The Flower Garland Sutra
“Inherently there are no distinctions between the process of life and the process of destruction; people make a discrimination and call one birth and the other death.” This is a quote from the Flower Garland Sutra. It pretty much sums up the equation at the top that was formulated by Antoine Lavoisier in 1789. It is the equation for the Law of Conservation of Mass.
This 2nd century CE Mahayana sutra, the Flower Garland Sutra, is accepted as Shakyamuni Buddha’s “profound understanding of ultimate reality.” It took another 1,500 years for western science to catch up with this reality.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no clue how to understand this equation, or any other equation for that matter. But, in a nutshell, we are told it says: mass (matter) cannot be created nor destroyed but it can change from one form to another.
Law of Conservation of Matter: We cannot create nor destroy matter
Flower Garland Sutra: Inherently, there are no distinctions between the process of life and the process of destruction…
There is only change of form and impermanence of form. This is the “profound understanding of ultimate reality.” This is the teaching taught by the Buddha over 2,600 years ago.
This is not easy to grasp for those of us raised in a culture steeped in the Abrahamic faiths. Perhaps that is why there is so little discussion on death in our culture.
The Buddha taught us to only accept what we believe to be true after we have pondered and considered them against the reality of life. To only accept the teaching if it makes sense to us. He tells us not to accept any teaching regardless of who tells us, even himself, if it does not ring true within our own understanding.
The grief we experience when there is a death is beyond words. All of our efforts, all of our “deals” to prolong that life have failed us. We let grief embrace us and perhaps, a few weeks, months or years later, find some comfort in knowing inherently there are no distinctions between the process of life and the process of destruction.
Namo Amida Butsu.
In Gassho,
Rev. Anita
rev.anita.cbt@outlook.com
|