Lesson on life

bohiruci SG

Message: There was a man who had four sons.

He wanted his sons to learn not to judge  things too quickly.

So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look  at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall.

When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said, 'The tree was ugly, bent, and twisted'.

The second son said, 'No, it was covered with green buds and full of promise'.   
The third son disagreed; he said, 'It was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing I've ever seen'.

The last son disagreed with all of them; he said, 'It was ripe and drooping  with fruit, full of life and fulfilment'.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree's life.

He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up.   

If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of your spring,  the beauty of your summer, fulfilment of your fall.

Moral lessons:  
Don't let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest.   
Don't judge life by one difficult season.  
Persevere through the difficult patches and better times are sure to come some time or later.

An Eternal Now SG

This story is inspiring and true from the relative point of view, and helpful in the sense that it can help people go through hard times by reminding themselves that unpleasant times don't last forever -- but it still perpetuates the cycle of seeking something better in the future and is not ultimate from the viewpoint of Buddhadharma.

Because it still presumes the sign of the lifespan.

As Diamond Sutra stated, a Bodhisattva does not cling to any signs of self, person, sentient being, or life-span.

To presume a tree that undergoes birth, and later changes into death, and undergoing many changes in between, i.e. experiences 'changes in life' from one point to another, is still clinging to the notion of a self, a lifespan. We think the 'tree' is the center of it all, whereas the branches undergoes change and time.

However the dharma exhibits instantaneously at every moment... every moment is complete in itself, and discrete.

As Zen Master Dogen teaches, firewood does not turn into ashes. Winter does not turn into spring. Birth does not turn into death. Firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, ashes abides in the phenomenal expression of ashes, each expression is complete in itself and discrete.

When we perceive a separate 'self', we perceive 'time passing by', we perceive motion of 'things'/'entity' with a beginning (before) and end (after). Because only when we have the illusion of a separate, permanent 'self'/'observer', we chain and perceive linear 'movement' or 'time passing by' or 'birth changing to death, firewood changing into ashes'... because there seems to be movement/changes of an 'entity' moving/changing from one point to another (before to after), relative to an unchanging 'me' who is perceiving/experiencing them all.

And the illusion of an unchanging identity relative the world of changing objects makes it appear that time and motion is real. When the identity of self is seen through, it is seen that there is no self apart from each complete manifestation. Since everything is complete and absolute in itself, there is no succession, continuity or motion. There is transformation and change, but no changing 'thing'. Past mind, present mind, future mind, all are empty. There is no point of reference ('self') to experience motion and time. There is no static 'me' experiencing birth and death, because there is no 'me' apart from birth, no 'me' apart from death.

So to conclude: fully let be whatever expresses in the moment. Rather than being the observer of transformation, be present as the transformation. One IS the transformation. The difference is that by being an observer of change, we chain and link one thing succeeding to another, while by being change there is a timeless, unmoving quality. There is transformation, but is just this one thing, and then effortless transform to another just-this-one-thing, not a succession events (spring does not turn into summer). This is what Dogen calls 'being-time'.

Do not reject or resent what is occurring presently, nor grasp or chase or seek a better experience. Drop all holdings of the sense of identity and the conceptual constructs (such as lifespan, succession of past present and future, all of which are empty). Facing unpleasant situations we may hope to 'reach a pleasant future' soon... or when facing certain death, we fear that 'we may die soon', when we look into the future. But as Dogen says,

Similarly, when human beings die, they cannot return to life; but in Buddhist teaching we never say life changes into death.... Likewise, death cannot change into life.... Life and death have absolute existence, like the relationship of winter and spring. But do not think of winter changing into spring or spring into summer.

The present 'me' can't 'succeed' or 'continue' into the future because what happens then will have a complete existence in itself that is distinct from this manifestation. There is no continuity to an 'I', there is no fixed, permanent 'I' persisting through changes.

It is necessary to drop off body-mind. Then we might see that there is no 'me' experiencing 'changes in life', just the universe as one whole happening and 'life' itself plays out by itself spontaneously but without a center. As Dogen says, To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

Whatever happens, pleasant or unpleasant, it is seen as empty and impermanent. Ungraspable. But at the same time a complete expression in itself. By practicing in this way, one drops all holdings... only Thus.

Anyway 'the future will be better' is still an assumption. Because 'future' itself is an assumption as we can't even know if there'll be a 'future' -- i.e., we can't know whether we'll still be around the next moment, the next breathe, the next day, whether we'll be killed in a car crash. We should thus cast aside our clingings and earnestly practice.