PARADIGM SHIFT
-From limited life to limitless life-
Introduction
With the news of Barak Obama winning the presidential election, not only American people but also people all over the globe rejoiced and even cried. Those moved by this event included African Americans in the United States, who suffer from discrimination, Kenyans who represent part of Obama’s roots, but also most Americans, young and old, and people from around the world who felt like they themselves won. Obama’s campaign message was beyond discrimination (race, religion, gender, generation) for unified communities (society, state, economy, ecology). His victory speech sent out his mission message: “Let’s change the world…Yes, we can!” This lit the torch of sea change, paradigm shift, from the old world to the new one. Confucius said, “If I can hear the Way in the morning, I may die in the evening.” Gandhi said, “If one man can do it, millions can.” If one can find the true Way to live, one will be totally moved to dedicate everything for it. It all depends on how much we are moved and motivated. Motivation is the moving power even of mountains and mundum.
At the end of the last millennium, we found many books and articles with such titles as “The End of the World,” “The End of Ecology,” “The End of Science,” “The End of System,” and at last “The End of All.” At the beginning of the new millennium, we hoped for a fresh millennium with an ending to a ‘century of nationalism and wars,’ and looked forward to a world in peace. Our hopes were shattered by the 911 attack on the hearts of political and economic powers and the ensuing wars on terror and imperialistic advances. Then we found mass extinction and ecological doom setting in within this century. Now we witness economic meltdown and tsunami all around the globe. We are all bound by them. We are now beyond the limit of growth in population, food, etc. Our planet is exhausting resources, energy, species, ecology, etc. Is there any way out of this catastrophic situation? If there is, the answers must come from a completely different approach to the problems and lead to radical new solutions. This new approach can be found by avoiding the usual human pitfalls of fiction (human artifice) and instead taking a close look at truth (natural system). We must learn the lesson from the following story, that whole (total) perspective and wholesome (peaceful) practice are the solution:
The King Mirror (Adassa) summoned blind men to feel
a certain animal and report to him what they found. One
reported that it was a snake. Another said it was a hose. Still
Another said it was like a pillar. And another thought it was
a wall. Then they started fighting among themselves, claiming
their own findings true and others’ wrong.
1. Problems
a. Personal problems
1. Personal problems caused by the desire for self-survival
We are suffering, because we cannot escape from the suffering of our birth, sickness, aging and death, parting with loved ones, meeting with hated ones, always wishing for survival and satisfaction. Consciously or unconsciously we have fear, sorrow, anxiety and uncertainty in life and death. We suffer, because things change against our desires. We suffer from systems’ breakdown at different levels: individual, social and global. In short, our suffering is dissatisfaction, discrepancy between our desire and reality, or we might say, reality going against desire (duk-kha, wrong-going). Where there is desire, there is suffering. Usually members of the same species do not cheat and kill each other. Humans, however, have been doing this at extraordinary ways and degrees, individually, socially and globally (lies, killings, wars, genocides, WMD, species extinction). We lack trust among us, which, as Confucius taught, is more important in sustaining communities than food and military forces. It is obvious that we are the most selfish among species, as is evidenced by our practice of mass scale sacrifice and slaughter of animals for devouring. This is what we do to our fellow human beings also. This is exactly what the blind people in the previous story did. The same theme will be illustrated again below, page 5, through the story of the parents lost in the desert. We are so selfish and sunken in our habits (karma) that we are unable to notice and admit it. How can we have safety, security and satisfaction without trust among people, in societies and the life system? How can we have a truthful, peaceful, free and friendly world with selfish, trustless, fighting people.
2. Personal problems at present
Even in normal situations, our psycho-physical systems deteriorate, decay and die according to the systemic and organic laws (laws of thermodynamics and genome arrangement). In addition to the natural process, we humans have our special cravings; thus we have more problems in abnormal scale. With the present ecological, economic deterioration, our systems have obviously reached a critical point:
Individual system: Our psycho-somatic systems are deviled, deteriorated (especially reproductive, immune and nerve-systems), crippled, diseased (newer, harder) and disabled (by chemical, radioactive, industrial, governmental mismanagement and pollution).
b. Social problems
1. Social problems created out of self-strife
We are now facing catastrophic problems in the world’s economic and ecological systems, collapsing human civilization and the global life system. With jobless, homeless, starvation rates at an all time high many people are suffering and struggling for survival. We compete and wage wars against other humans, as if we were natural enemies. We have been living in a world largely dictated by Social Darwinism theory – survival of the strongest. Because of this many systems have become “treachery and robbery systems.” Thus, honesty becomes not the best policy. We cannot employ such systems partially, but only totally, because the fundamental principle prevails – all are interrelated and relative. Everyone is doubtful, fearful and trustless. If we continue this way, everyone is set to lose, though no one wants to lose (survival of the shrewdest). We face social problems of all kinds: crimes, shooting sprees, hatred, envy, bullying, stealing and lying. We have political, ideological, racial and religious massacre, ethnic cleansing, genocide and terrorism. This Darwinian winner-take-all mentality has us pointing nuclear warheads at each other on hair-trigger alert for total annihilation.
2. Social problems of civilization
Civilization (=urbanization, from Latin civitas, city states with walls for wars) is a pyramidal system to discriminate, exploit, exterminate others (farmers, foreigners, forests, forest–dwellers, etc.). Those at the top of the pyramid try to make higher pyramids, polarizing people, plants and the planet with more matter and power (economical, social, political, military). Because we are bound by matter and power, and money buying them (Chinese/Japanese character 金 ‘money or gold’ has a pyramidal shape, so a ‘pyramid’ is called ‘money-character-tower,’ ‘kin-ji-tou,’), we are on the verge of economic and ecological breakdown by the bubbling and breaking up of the natural system. Unless our desires are limited, a limited global system cannot meet them. As civilization is the system of craving, it must either suffer or stop. This is the civilization’s concomitant nature and fate. Human civilization is at a critical and terminal stage:
Civilization system: The production-social-spiritual system involves discrimination (racially, religiously, economically, socially, culturally), deprivation (malnutrition, starvation, homeless, jobless, refugee situation, etc.), damage (stresses, diseases, withdrawal, etc.), deformities (crimes, terrorism, money-games, political/military/industrial complex, bribery, etc.) and doom (wars, Atomic-Biological-Chemical weapons, wastes, accidents, disasters).
c. Global problems
1. Global problems created by the modern human drive for self-satisfaction
We have been facing the global problematique i.e. globally interconnected problems such as global warming, abnormal climate, species extinction, resource depletion, deforestation, desertification and ecological deterioration. We are set in the sixth mass extinction. This time it is being caused by the human species unlike the previous ones, which came about due to natural causes. We are facing a tragedy similar to the one that inhabitants of Easter Island once faced, where people cut down the last tree and eventually their neighbors’ throats to eat their flesh, unable to build boats, etc. We are also eating our beloved children as depicted in the Son’s Flesh Scripture, Our Stolen Future, Rodin’s sculpture Ugolinu, also in the Human Comedy.
