Chapter One
A Perspective on Human Life
Section 1. What Is Human Life?
1.1. Problems in life have been like a maze
Why
were we born, why should we live, and where should we go? You should not think
that you were the cause of your birth. People are born into this world yet do
not know the origin and purpose of their birth; they are ignorant of the
motivation and purpose of their existence.
Neither
our birth nor our life nor our death stems from our own intentions. Then, what
do we have to be proud about? We have no control over our birth, we are merely
custodians in this life, and we cannot avoid the path of death. Thus, any
attempt at self-praise and holding self-indulgent pride is pitiful. Once born,
we are destined to live, and destined to die and pass away to the next world.
(7-178, 1959.9.6)
Up
to this present day, philosophy has historically labored to solve the problems
of human life. Many philosophers arose and took great pains to come up with all
kinds of theories with regard to true human value and perfection, and to
succeed on their own in order to be proud before the whole universe. However,
today we see that all ideologies and assertions that led to the establishment of
new ideological systems were tested in practice by human society and found to be
failures; they all fell by the wayside. (141-125, 1986.2.20)
Why do
people live haphazardly, hating to die, yet harbor many questions in their
minds, such as, “Why am I living? What is the origin of my life?” The answers
to these questions cannot be found in books written by philosophers because the
purpose of philosophy lies in seeking and paving the way toward God. Then what
is religion? Religious life begins from learning about God in order to live
together with Him. (186-12, 1989.1.24)
What
is the purpose of this life? You should reflect on this question once more.
Since we are not the cause, it follows that the purpose does not lie with us
alone. No one would object to the idea of being happy in life. No one would
reject a dazzling life. Yet none of us is free to live as we please. Still,
each of us wishes to feel pride in ourselves, live freely with respect to our
own will, and be remembered accordingly. These conflicting elements can all be
found within our hearts. (7-178, 1959.9.6)
Let
us say you live up to eighty years of age. If you subtract the hours you spend
sleeping, you are left with about fifty years of life. Would you say you are
alive when you are asleep? When you are asleep, you are as good as dead, because
you are inanimate. Sleeping is the same as being dead the whole time. The
number of hours you labor each day to make a living is about half of the
twenty-four hours in a day. Now deduct the time you spend eating. From whatever
time is left subtract the time spent visiting, going to friends’ parties, attending
the sixtieth birthday celebrations of village elders, attending funerals and
wakes, and being bedridden.
In
short, if you were to exclude all the days you lose for whatever reasons that might
arise, you cannot claim to have actually lived very much. Would it even be half
of your entire lifetime? When I calculated this recently, it came out as roughly
seven years. Even so, of those seven years, how many days could you claim to
have truly lived? (49-336, 1971.10.24)
Life
passes by very quickly. After attaining maturity and coming to know the affairs
of the world, doing things here and there, you will find yourselves crossing
the forty-year mark, and soon after that, the fifty-year mark. A decade will
fly by in the twinkling of an eye, and in what will seem like only seconds, you
will be sixty years old. Then very soon you will be seventy, but only for a minute
before you age again. When you think about it, the saying, “Life is but a fleeting
dream,” has never sounded so true. (188-38, 1989.2.16)
A
person’s fortune stretches and shrinks like an elastic rubber band. If someone
who is born with fortune valued at 100 spends 120 in the course of his life,
his descendants will perish. If he spends only 80, he can bequeath the
remaining 20 as a blessing to his descendants. (78-332, 1975.6.10)
You
can change your fortune, but not your inherited destiny. Can you change your
homeland? Can you change your parents? However strong a nation’s sovereignty
and customs might be, it can never change the fact that you were born as the
son or daughter of your parents. As can be seen, the path of restoration is
also a destined path. (172-55, 1988.1.7)
When you make a wrong start, you end up in a totally unexpected place. Hence, when a ship sets out into the great ocean, it should chart its course and follow the compass from the moment it first sets sail from port. Then, what is the port of departure for human life? People do not know. Where can we find the direction and guiding compass to reach our destination in the world beyond? People have not been able to find this, so they have been wandering about back and forth. However much they try, they are not able to overcome their human limitations. (172-28, 1988.1.3)
No comments:
Post a Comment