Creating peace (part 3)
A person who reads my blog all the time told me
her thoughts on “Creating peace (part
2).”
Here’s what the person said:
“I think I should or I have to stop my way of life built on the sense of
separation and switch it to a way of life built on the sense of inseparability,
but I can’t imagine why living in that way would make me excited because I’ve
never lived based on the sense of inseparability.”
Actually, a surprisingly
large number of people have such impressions or doubts.
It’s really a pity that
people get stuck in that kind of doubt and hesitate to go ahead with the true
way of life.
Let me explain it with a
couple of examples.
The first example is a story of smoking. To not
smoke is very natural and nothing particularly exciting for non-smokers.
On the contrary, if
smokers examine the truth about cigarettes and clearly realize that smoking has
only outrageous demerits, then they will be happy to have realized the truth. They
will be dying to stop smoking. They will find themselves feeling excited,
thinking about being freed from their enslavement to smoking.
Let’s take another
example. It is a matter of course and nothing particularly exciting for
ordinary people to be able to go anywhere and do anything they please.
Suppose someone has, for
some reason, been put in a dark, damp jail for years. They can’t go anywhere
freely and their movement is restricted. How wonderful it would be for them if they
could get out of jail and go anywhere or do anything freely. Then, if they were
finally allowed to go out of jail, I’m sure they’d be excited just to think of
it.
Here’s still another example. It is said that
people know the value of health only after they lose it. To be in good health
is natural and nothing particularly
exciting for a healthy person.
In contrast, if a person who has suffered for a
long time from a disease is told by someone reliable, “if you do so-and-so,
you’ll definitely recover your health,” the person will be automatically
excited and smile, imagining themself getting better and healthy.
As evident from the above examples, the true way
of life built on the sense of
inseparability is actually a natural, ordinary way of life, and the way of life
itself is nothing really exciting or special. The only thing is that you are
always satisfied and have a peace of mind.
However, the way of life built on the sense of separation causes distress not
only to yourself but also to people near you, and is also the root cause of
various problems in society as a whole. With a clear realization of this fact, who
wouldn’t want to escape from it as soon as possible to switch to the way of
life based on the truth of inseparability?
Doesn’t just imagining it make you excited and
happy?