2. Global problematique, civilization cancer
The Son’s Flesh Scripture tells us of the parents, lost in a desert, who at last ate their beloved son’s flesh out of thirst and hunger. This story tells us that we are feeding on the Four Foods, material and mental (perceptions, feeling, volition) as if eating our beloved one’s flesh. We are devouring our dearest ones (irreplaceable life of others and our own) to feed and fatten our thirst and hunger. We care only about ourselves, sacrificing others. For matter and power, we even sacrifice our own mind and life. All sorrows and suffering come from self-centeredness bent for self-satisfaction. Our ‘selves’ are short-sighted and short-circuited, while the global life system is not equipped to handle this. Thus, the whole world is now ablaze, as the Burning Scripture tells us:
The world is ablaze. The eyes are ablaze. The ears are ablaze. The nose is ablaze. The tongue is ablaze. The body is ablaze. The mind is ablaze.
The blazing world is now in danger of doom and destruction, in which we are accomplices:
Life system: Plant and animal habitat systems such as forests and reefs are deteriorating; lives and life systems are being decimated, deranged and devastated. Air, water and earth systems are globally warming-up which has lead to farmlands and rivers drying-up as well as desertification of lands and lakes. Resources, energy and the ozone layer are polluted, depleted and deteriorating.
2. Cause
a. Personal cause.
1. Craving, the cause of suffering
We are craving. Craving is the direct cause of our suffering (duk-kha, going against grain or desire). All suffering or problems (universal ones such as aging, death, and particular ones such as wars, eco-collapse) originate from our craving. We would not suffer, if we had no craving and just accepted reality. We want to survive and therefore we crave food, shelter, etc. The word ‘want’ expresses the nature of our craving, both sides of the coin are inseparable: ‘wish’ and ‘lack.’ The root cause of our craving, however, lies in our nescience, nescience (no wisdom: witness) of the nature of our ‘self’ and ‘situation’. As moving animals, we sense our bodies as if separated and independent from the world. As our cravings grow greater, our dissatisfactions or suffering become bigger. Our wanting knows no limit, going against the reality of lacking, loss, decay and death. Our wanting is limitless, but the reality is not.
2. What is reality?
Reality is the phenomenal world. Phenomena means changes in the relations of states through the interplay of causes and conditions in space and time. We can interpret them as dynamic systems with elements, relations and dynamo (moving power). ‘System,’ ‘elements,’ etc. are not entities, but temporary designations (names, labels) having super and sub systems (universe, galaxies, stars, plants, organs, cells, atoms, molecules, etc.) which are interrelated and interchangeable (matter and energy). For now it suffices to say that reality is a collection of systems in causal relationships. Reality is the system of systems whose phenomena are infinitely related and relative.
3. Reality is the dynamic system
We name a form and think ‘name’ (reference) has its ‘substance’ (referent). This habit makes two mistakes, fiction (dragon, ghost, turtle’s hair, hare’s horn, etc.) and fictitious entity (Self, Soul, State, etc.). In reality, there is no absolute, independent, eternal entity in our phenomenal world, because all are related and relative, dependent and changing. ‘Self’ for instance is interrelated, interchangeable and impermanent with other (people, plant, light, language, water, wind, etc.). It is a dynamic system with constant flow and interaction between matter and energy, with limitless causes and conditions throughout space and time.
4. Law of causality and Dependent Origination
If we avoid conceptualization and attest to reality, we witness no such thing as the self-same, sovereign ‘self,’ but instead find an impermanent, interrelated ‘system,’ provisionally named ‘self,’ constantly changing within itself and in relation to others. If we truly understand this, all forms and functions are related and relative, neither separated nor absolute. This was depicted by the Buddha (Awakened One) millennia ago (as the ‘norm of all forms,’ ‘Dharma of all dharmas’ i.e. Dependent Origination: ‘All phenomena are dependently originated on causes and conditions.’) and by natural scientists recently (as Causal Law). It is clear that there is no self-same, sovereign ‘self’ entity (no ‘Self’) in the Awakened Way or in natural sciences. This has always been the truth everywhere and throughout all time.
The popularly known Dependent Origination is the 12-membered one. It was formulated to teach us about how we live in suffering. It informs us the origination of 1) perception/consciousness (dependently originated on sense organs and objects), 2) suffering (on craving), 3) birth/aging/death (on nescience) in three steps of delusion, action and suffering as follows (the top, the center and the bottom correspond to 1 to 3.):
5. Reality and fiction
For convenience’s sake, we admit ‘self’ in conventional dealings (communication, commerce, court, etc.). This is called ‘conventional truth’ (sammuti satya: being in agreement: common sense) in contradistinction to ‘ultimate truth’ (parama-artha satya: being in ultimate sense) in the Awakened Way. We may compare such ‘self’ with a bubble in the ocean (ocean symbolizing a dynamic integral life system, with water, wind, etc.). Because we are brought up and trained in the conventional human world, we become very self-conscious and self-centered, unlike the girls discarded by their parents and fostered by wolves (with wolf-habit, without human one) and much less like trees (living in harmony with the whole world, without willfully selfish senses).
6. Four Idola, five idols
Francis Bacon described human idola, idolatry habits or traits. They are idolon of cave (individual), of agora (public space, societal), of theater (authority) and of species (human). We may think of these four characteristics as self, society, status, species and add symbolism as the fifth idolatry characteristic of humans. The last is the most important characteristic of human ability and action, a double-edged sword with the ability to cook or kill.
7. Symbolism, human characteristic
Ernst Cassirer considered humans to be ‘animals of symbolism’ (homo symbolicum), skillful in handling symbolism. Human characteristics lie in constructing symbolic world of languages, mythologies, religions, histories, arts and sciences. Language enabled humans to figure out reality in perspective with science and history, but it also enabled us to fabricate an artificial world. We are idea-latry, idea-worshippers and idea-warriors (ideas, isms, ideologies). Thus, we believe in ideas such as Self, State and Civilization as real or entity (static substance), rather than illusory (dynamic system, changing and relative).
