, gas, and vapor came into contact with appropriate conditions—the Law providing the conditions for the generation of life. From this we realize the Law is  not cold, a mere abstract rule, but full of vivid power causing everything to exist and live.

  Conversely everything has the power of desiring to exist and live. Two billion years ago, even lava, gas, and vapor possessed the urge to live. That’s why one-celled creatures were generated from them when conditions became right. These infinitesimal creatures endured all kinds of trials . . . extreme heat and cold, tremendous floods, terrestrial rains, for about two billion years, and continued to live, gradually evolving into more  sophisticated forms, culminating in human beings.

  This evolution was caused by the will to live. . . Life had mind through which it desired to live even before it existed on earth. Such a will still exists in everything in the universe. This will exists in humans today.

  From the scientific point of view, humans are formed by a combination of elementary particles; and if we analyze this still more deeply, we see that humans are an accumulation of energy.

  Therefore the  mind desiring to live must surely exist in humans.

  However, this is a mind so deep that we cannot grasp, isolate, or control it. It is the mind existing in the origin of life, even deeper than the subconscious mind. What is the  mind that desires to live? We cannot isolate it by means of science or explain it by some theory. . . Philosophers have  attempted to explain it as “the blind will toward life.” We can call it, “the universal will” or “universal life.” We can also describe it as “the power that makes everything live” or “the rule that makes everything exist.”

  Shakyamuni Buddha  taught this point in the following way: all things in the universe are emptiness—void, and they are produced and annihilated by a cause. Nothing exists in a fixed eternal form.

  Only the Law permeating them—Mind, “Buddha,” the power that makes everything live is eternal. When we realize the truth and power that makes all of us live, we “see the Buddha.”  ////

  “Life at each moment encompasses both body and spirit and both self and environment of all sentient beings in every condition of life, as well as insentient beings—plants, sky and earth, on down to the most minute particles of dust. Life at each moment permeates the universe and is revealed in all phenomena. Those awakened to this truth, themselves embody this relationship.” – Nichiren in a letter to Toki Jonin, 1255.

  for the transitory and eternal can only be seen in each other.