Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Nichiren Buddhism
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
4
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 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 ones personality and life energy is not.
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
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.
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.
8
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 = MyohoRenge-Kyo
10
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.
12
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 dont like my environment, my circumstances, I have to search INSIDE what is in me that is reflected in undesirable for me way?
13
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
14