8. Self symbol, root cause
Humans developed a strong sense of ‘self’ as a symbol handler. Through movements, we identify our bodies as our ‘selves’ and through thoughts, we identify our minds as our ‘selves.’ When we possess things (material or mental), we become possessed by them. Possession is possessedness. We become bound and boxed in, according to our possession (convention, conviction, creed, etc.). We are boxed up in different sizes, matter, power, mind and life. We live in such boxes as cars, cages and cell-phones, coffins and so forth. For human beings, the conviction of my ‘self’ as independent from other ‘selves’ is the most common one. Because of motion and conception, we become attached to the ‘self’ so much that our thoughts and actions revolve around self-survival, self-satisfaction and self-centeredness. This is the root cause, the first mismatch of the button and button hole, leading to the ensuing mismatches (the five calamities). In reality, we do not and cannot possess material things, because they are part and parcel of the total universal system, flowing, fluctuating and fluxing constantly and continuously. We must understand and be content with the functioning or state of being (activation or appreciation) rather than gain or loss (greed or grief).
9. Five calamities
The mismatch (delusion of ‘self’) is followed by bondage, discrimination, exploitation and extermination (five calamities). Our competition and conflict with others arises out of our belief in ‘self’ as center of the universe, we are constantly seeking to protect our ‘self’ against the ‘other. As our ‘self-shell’ gets harder, our world gets more antagonistic, ‘others’ becoming foreigners and foes. We witness this now in extremely expanded ways in our daily living, in concrete forms such as deception, fraud, discrimination in race, religion, gender, generation, exploitation of humans, animals, resources and extermination of races, species.
b. Social cause
1. Humans, social animal
We are trained in our society to behave as ‘selves,’ to compare and compete with others, for more matter and power. We constantly identify and intensify our ‘selves’ with possessions and positions, calling ‘I’ (ego), ‘my,’ etc. Because of this ego-calling, we become ego-centric and even imagine an ego-entity. Thus, we fight for tangible material possessions and social positions (fortune and fame: “Only two,” a monk replied, to an emperor asking how many boats were busily plying up and down on the great river.) for survival and strength. This is the primal motivating power for abundance and convenience (of civilization).
2. Civilization, fight for matter and power
This civilization that has been cradled in the globe is now infesting and making a cemetery of it, as cancer invades its host. City states (polis, pura, burg, bourg, etc.) were citadels, with walls and moats set in place, outsiders becoming discriminated against, exploited and exterminated. Civilizations constructed pyramids (ziggurats, tower of Babel) and created ‘pyramidal society’ inside out (starting wars, colonies, slaves, classe). Because matter (material wealth) and power (social status) are limited, we must fight for and fence them. Pyramidal systems are not natural, cyclical, systemic, sustainable, safe (resource, energy, power, position). Because they lack systemic truth and social trust, they have never been wholesome and peaceful. The idea that pyramidal systems can continue to grow and prosper through the use of the Earth’s limited material resources is in contradiction with the way natural systems actually function and thrive. Because the pyramidal system is working against the natural systems wrought by the whole universe and its history, our pyramidal system must collapse due to its system flaw. It is set to fail ecologically, economically, socially and culturally.
c. Global cause
1. Civilization, cancer of life system
The global problematique is caused by civilization, the cancer of the global life system. Mass production, consumption and disposal of matter for hedonism and hegemony (mass military complex) are burdening our ecology and economy, and damaging the Earth’s life system and quality. Having spread all over the globe, creating the global problematique, the cancerous civilization has initiated its own death and possibly the death also of the global life system.
2. Humans, cause of global crises
Our short, small and shallow sights and satisfactions in ordinary living requiring material abundance and powerful convenience are the real cause of our global crises. We think we can buy them with money, but we actually become slaves to them. Money can buy neither abundant life nor powerful mind, neither truth nor peace. Rather, we are buried by money, matter and power, and at the same time, we bury truth, beauty, goodness, holiness and peace. The whole human endeavor has produced great global calamities, but has led to neither gratification nor gratitude.
3. Solution
a. Personal solution
1. Returning to wholesome whole
We have a solution. Because we started suffering, we can stop it. We can stop it by stilling our craving. Craving comes from our nescience of our ‘selves’ that we are separate ‘selves.’ Religion, the vanguard of the Spiritual Revolution, aimed at solving this problem. Religion means re-union (from Latin re-ligare). Otto Schrader defined religion as the holy. Sin means separation (cf. asunder, sundry, etc.). Separation is solitude and suicide in the system (society, ecology). Religion is to re-unite the separated self (self and other, body and mind, etc.) with the holy (wholly, wholesome). We have been raised and educated in civilization, the pyramidal system, and, therefore, became separated, selfish and sinful.
2. Law of ability
Habit is said to be our second nature. Shin’ichi Suzuki taught us five principles of ‘ability education’ (‘mother tongue method’), illustrating how human girls grew like wolves, running on all fours, seeing in the darkness, smelling meat at one hundred meters away, lapping up water rather than drinking, neither speaking nor thinking with human language. The five principles of ability are better environment, better method, better instructor, earlier start and more practice. The Awakened One said that friends make the whole of our life and that religion is cultivation. We can become either wolves or awakened ones. Knowing how life adjusts to environment through the evolutionary process, we understand that karma (cognate of ‘ceremony:’ formed action: habit, ‘creation:’ action: function) makes our first nature, cultivating our body and mind (long and short products of practice). Practice makes perfect. Our body and mind and our heredity and ability are dependently originated – developed by practices and environment that have limitless causes and conditions. We are part and parcel of the universe in time and space throughout this process.
3. Paradigm shift, from Self to Life (ego to eco)
As we have more knowledge and deeper insight, we can understand how this kind of variegated world is dependently originated on limitless causes and conditions. If we know how phenomena originate, we can adjust conditions to change results (ex. adjusting water, nutrition, light for seeds to grow or die). We must open our hearts and minds first, to observe suffering (problems), source (of suffering: causes/conditions), cessation (of suffering: solutions) and way (to cessation of suffering: methods) – Four Noble Truths. This approach is a systemic ‘system approach.’ The law of Dependent Origination was the first “system theory,” discovering the relatedness and relativity of all phenomena. The conventional truth (common sense) is an impediment to the ultimate truth and the culprit of civilization (ex. discrimination of race and religion, slavery, sexism). So, we must attain and apply the ultimate truth in our life to be freed from the conventional truth.
