Click-a-Sermon 11:  "Facing the Transitory Reality"

Transitory nature of life

As the season changes and fall advances into winter we are once more reminded of how seasons reflect human life. The budding, bursting spring of childhood, yields to the heat and intensity of youth in the summer, which mellows to the golden period of middle age -- and finally to the harsh winter of old age and death.

Buddhism has long taught that life is suffering --- the meaning of "suffering" in this sense is that life is too fragile to capture. We have just begun to savour it when we find it is suddenly about to end. We seek all sorts of permanence as security but disappointed tragically as the reality of this world is transitory and impermanent. Thus our life is suffering.

Most of us spend half our lives trying to climb to a pinnacle of success -- but it in our professions or in our personal lives. We struggle on, but once we reach what is almost the summit we begin to experience our first worries about what is on the other side of the mountain.

By the time we achieve professional success, we face retirement staring at us in the not too distant future. By the time we achieve financial success, we realize that our physical bodies no longer can cope with what we once could eat, drink and enjoy, let along the fashions that look so fine on unwrinkled and youthful bodies. And by the time we have raised our children, we realize that we are about to lose our parents, if not our spouses. It is discouraging.

Once the pinnacle has been reached, the downside of the mountain appears to usher in nothing but decline -- physical decline, mental decline, the loss of loves ones, and finally, even in our profession being retired and turned out to pasture.

There is no wonder that those who are about to achieve their summit in life and finally become aware that the way down is swift, lose courage and despair -- and thus turn to forms of "escapism" to occupy their minds before they descend the mountain.

By stating that "life is suffering" Buddhism has at times sounded 'escapist' but it is not. Buddhism is a realistic religion. "Suffering" is an aspect of the human condition that will never be controlled as long as we remain human and mortal. We have to realize that this transitory nature of existence is an awesome reality of the universe to which we belong.

Yet, once this reality is faced, and we admit what we are, Buddhism offers another promise --for as we descend the mountain and come down to the bottom during the harsh winter -- we will one day find a new green valley. That valley of true Faith is a new dimension in time and space which we call "the Pure Realm." The Pure Realm is beyond our comprehension but true faith links us to this transcendental world of ultimate peace and tranquility.

Thus climbing the mountain is what we devote most of our earthly lives to accomplish. Descending the mountain is another hazardous dread, but beyond, once we reach the bottom of the mountain, we have the hope to be able once again to find and explore countless green valleys and unimaginable wonders. That is the hope presented and the promise offered by Amida Buddha.

Namu-Amida-Butsu

© Reno Buddhist Church, 2002