Saturday, May 23, 2015

Life as a wave or Life as water?

Thay's message in the following video is very interesting. 


With the practice of mindful breathing, we can also touch the ultimate dimension of our life. We can touch the Buddha land (Pure land of Buddha). We can touch the Kingdom of God. We can touch Nirvana in each moment of our daily life. 

In these days, I practice the walking meditation in a way that I can touch not only the present but I can also touch the past and the future. And I can touch the ultimate dimension. We live in a historical dimension expressed by time and space. There is the past, there is the present, there is the future. There is the here and the there. And that is the historical dimension. According to the teaching, if you live the historical dimension deeply, you can touch the ultimate dimension. Of course, with the energy of mindfulness and concentration. 

My practice these days is to make steps that can help me touch the reality that transcends time and space. Suppose making a step, I touch my birth, the moment of my birth, and I see that I am being born while I touch the ground with my foot. It means that I was not exactly born 80 years ago, I am born now. So, you touch your birth, now you are born. But you don't just touch your birth. You touch your so-called death at the same time. So, you can be born and can die at the same time. 

In exactly one moment, you'll understand. And walking like that, you don't think that you are going to die in the future because you are dying now. You are dying now, and you are born also now. So, you touch the nonlocal, the nontemporal. Time and space disappear. In quantum physics, they begin to speak about the nonlocal connection between the quantum. And nonlocal connection becomes the most characteristic of quantum physics. 

And it is possible to for us to touch the historical dimension very deeply so that we may touch the ultimate dimension at the same time. Suppose we contemplate a wave, arising on the surface of the ocean. As far as the appearance is concerned, we see there is a moment we call the birth, the manifestation of the wave, the beginning of the wave. And there is another moment we can call the end, the death of the wave. So, we can see the wave going up and going down. There is the beginning, there is the end. There is the going up, there is the going down. 

So, there is time and a space. The wave is presented in a frame of time and space. There is a beginning, there is an end. This wave is not the other wave. This wave is here and the other wave is there. So, the frame is seen in the frame of space and time. But all of us know that the wave is made of water. And it is possible for a wave to live her life as a wave. And her life was a water at the same time. Because the wave is water right now. See, there is no need to die in order to become water. The water is right now, right here. That is why it is possible for a wave to live her life as a wave and to live her life as water at the same time. 

And we know that when a wave is capable of touching herself deeply, she will realize she is water. And the moment she realizes she is water, and then she is no longer afraid of coming and going, of going up or going down, of beginning or ending, because she has touched her true nature in the ultimate dimension. As a wave, you may be scared but as water, you are no longer fearful. So, going up is a joy and going down is also a joy. And the wave can touch her ultimate dimension. 

So, the practice of meditation, the practice of looking deeply, touching deeply help us to touch the historical dimension deeply so that we have a chance to touch our ultimate dimension at the same time. So, it is possible that with one in-breath, with one out-breath, with a step, we can touch the nature of no birth and no death, we can transcend time and space, we can touch the nature of birthlessness and deathlessness like a wave. And this can be seen in the later part of the Sutra of mindful breathing.

(Cf.) 
http://compassion5151.blogspot.jp/2014/12/enlightenment.html   
http://www.slideshare.net/compassion5151/3-versions-of-oneself
http://tnhaudio.org/tag/sutra-on-full-awareness-of-breathing/
http://www.mindfulnessbell.org/articles/mb53.pdf

 
Wave Photo by Joel Bramley