The most common but complex convention is the inhabited idea of the ‘independent’ (‘eternal,’ ‘absolute’) ‘Self.’ Our senses identify “the body” as “my body,” as if the senses (perception/consciousness) possess the body and as if the senses (‘I’ idea) are separated and independent of the world. Actually our body, sense and mind are an inseparable system, each part dependent on the other and on the world in order to function properly. Other individuals are separated and independent by name only. Language symbols cut out only one aspect of the world, integral whole, as if separated and then reifies it as independent (substance, entity). We usually think that a word (reference, signifier, symbol) has its object (referent, signified, symbolized). Thus, we think that there is something called ‘I’ (body, mind, substance, soul, etc.). But in reality ‘I’ is only a symbol referring to impermanent, inseparable phenomena (with bodies, organs, cells, genes, matter, energy, air, water, food, forest, stars, etc.) in constant dynamic flow and flux, assimilation and association (thus, no exact referent, entity, separable, independent, constant). Our individual life systems are inseparable and integral parts and parcel of the global life system. Individual systems cannot exist without the global system, even though the latter can exist without the former. It is, therefore, a gross mistake for a man (self) to conquer (control selfishly) mankind (society) or for the mankind to conquer a global life system (species or space).
Individual systems (humans, animals, plants, etc.) are systemically (organically, socially, culturally) integrated with (mit) other individual systems, sharing and supporting each other. This is truth. “Only truth wins” (Indian national emblem), because truth is the universal system reality in limitless relations throughout space and time. We must return to this truth. This is what religions intended (from sin to holy). Separation damages and destroys systems. This causes imbalance in integral whole and results in suffering. We must shift our paradigm of ‘ego’ to ‘eco’ and focus on the health of the entire system as opposed to a small part of this system. This is the “Life Revolution.” This is the only solution.
Social solution
1. Returning to togetherness, friendship
When we understand the truth (Dependent Origination) through our knowledge and when we witness this reality (related and relative system) through meditation (stopping karma, returning to the original state: becoming tree-like: true), we can comply with the truthful world of interdependence and interconnectedness. In our knowledge of truth we are together with all. The domain of friendship (Greek philia, Sanskrit priya) is the true free-dom, beloved-domain (priya-dhaman Sanskrit). Only when we become friends with others can we become free. Only where we become true, we can become free. All living beings, plants or animals, are all in essence sisters and brothers. We are the family of forty billion years old sharing the same life system. Environment is essential part and parcel of this system, though this word was produced by misconception and is producing misconduct, giving the impression of it as ‘outside of life’ (sur-rounding, um-welt).
2. Truth of interdependence
An independent ‘self’ is a delusion due to the symbolic nature of human language. Such a delusion never happens with other animals much less plants. ‘Tree’ and ‘true’ share the same root which means enduring millennia or eternally (deru: to endure, or dhrί: to hold: root of dharma: form, norm, law, truth), while humans and ideas belie and become superstitious as we grow older and time passes.
3. Paradigm shift, from civilization to culture (from pyramid to circle)
The same system truth of individuals applies to social systems. No society can be independent of other societies and global systems. The constant flow of matter, energy and information is vital to the survival of each society. If the flow subsides or stops, systems must dwindle and die. The five calamities of any pyramidal system cut the natural, circulating flow of matter and artificially sidetrack them to the top, depleting the base.
This truth applies also to ‘human civilization,’ the sum of ‘human societies.’ Civilization has the flaw of limitedness in perspective and practice. It aims at matter and power (or money buying them) rather than mind and life, and in doing so, sacrifices the latter. This is the mini-max (small-great in scale) fallacy. This is taking a part as the whole and the fundamental fallacy pattern (special, valued) including pre–posterous (temporal), mundane-supramundane (dimentional). We are so possessed and enslaved by money, we do not even doubt such irrational and illogical question as “money or life?” Such a pyramid (money over life, etc.) is unstable in logic and value. The question of ‘money’ only makes sense if one has ‘life’. We are so selfish that we are blind to others (minority, victim, prey, etc.). If we do not change ourselves, we must live with wars, terrorisms, fights, frauds, fear and despair forever. Some, however, have seen the dangers in such problems, and started more NGOs, NPOs, mini-media, internet, interfaith actions, life-long education, etc., which liberate such fictitious bodies as nations, corporations and our selves. For this to be carried out and completed, we must shift our paradigm from civilization (fighting for matter and power) to culture (sharing of mind and life), cultivation of truth, goodness, beauty and holiness (sciences, ethics, arts and religions).
b. Global solution
1. Return to peace, Spiritual Revolution
The Spiritual Revolution (aiming at mind, from 2.5 thousand years ago) by philosophy/religion (Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tzu, Socrates, Yājñavalkya, et al) was the revolution (called the Axial Age) in revolt to the previous Production Revolution (aiming at matter, 10 thousand years ago) and Social Revolution (aiming at power, 5 thousand years ago). The Social Revolution was the drastic shifting point when human society separated from the natural world. The first stage was building city states (second: nation states) with walls. This delusion of separation and bondage by it caused discrimination, exploitation, and extermination (five calamities). This was the origin of the Pyramidal System which sucks material and energy resources and depletes the natural world.
2. Reality of civilization, pyramidal society
Civilization is essentially this Pyramidal System which fights for limited matter and power and stacks them up unilaterally (inside and upward) severing the natural cyclical flow and full function. It is the artificial system flaw hindering the natural system flow. This Pyramidal System inevitably entails the five calamities (delusion, discrimination, etc.). The Spiritual Revolution aimed at reverting and converting this unnatural, untruthful and unethical system and practice by realizing the sharing limitless mind and life and aiming at the five blisses of awakening in truth, freedom, equality, love and peace. (See attached diagram of Civilization and Culture with Problematique)
3. Paradigm shift, from competition to co-living (from sin to holy)
How can we wake up from the nightmare of ecological and economic doom and demise? We must liberate ourselves from the dream of possessing matter and power (money to acquire them). The devastation and destruction is the other side of the coin (possessed by them, losing all else). Our nescience that my self is separated from other makes us compete and conquer others, making us stiffer and smaller in limited life. This is the starting point to all ensuing problems and suffering. Our awakening that our life is part and parcel of the total dynamic life system lets us share and save all and let all be totally liberated and limitless in truth, beauty, goodness and holiness. Then only can we enjoy the five blisses with anyone anywhere any time.
