SOONER OR LATER each of us dies. I want to share with you this inevitable fact. None of us knows how long we will live. We are not guaranteed tomorrow, not even today. We never know.
I was reading a story about a taxi driver who drank and argued with his wife all night long. Can you argue all night long? Maybe some of you have had that kind of experience. I myself have not, but I remember drinking all night long. Anyway, somehow the driver and his wile argued until morning, then he went to work at the Sapporo airport in Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. Four men on a business trip arrived from Kyushu and asked the driver to take them to a town about a half hour away. The men asked the driver to wait while they conducted their business. After a while they returned and told the driver that they had time to do some sightseeing. The taxi driver drove to a lake, and after about an hour of sightseeing, the taxi plunged into the lake. The driver survived, but all four passengers were killed.
The author of the story asks us to consider how many people suffer when one person dies. He says maybe five hundred people. I do not know if five hundred is a large or a small number, but if that is the number to use, then in this instance two thousand people suffered. How do we think about these four passengers, or about anyone who has died? What are they doing now? Have they completely disappeared? Or is something remaining and continuing in some way? In fact, Dogen Zenji says, “After we die, what continues is the karma we created, both good and bad.” What does this mean?
Life and death is a primary theme that we must clarify. We are all concerned about death in one way or another. What will happen after we die? This reminds me of a book by a medical doctor and professor at Tokyo University who died of cancer in 1962. I knew him because although he was a Christian, he sat with my teacher Koryu Roshi and even gave talks in the zendo. As a doctor, he was always dealing with someone else’s sickness. But when he himself had cancer, he had to deal with his own illness; it was now his own issue. What kind of struggles did he go through? During that time he wrote a book about his understanding of what was going to happen after his death. He felt that life ends after death. Perhaps he reached that kind of conclusion because he was a scientist.
The author of the story about the taxi driver takes a different position. He says that we do not know what is going to happen after death. He does not take any position about extinction or continuation of some kind; rather, he says it is unknown. In other words, it cannot be known through our logical, intellectual speculation. I agree with this. What I myself have been seeing more and more is how little we know. How little we know! And when we make any assertion relating to what is going to happen after death, who can really reply with a definite, one hundred percent, for sure answer?
Before birth is another aspect. Before you were born, what was your life? Was it existing or not existing? Definitely it was not existing as the life that you are living right now, but as sure as all of us die in one way or another, sooner or later we also come from somewhere. Without our parents, our parents’ parents, and our parents’ parents’ parents, we would not be here. If we come from somewhere before birth, are we going somewhere after death?
The Buddha talked about life and death as his major concern. In his first sermon on the Four Noble Truths, the first truth was that life is suffering. Being born is suffering, being ill is suffering, growing old is suffering, dying is suffering. Why are they all suffering? Buddha talks about I. He says that there is no such thing as this I that we hold on to. Instead, there is impermanence and no substantial self. At the same time, he tells us to take good care of this I. Make this I as the dharma, as the teaching, the torch that shines upon your life. How do we see these different aspects of life? And facing these sufferings of life, how do we detach from holding on? I think the major holding on, in one way or another, is to oneself, to this I.
I myself have faith in the fact that this life will not end when I die. This means I will die and I will not die. I believe that regardless of how true it is. And if people say that I am wrong, I accept it; it does not make any difference to me. This unborn, undying life, which has been continuing, is very important. We do not know exactly how it has been continuing, but we know for sure that without the unborn, undying life, our life would not be here. Isn’t this so? So how do we appreciate this unknown part of our life?
We try to understand our life in our heads. This is a very drunken state, more drunk than the taxi driver. Why? Of course, the driver did an awful thing. He caused four people to die and made at least two thousand people suffer. But when we ourselves are not sober, when we ourselves are not aware of this unborn, undying life, we are also killing, do you see? Killing the life of what? We are killing the life of the buddhas and ancestors.
I appreciate the unknown energy or life force that is supporting us, making things happen and keeping our life going. Things that happen are not casual coincidences. How do we appreciate this flow of our life, regardless of whether it is pleasant, unpleasant, joyous, or painful? Our actions always have causes and effects. So in sharing our life together, let us be kind to each other and to ourselves as much as we can.