Embracing all religions

Today, July 10, 2016, we had the ceremony of embracing all religions in the Vancouver Centre. This is the fourth year that Seicho-No-Ie is conducting this ceremony. Its purpose is to renew its members' vows that we should treat all sentient and nonsentient beings as part of ourselves, and treat them with love, care, gratitude and reverence because we, all, regardless of our religions or beliefs, come from the same Universal Life.

We should remove the idea that we are individual selves and return to the idea that we all are One.

During this ceremony, in Vancouver centre, we practised the Shinsokan Meditation, read in unison the 'Song to praise the bodhisattva who reflects the sounds of the world', and listened to the video- lecture by Masanobu Taniguchi (president of Seicho-No-Ie).

His lecture was  interesting and touched the main concerns of our modern world. Topics like terrorism, recent bomb attacks and the Brexit were cited, saying that rapid modernization and change may be mentioned as the cause of many of modern sufferings. This may lead people to identification problems.

And who are we, who can we identify with? We should remind ourselves that we come from only One Universal life, and that we are all perfect and harmonious beings. That no matter what we see with our eyes, what we see is not the True Reality, it is only projections of our individual mind. However, when we open our Spiritual Eyes, we see the Real world, which  never changes, and is always perfect. And when we visualize more and more this Real world (thru meditation), this physical world also 'changes' (i.e. becomes what is in reality).

How do we know that we are perfect beings? Because we all aim to improve our lives, to obtain beautiful things, to be healthy and have harmonious life and relationships. If we were imperfect in nature, we would not bother to improve our lives. We only can conceive perfection, because our true nature is perfection.

In Taniguchi's lecture, he also mentioned that the words that we use in our daily life are not suitable to capture their real definition because they cannot translate the unity of all beings, and instead make us differentiate and separate those things that in fact are originally One.

When we use words like 'nature', 'my life', 'human beings', 'animals', those words make us feel that these are individual 'objects' or 'beings' and thus that for instance, animals can cause harm to the human being, or that a person with certain characteristics can create disadvantage to the other. Only by using a word, we make distinctions, make us apart from that. However, in reality, there is only one substance that unites us all. We all part of the same thing: in our body there is water, mineral, and substances coming from vegetables and animals. The same goes to any animal and any vegetable; they are nurtured by water, sun, wind, other vegetables, insects and us. We seem to be apart but we are in fact one only life.

The same goes to our brothers and sisters coming from all different religions, all different ways of living. Even though we seem that we nurture different ideas, this does not make us different. We come from the same Life, and Life is more important than an idea or belief. We should revere Life. We should respect Life. Life is a mystery, and the Grand Life, which is a mystery, is God. Thus, we should love, revere and look, beyond what are seen by the physical eyes thru our Spiritual Eyes, the life of God existent in every single being: all human beings, the nature, the animals, all beings visible and invisible to our eyes. We should treat all with love, care, respect and reverence. When we do that, we find peace in our hearts because our heart is the same as the other's. We might be in disadvantage in the physical plane in the short term when we give something to others, but when we go beyond the concept of time and space (created by our individual and limited mind), we will see that anything good we do to others can only bring us good fortune and ever lasting happiness.

Love is what bonds us. Love is the essence of our nature. Love is compassion and mercy. It is the sincere wish to minimize other beings' sufferings, to feel happy with other beings's accomplishments, to feel sad with other beings' sadness. And our philosophy of life accomplishes all that thru our movement, which is a movement of peace thru faith. When we pray and spread good thoughts to others like we are doing here, we believe that people can find real peace in themselves. Only when peace is found inside ourselves, then peace can be found outwards. We also aim to have a diet with less meat consumption. We should try our best to kill less animals and not to be cruel to them. When we do not feel sadness to kill a life (no matter how simple it is), we are going away from the heart of  the compassionate; we are moving away from creating a peaceful world. We do not need to make a drastic change. One small change each day. If we only track the places and see how the food that comes to our table arrived there, we would not be able to eat meat without feeling regret.

With this ceremony, we have already achieved our goal to bring harmony to this world (i.e. beyond the concept of time and space). We are all in peace, living a perfect life, helping each other, and living in peace with all beings of this beautiful planet.

Thank you very much for this opportunity! Thank you very much for reading this post!

Sachiko

Poem: Vibrant Life (Vida vivida) by Masaharu Taniguchi

"Speak up! Who is the coward that bows in
surrender before his environment?
Who is it that thinks his life is nothing more
than the food he has eaten kneaded into physical form?
Understand well that life is not a ball of wax.
Neither is it a plaster figure.
I am a whirlwind,
A hurricane,
A tornado.
I take my environment
And gradually shape it - like taffy -
Into whatever form I wish.
I am one with the great force that created the universe.
I change atmospheric electricity into thunder,
Sunlight into seven-colored rainbows,
Bring forth bright, red flowers from the dark soil,
Cause explosive volcanic eruptions,
And I am one with the great mysterious force
That shaped cosmic dust into our solar system.
Environment is nothing.
Fate is nothing.
Just as the slippery eel escapes from a crack in the rock,
I too can escape any fate, no matter how cruel it might be
Whenever I wish to do so.
I am not pig iron.
I am not clay.
I am life, living energy.
I am not some dead thing that will remain silent and uncomplaining
While being shut inside a cage called environment and destiny.
I am the life, that can smash to bits
Any environment, any destiny, when the time is right ...
Like air in the air compressor, which becomes more powerful
the more it is compressed,
Until it becomes a fierce explosive force
Capable of digging precious ore from deep within the mine.
I am also water that cannot but ultimately become the sea
No matter who or what may try to dam my flow.

Should my way be blocked by giant boulders,
I will not doubt turn into the mainstream,
Turn into rapids,
And turn into a waterfall,
To continue my way.

Should I be dammed, without any outlets,
I will go underground.
For a while I will sink into the ground and not be seen,
But I certainly will not disappear or go out of existence.
One day I will turn into a gushing spring,
To quench the thirst of weary travelers.
If I am not allowed even to seep into the ground,
I will turn into fog, turn into rain clouds, and fly up into the heavens.
When the time is right, I will call the whirlwind,
Call forth thunder and lightning,
Become a roaring rainstorm,
Turn into a flood that rips apart even the greatest dikes,
And in the end, I cannot but become the sea itself."

(From Truth of Life, v. 20).