4. Method
a. Personal method
1. Solid sitting, stopping karma (habit energy)
We have the method for solving our problems. It is to eliminate the cause of the problem by stilling craving. Wherefrom craving comes? It comes from our nescience, ignorance of the true nature of so-called self. Craving and nescience come from our karma. Our habits (common senses, conventional ways) are very difficult to break, especially the self-survival instinct. There is, however, a very reasonable, concrete, effective way to stop it. It is to stop karma (habit, action and action result, psycho-physical). It is solid, still sitting (shikan-taza, devoted, just sitting). When we sit still and solid, we stop physical and mental habits and fabrications (‘dropping off of body and mind,’ freedom from them and freedom of them). This is the essential process to neutralize our position and to become selfless and objective (returning to origin, freeing from bondage). From this vantage point, we can have true perspective and practice, profound insight and powerful action, positive appreciation and penetrating performance. The Bodhisattva (Awakening-being) Never Disparaging is said to bow everyone, even when being stoned, in receding and respecting. If we sit and learn the backward steps, we can see farther and know that all humans are equal, that all living beings are equal, and that all things are in equal life system. When we practice sitting constantly and continually, we can go beyond the sense of inside and out, self and other, life and death (beyond conceptions and emotions). It is the “come and see” way, which anybody without discrimination can witness anywhere anytime.
2. Unconditioned peace and unsurpassed awakening
This practice eventually endows us with unconditioned peace (nirvana) and unsurpassed right awakening (anuttara samyak sambodhi). Any originated phenomena can be ceased by ceasing causes and conditions. So any physical or mental action can cease, especially later acquired habits subsiding, but vital functions strengthened. When we let our unnatural volitions, emotions and conceptions (anger, craving and nescience) go, our natural life functions are refreshed, free and full. Our bad habits stiffen and sever the natural system flow and dynamics. When they are relaxed and recreated, they reenergize and resume the original function. Especially the enhanced vital function of breathing brings heart rate, blood pressure, nerve function (usually uncontrollable) into their best conditions (well coordinated). It supplies sufficient oxygen to vitalize all organs and cells for complete consummation and coordination, fully awakened and activated. The total system comes back to the original, natural, full function. Our total psycho-somatic-world system starts to work as a wholesome whole in peace and harmony. Here we witness a selfless, seamless realm like “the entire world in ten directions as a clear crystal ball,” as Xuan-sha remarked. It shows that the self-conception and self-centeredness are later-acquired habits. It reveals the ultimate truth, the reality of Dependent Origination and the selfless realm beyond conceptualization. It leads to the truth that there is the supra-mundane realm beyond conventional (instinctive, idea-ridden). We can witness re-union with the holy, wholesome whole. So long as we stick to the stiff small ‘self,’ we can never solve the sorrow and suffering of the vicissitude of life, fear of death, etc. Only when we witness the delusion of the absolute ‘self,’ originated from this body, and ‘my’ (mein, mei) body, then ‘I’ (Ich, Ego), we become awakened from delusive daydreaming. Only when we wake up, can we know that we have been dreaming. Until then, we continue dreaming dreadful dreams of the self-serpent in the self-snare. Awakening is not about acquiring anything. It is rather about letting go of acquired habits. So, anyone can return. Actually everyone must return, and everyone has been from the very beginning. We just stop our daydreaming and delusion. Our house (eco) and ourselves are burning and collapsing. We must urgently extinguish the hair-catching fire. Where there is the will, there is the way. We need not spread leather over the globe, but to rather put on our shoes.
3. From three poisons to three learning
From the nescience of truth (selfless system in infinite interrelation), we act out of habit selfishly, craving for or angering against other. Nescience, craving and anger are our basic habits and are called the Three Poisons, which torment and eventually kill ourselves and others. To counter them and un-condition the conditioned habit, the Awakened Way offers the Three Learnings as follows:
1. Volitional realm: morality (sīla)
2. Emotional realm: meditation (Samādhi)
3. Intellectual realm: prognosis (prajñā)
Volition leads to action. Sīla means pillar, backbone or an established character. Our habits easily lead to instinctive, self-centered actions which damage and destroy systems and situations. The Five Precepts or the Ten Precepts are prescribed to avoid damage and destruction, the former being:
1. No killing
2. No stealing
3. No sexual misconduct
4. No lying
5. No intoxicant
The first is to stop irretrievable, irreparable offenses, and on a higher level and primal order from the other four. No one by no means can correct or compensate this offense, terminating all potentials and possibilities of the destroyed life system. The second one is to maintain the material support for the life system. The third is to guard the gender/generation relation of the life system. The fourth sustains social trust and cohesion. The fifth is to attain an awakened and wakeful life.
Samādhi means concentration or concerted state of the mind. The Four Stages are characterized as follows (x: ceased; volition and emotion ceased in these stages):
Investigation contemplation joy comfort single-pointed mind
1st stage o o o o o
2nd stage x x o o o
3rd stage x x x o o
4th stage x x x x o
Solid sitting meditation is the sole, stable method of naturally stilling and ceasing karmas (three karmas of physical, verbal and mental, past and present), eventually perfecting in unconditioned peace (nirvana). ‘Nir-vāna’ (and ni-vāta) means ‘no-wind’ representing a candle illuminating all without flickering shadows, calm and clear in the windless state. When the psycho-physical system becomes still and serene, it reflects truth, like when a bowl of water settles without turbulence and turbidity, reflecting reality.
b. Social method
1. From civilization to culture
Nescience of system dynamics leads to system malfunction and destruction. The fundamental nescience and possessiveness of the ‘self’ extend to ‘society’ and ‘civilization.’ They fight for tangible, but limited, matter and power, exploiting and exhausting others and themselves. These fictitious sub-systems go against the real super-systems (by competition, conflict, contamination). The end result is economic and ecological meltdown that we all suffer from. Our house (eco from Greek oikos) is burning and collapsing inside and out. Although self-centeredness is prevalent, it is especially powerful as individualism in the Western tradition, now prevailing globally. Individualism was easily developed in the nomadic life style and enhanced in the pyramidal social structure (patriarchal, imperial), conquering nature and creature and counteracting (rights movement). Individualism and imperialism (separation and sovereignty) are not compatible with the social and natural super-system (free flow and full function). In this way, Gandhi is correct to say, “Ganges of rights comes from Himalaya of responsibilities.” Like him we must live in truth (satya-āgraha: holding truth) and peace (a-himsā: un-hurting). The grand-system of life has been in truth and harmony. Sub-systems (individuals and societies) must find peaceful, harmonious and limitless ways in harmony with this grand-system. There is no way other than waking up from our dreadful dream and changing our perspective and practice. We must shift our perspective and practice from our partial, stiff, separate, sub-system (self-centered) to the total, dynamic, integral super-system (life-centered). We must also shift from limited values and ways: from fighting for ‘limited matter and power’ to sharing ‘limitless mind and life.’ If we are not bound or boxed, we find abundant truth, goodness, beauty and holiness as well as the limitless resources to create them infinitely. We are already endowed with limitless life, light, liberation and love, if only we are awakened to them. “If we share joy, it doubles,” it is said, “If we share sorrow, it halves.” In reality, if we share joy, it becomes limitless, if we share sorrow, it becomes nil. Culture is cultivating our potential into full flowering and fruiting.
