The Poetic Heart: Connecting Humanity
January 2008
Banner photo: ©Natural Selection Craig Tuttle/Design Pics/Corbis
Making "Life" the Keyword of the Coming Age
Here, SGI President Ikeda discusses the enlightenment of second Soka Gakkai president Josei Toda during his imprisonment by Japan's militarist government in World War II. In prison, Toda avidly studied the Lotus Sutra and its introductory Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings. While struggling to understand a passage in the latter sutra describing the "entity of the Buddha," Toda had a realization that completely transformed his perspective on Buddhism. The passage is a list of 34 negations, beginning "His body neither existing nor not existing, neither caused nor conditioned, neither self nor other. . . ."
The Lotus Sutra teaches that all human beings can attain Buddhahood. What, then, is a Buddha? What does it mean to attain Buddhahood? These are questions vital to all Buddhist teachings. To merely say that the entity of the Buddha transcends the power of language, that it is unfathomable, does not help our understanding in the least. Mr. Toda deeply contemplated these questions and sought to resolve them.
It was then that the word life suddenly flashed through his mind. He perceived that the Buddha is life itself:
Life is neither existing nor not existing, neither caused nor conditioned, neither self nor other, neither square nor round, neither short nor long, . . . neither crimson nor purple nor any other sort of color.
Life is a straightforward, familiar word we use every day. But at the same time it can express the most profound essence of the Buddhist Law, a single word that expresses infinite meaning. All human beings are endowed with life, so this word has practical, concrete meaning for everyone. In this way, Mr. Toda's realization made Buddhism comprehensible to all.
Life also has enormous diversity. It is rich and full of energy. At the same time, it operates according to certain laws and has a defined rhythm. Life is also free and unfettered. It is an open entity in constant communication with the external world, always exchanging matter and energy and information. Yet while open, it maintains its autonomy. Life is characterized by this harmonious freedom and an openness to the entire universe. The infinite and unbounded state of Buddhahood can be described as a state in which the freedom, openness and harmony of life are realized to the maximum extent.
Mr. Toda once described his feelings after having attained his realization in prison as follows:
It is like lying on your back in a wide open space looking up at the sky with arms and legs outstretched. All that you wish for immediately appears. No matter how much you may give away, there is always more. It is never exhausted. Try and see if you can attain this state of life.
With the word Buddha, the image of a supreme being tends to dominate people's impression. It evokes a feeling of the Buddha being somehow distant and separate from us. The word Law, in the sense that it implies a rule or phenomenon, suggests the impersonal. Alone, it does not convey much warmth. Essentially, the Buddha and the Law are not two different, separate things--the word life encompasses both.
All people are endowed with life, and life is immeasurably precious. The declaration that "the Buddha is life itself" reveals that the very essence of Buddhism--the Buddha and the Law--is in our own life.
Mr. Toda once said:
We use the word self [to refer to ourselves], but this word actually refers to the universe. When we ask how the life of the universe is different from the life of each one of you, the only differences we find are those of your bodies and minds. Your life and that of the universe are the same.
I believe that "life" and "life force" will be the keywords for the 21st century. Mr. Toda's enlightenment that the Buddha is life itself is a declaration that life is the absolute and supreme reality. It was an opening volley to all warped and twisted points of view which would destroy the dignity of human life. And indeed this is Buddhism's fundamental challenge.