2. From five calamities to five blisses
Civilization entails the five calamities and is endemic in destruction, because it starts with delusion and strives for stiff (bondage) separation (discrimination) with exploitation of system stock and service ending in extermination of its flow and function. Culture, on the other hand, cultivates fields and faculties in awakening in truth and creates goodness, beauty and holiness with equality, love and peace (five blisses). Cultivation in knowledge and action leads from Conventional Truth/way to Ultimate Truth/way, life in truth and ethic. Culture promises truth and peace in the total system and promote them in universal cooperation and compassion. More and more people are striving for truth and peace. Scientific researchers and religious practitioners are especially concerned about the global system truth and the global ethic. The Declaration toward the Global Ethic requests that we all observe the universal principles of conduct as irrevocable directives commonly held by all religions as follows (deriving from the Five Precepts above-mentioned, etc.):
Commitment to the culture of
1. non-violence and respect for life
2. solidarity and a just economic order
3. tolerance and a life of truthfulness
4. equal rights and partnership between men and women
The InterAction Council (OB Summit composed of scholars and ex-presidents, ex-premiers, et al) drafted the “Declaration of Human Responsibilities” based and formulated on the “Declaration toward the Global Ethic” and presented it to the United Nations requesting it to be issued at the 50th anniversary of the “Declaration of Human Rights” as its counterpart. It, however, was delayed reportedly by “rights” pushers as not timely. From the essential and entire global life system, responsibilities should come before individual rights. The InterAction Council meeting in 2007 admitted that there will be no rights without life and further advances this movement.
The Awakened One said that religion is cultivation, wakefully to go beyond our state of ‘habit-machine’ (kamma-yanta, karma-yantra). In general, religions have proclaimed “one world in truth” (Dao, Dharma, Deva, Dyau, Zeus, Jovis, Yahwe, etc.) and promoted “a friend” (or a companion) as a future savior or an ideal figure (Mitra, Mithra, Mettheya, Maitreya, Miroku, Mazda, Messiah, etc.). Instead of just waiting for someone to save us, it is the high time to begin cultivating ourselves to be one. Otherwise, religion becomes idle talk rather than actual walk, never reaching the goal of re-uniting with the holy, never realizing the wholesome whole. If yeast is inert and ineffective, the bread of love and life will fail to rise ready for communion and community.
The paradise or pure land will never be realized without our awakening and activation. Unless awakened and actualized, we remain in delusion and devastation, wherever whenever. Only in a shift form Conventional Truth to Ultimate Truth, mundane to supra-mundane, can we realize nirvana in samsara (flow, vicissitude), heaven on earth, blessing in poverty, Utopia. This does not depend on possession or position, money or monarchy. It is the mental realm, u-topos (no-place) for the matter-possessed. The power-possessed are life-blind. Yajñavalkya, a great Upanishadic philosopher promulgating the ‘Ultimate-self-identity’ (‘Brahman-atman-unity’: Brahma-ātma- aikyam through prāņa ‘breath’ or ‘life’ cf. pneuma) told that even the world filled with gold would not impart anyone immortality. Upa-ni-shad (sitting-low-beside) must be not beside teacher but truth. Anyone can “come and see” by sitting with (mit) truth as friend (mitra). The Buddha said, “Better than conquering thousand upon thousand in the battlefield is conquering one self. This is the true conqueror.” (No one can conquer such a conqueror. Such conquerors can make all conquerors, no defeated ones. Especially in cooperation, they can change the world. Conquering others creates more foes, only producing more pyramids.) He also said that one cannot reach the end of the world by walking. The world is a sense world, dependent on sense organs and objects, a mind–world, inseparable. Confucius said that if a man can for a day master himself and return to propriety, all under heaven will return to humanity (jen: affinity between men). He also said that doing jen depends on oneself, not on others and that one who does jen in full power a day is never deficient in his ability, but only deficient in seeing it. He also said that being rich and famous in injustice is like a floating cloud and that seeing righteousness and not doing it is due to lacking the courage. Doing nothing is allowing oneself to be an accomplice with the present systems.
3. From fictitious bodies to real systems
Fictitious bodies cannot sustain themselves, much less in antagonistic relations with other systems in and out. This is why pyramidal systems (civilizations, empires, etc.) do not last (misuse of resources, energy). The pyramidal systems claim efficiency and efficacy of their own and never mind to using propaganda, lies, superstition, wars, pollutions, but cannot take real responsibilities due to their fictitious nature. Nations, corporations, religions, media and educational institutions are five major players in the modern civilization. They, especially under nationalism and capitalism, play havoc with the global life system, eminently its ecology and economy. Artificial pyramidal civilization must shift to natural circulating culture. These self-centered fictitious bodies must shift to life-centered real systems:
a. Nation states
States are essentially political (cf. polis) systems to control matter and power. Nation means natives (born) to the land. State is the status over the estates. A nation state is comprised of land, nationals and sovereignty. Sovereignty is a borrowed idea from ‘sovereign king,’ a fictitious idea but a forced fact. This ‘sovereignty’ fiction forces power (police, military) over the ruled, against other nations and other systems (oppression, war, exploitation). Wars are power struggles between states (city states to nation states) culminating in the last century as “the century of nationalism and wars,” claiming more than a hundred million human casualties with more crippled. Wars are the worst and most wretched actions nation states wage, misusing and destroying everything (resources, right, pollution, poisoning). The reform nations must enact is to abolish wars and militarism. War is neither by instinct nor fate, but man-made, latest and short-lived (0.1% of the human history). A study showed that 10% of the world’s military budget (1 trillion dollars per year) could shift war industries (including training, relocating) to peace industries and 10% could solve environmental, resource, poverty and population problems. Nationalism, imperialism, unilateralism, etc. are disturbing and destroying the global life system (eco-systems) and global life forms (animals, plants). Power concentration has been misused in the form of state’s evils and calamities (delusion: sovereignty to wage war, to kill, to invade, bondage: dictatorship, censorship, religion, education, discrimination: race, religion, gender, class, exploitation: colonialism, conscription, taxing, rights, extermination: mass murder of species, humans, by race, religion, ideology, capital punishment, wars). Nation states are not only malfunctioning but are now detrimental to the global life system. Human communities advanced from bands, tribes, regions and up to nations, and must now shift to a global community with global villagers with the five blisses. In transition, we have examples of super-states like European Union (U.S.A., Commonwealth of Independent States), and super-state organizations such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice. Many NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are now playing important roles for ecology, peace, etc. These trends are welcome direction for the future of the global life system.
b. Corporations
Corporations are essentially economic (cf. oikos+nomos: rule, house management) systems (groups) to control matter and power (production and service). Corporations employ pyramidal systems for maximizing profit (efficiency, efficacy) in and out (buyout, joint venture, cartel, trust, multinational, etc.). In capitalist societies, capital (money) plays the main role (‘x-ism’ means stressing on x.). Towering buildings of corporations are menacing with their outside look and inside principle. The whole system is essentially meant for money, enslaving everyone and everything. That is why we see all kinds of manipulation, misinformation, deception and immorality taking places (advertisement, bribery, conspiracy, fraud, pollution, poisoning). Because corporations’ responsibilities are legally limited and really impossible, damages are often not recovered or never compensated (pollution, death). To avoid such mishaps and misfortunes, co-operatives, ‘small co-op type companies’ (“Small is beautiful” movement) and NPOs (not for profit organization) are more welcomed due to their more peaceful, ecological, equitable, sustainable, systemic world. Those corporations which ignore and destroy lives and life systems for money will not be accepted by people, policies and must disappear. Corporations must repay not only to the human societies but also to the global life systems, as they benefit from public assets and services (education, science, technology, infrastructure, labor, resource, environment). They must reconsider and revoke selfish devices and policies (monopoly, patent, pollution, externalization of ecological cost). The economic system called “corporation” has been damaging the material world worst as evidenced in the present economic and ecological breakdown. This is due to our minds enslaved and estranged by money. We must engrave in our hearts and minds: “money cannot buy life” and “matter does not satisfy hearts.” We must recall the true meaning of our life as Dogen said, “To launch a ship and to build a bridge are also the perfection of giving. Managing livelihood and engaging in industries in their origin are nothing but giving.”
c. Religions
Religion is re-union with the holy. The holy (wholly) can mean many things. Because of this, we can find tribal religions, ethnic religions, world religions, and universal religions. Thus, we can define religion as the actual ‘way of life,’ and ideal ‘way to life’ or ‘way to the holy (wholly wholesome).’ Ideally it should include the whole in wholesomeness to become truly holy. Dogen said that if it is not with all, it is not the Great Way and that unless with all, it is not the Awakened Way.” Religion started as a collective ‘way of life’ in a small community to keep it together in harmony, rather unconsciously as customs. When individuals consciously pursued their ideal way of life, they could find a more universal way of life in truth and peace, principle and practice. They could live their ideal ways of life, with others, creating their ideal communities (mundane or supra-mundane). In the beginning with the small elite, religions could remain ideal, but as they acquired more mass and became institutionalized, they tended to become stiffened and selfish (scholastic, sectarian, syncretism, secularized). As religions are ‘ways of life,’ they tend to stress their uniqueness and are susceptible to limitedness in their areas and eras of their origins and traditions. They usually stick to their legacies even against common sense views and scientific findings, (fundamentalism, dogmatism, anti-rationalism, anti-science). It is unbelievable that we find religious (holy!) wars, terrorism, persecution, prosecution, while they teach love, compassion, tolerance, peace, purity and holiness. The Ten Commandments (common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam) were given in exchange for the Covenants, and thus essential for salvation. The Ten Precepts are essential for Buddhists and the Five Precepts with minor differences in the last precept are common to Hindu religions. Therefore (with unanimous agreement in the Global Ethic), ‘religious people’ should never kill (no wars, militarism, terrorism). Religion’s uniqueness lies in practice, thus they should practice and let others practice ethics (no killing, etc.). If they actually practice together (billions of them) and let others observe the Global Ethic, there will be no wars and terrorisms, no exploitations, no exterminations and immediately peace on earth, pure land, paradise, heaven on earth will be realized. We can find original religious communities and their ways of life are our models for the future, especially with the truth of ‘mit’ and ‘mitra.’ If we become ‘true friends in need,’ there will be a genuinely holy (wholly wholesome) world in deeds without suffering, sorrow, solitude, fear, despair.
d. Media
Media is to mediate information from and to people. Because it has a vital function in the life systems, it is now regarded as the fourth power beside the three political powers (legislative, executive and judicial). In the pyramidal societies, it could be influenced or manipulated by political powers (heads of states, dictators). In the pyramidal societies, media could be influenced and (heads of states, dictators, capitalists, advertisers). We have seen and are now seeing these things happening (state policy, war propaganda, demagogy, bias dissemination, truth hiding). To counter such problems in mass media, mini-communications, verbal communications, and now global internet communications are starting to mediate and network. We can utilize individual, local, global assets, and especially the internet, to easily communicate with people around the world. We can contribute to the support and advancement of information, democratization and globalization to realize the world with center-less centers (decentralized interconnected individuals and localities) like the Indra-net. The Indra-net is spread by Indra, supreme divinity in the Indian pantheon, over the world whose crystal balls on all knots reflect each other endlessly. This illustrates how everything reflects each other endlessly in the law of Dependent Origination. This unified world in infinite reflection is ideal not only for the global communication, but also for the global community. Without communication and community, there will be no meaning and value in life.
e. Education institutions
Education means extracting potential and expanding ability. It is the key to change not only humans but the whole world for future, present and past (form and function, structure and significance). It should be shared by all (free education, lifelong education), serve for all (not for nation, corporation, human, but for all) and set by people (not by central government on texts, staff, censorship, etc., but by communities and people). Educational objective, method, organization, management, budget, etc. must shift from artificial pyramidal civilization to natural cyclical culture. Education is to advance the limitless vital spiritual values of the truth, goodness, beauty and holiness of individual, communal, regional and global life forms, life systems and living ways (information, democratization, and globalization). Individual potentials and abilities must be fostered to flower and fruit in holiness, harmony and help together, not in competition and conflict.
c. Global method
1. From global problematique to global solution
a. Know the present crises
Let’s take time off from our busy private life to see the wider world and share the suffering the global life system is facing. Our present crises and suffering are unprecedented in size, speed and seriousness. They are all intertwined at the global scale. They are directly or indirectly linked to us, you and me. The causes are nothing but our own ignorance, attachment and aversion. Our own daily life styles and living ways are causing the global crises and calamities, the sixth mass extinction. Thus, we must fundamentally change our value systems and action patterns. Humankind must shift its way of life fundamentally. That means every one of us.
b. Act for solutions
Let’s learn the solutions in concrete methods and practical ways for preventive, preserving way of the total system. Let’s act for solutions in our daily living. The following is my idea to act on the global system, the global ethic, and a concrete way to approach the material and information flow (for easy memory):
Global system: 5S Global Ethic: 5L Material flow: 5R Information flow: 5A
Systemic Law Reduce Access
Sustainable Life Reuse Assess
Saving Love Recycle Agree
Safe Liberation Rearrange Act
Simple Lielessness Restore Advise
Our wholesome global system cannot lack the 5Ss. Our saving of paper is saving trees, forests, living beings, global warming, and the global life systems to come. Simple life and life system is systemically safe and sustainable. Global Ethic is necessary for global villagers to rely and act on (Law of Dependent Origination, Causality). ‘Love’ gives and shares and is more positive and dynamic than ‘not to steal.’ ‘Liberation’ is beyond discrimination and wider than ‘equal rights between men and women and equal partnership.’ ‘Rearrangement’ is innovation of old systems and ways, new use of the unused, the new combinations of systems, etc. (ex. using heat of burning waste for energy generation).
2. From global catastrophe to global community
a. Know the present situation
Let’s learn the present global situations, new findings, future projections and so on. Let’s share them with others, contacting closer, communicating wider. Let’s take time to know and share news, data, events, actions, etc. wisely using internet and other means to participate and practice, locally, globally and wakefully.
b. Build global life community
Let’s find out ways to build more friendly and happy global life community. Just a call or a smiling face brightens the whole day or whole life. Anyone can give joy and happiness with compassionate eyes, loving speeches, harmonious faces, helping hands, sharing seats, shelters and systems even without wealth. There are the Four Embracing Matters: giving, loving speech, beneficial actions and sameness (togetherness). Dogen called them ‘four pieces of wisdom (hannya, prajñā, prognosis) and said that loving words have the power of revolutionizing the universe: “Loving speech is fundamental to make enemies yield and princes reconcile. To hear loving speech in presence gladdens the face and pleases the heart. To hear loving speech in absence engraves the liver and engraves the soul.” “Sameness means no alienation from the self and others.” “We just share our abilities without coveting rewards from others.” “The simple-minded may think that when other’s interest comes first, self-interest is omitted. It is not so. Beneficial deeds are one dharma, which universally benefits oneself and others.” Let’s go beyond boundaries (national, religious, gender, species, etc.) and act in concrete ways to build global community, creating it a more sensible, safe, stable and satisfactory. Enjoy the global community of all and global communication with all in care, comfort and contentment (s-mile-s of babies, flowers, stars and sunrise).
3. From limited life to limitless life
a. Know the suffering of limited life
Let’s get acquainted with the suffering in the world, and begin to sympathize and share them without discrimination. Let us learn how much we have been conditioned by bad habits, how wretched we act, how miserable we live and what misfortune our precious life is imbedded with. Every one must live in suffering and solitude and die in despair of a failed life in the premises of separate selves and all against all. Everyone must die, eventually or even in the next instant. How can we leave our precious moment to the wind of impermanence and suffering? We live on the sanctity and sacrifice of limitless other lives and life systems. How can we miss and misuse our greatly endowed and gravely indebted lives, unappreciated and ungrateful? We must awaken from the nightmare of the bubble-like ego and to the daybreak of the ocean-like life. The Buddha said:
Better than the one who would live one hundred years not seeing immortality
Is the one living one day seeing immortality.
b. Realize the limitless life
Let’s find time out of our daily routines and sit quietly and breathe deeply. Calm sitting and deep breathing give us joy. This simple, but great genuine joy can give us the sense of no necessity for any thing. We can see all karmic influence cease, as we return to the original state beyond worries and fears, unmoved by thoughts, emotions and volitions. Anyone can stop living limited life (loss/gain, life/death, etc.) and return to a limitless life (truth, goodness, beauty, holiness). We can refresh and restart our life. Dogen said, “If there is no limited mind, there is limitless luck.” Let us realize our own limitless life here and now. Let us share it with our family, friends, foreigners and (fancied) foes. Please enjoy it with any beings anywhere anytime.
Conclusion
Paradigm shift, complete change, is necessary to solve the global problematique. Otherwise, we will always suffer and doomed to catastrophe due to the causes and conditions of selfishness and strife. We must awaken to the impermanence and imperfection of our prognosis and practice. We may die any moment in sorrow and despair without appreciating truth and peace. The problems and suffering we have are due to delusion (common delusion, common commitment) of truth (ultimate truth). The wishful thinking and wayward action of the “self-sovereignty” (sub-system) in the “system-synergy” (super-system) is firm fallacy, failure and fall. Any simplistic separation (individualism, capitalism, nationalism, civilization) is incompatible with systemic security. So, we must be wakeful to know the wider world and to live with all as our true life system and living way. We must stop selfishness (monopoly, competition) and shift to holiness (holistic, cooperation, etc.). Selfishness is the source of all suffering and mistrust, so we must realize the wholesome whole. Inexhaustibleness life lies in no possession. If we become awakened and actualize this, we are already in truth and peace. We must communicate and construct the wholesome system, global life community, in truth and peace. Everyone wants this, but we doubt the possibility of achieving it due to our karma (habit, habit energy). We should not be deluded by the “divide and rule” trick, but awaken to the “unite and share” ability of all wisdom and action in the global life community. It is said that three men gathered together creates the wisdom of Manjushree (Bodhisattva of Wisdom). Then, more than six billion people could make better prognosis and practice. We stop before starting, but time and tide is running out. Our undeluded and awakened life is right here and now with all, so we must practice here and now with all. Then only can we live limitless life, light, liberation and love.
The following diagram is omitted here due to this site limitation.
Please comment, if you want it.
Artificial Pyramidal Civilization & Natural Cyclical Culture
(fighting for matter and power & Sharing of mind and life)
(To be published in the Dialogos, No.9, March 2009, Proceeding of Department of English Communication, Toyo University )
