Sufferings Of Birth And Death Are Nirvana

These two statements above in the titles appear in the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, and especially SGI Nichiren Buddhism. They reveal that living now to the fullest is inherent in our lives and achievable for all.

It isn’t easy to believe.

We are so myopically staring at our perceived limitations that the possible freedom from the shackles of our fixed minds seems impossible.

That’s why SGI Nichiren Buddhism encourages its practitioners to study philosophical concepts. Otherwise, a belief system becomes a source of blind faith, which leads to suffering.

Ignorance is one of the main enemies of happiness in Buddhism. Understanding the concepts opens the mind and prepares us for instant enlightenment.

Easier said than done, but it is doable.

What is then nirvana?

Hinayana tradition

The Sanskrit language word nirvana means initially to blown out. It suggests that something ceases to exist and disappears totally.

In South-East Asia, monks with orange robes and shaven heads try to eradicate their earthly desires and ultimately attain nirvana. They are the followers of the Hinayana tradition, which teaches that to reach nirvana, we must be reborn countless times to eradicate earthly desires until nirvana does its job and finally frees the poor soul into oblivion.

Not much hope in there.

Mahayana tradition

That’s not the case with the Mahayana tradition. It is based on the Lotus Sutra, teaching Shakyamuni is said to have been preaching for the last eight years of his life.

In the Lotus Sutra Shakyamuni turns everything upside down and predicts that everyone can attain supreme enlightenment in their current form in this lifetime. Even women. Unheard — and still not widely accepted.

So, Shakyamuni was some 3000 years ahead of his time.

Nirvana is a state where we take full responsibility for our lives and accept that the causes that have led us to suffer can become the source of enlightenment right here and now.

Enlightenment for you and me

Because we have been born in this world as human beings, we cannot escape the realities of the universe.

We chose to be born, not by any cosmic joke or divine caprice, but because of the cause-and-effect chains that permeate our life before we are born.

Life is bigger than our intellect

It is impossible to analyse and dissect all the causes and effects that have led us to be born in the form each of us currently has. That’s why it is so essential to BELIEVE that those causalities exist.

Our whole life depends on the belief systems we uphold. It is better to believe that we can do something to those causalities.

It is crucial to believe that we can transform our lives

There is hope — infinite hope in the Buddhist teaching of enlightenment. It always looks forward to the future.

Past does not matter: we are products of it, but we are thinking-and-feeling products that can change their source code.

In essence, enlightenment, i.e. nirvana, is no escaping reality into extinction but seeing life as it is without biases and prejudices. It is a guidebook to transformation and finding our true selves.

It’s now or never

Enlightenment is the action taken now voluntarily and with a firm conviction that we can change our lives for the better.

Nichiren Daishonin (1222–1282) wrote in his famous letter ‘On attaining Buddhahood in this lifetime’:

“Your practice of the Buddhist teachings will not relieve you of the sufferings of birth and death in the least unless you perceive the true nature of your life. If you seek enlightenment outside yourself, then your performing even ten thousand practices and ten thousand good deeds will be in vain. It is like the case of a poor man who spends night and day counting his neighbour’s wealth but gains not even half a coin”. — Nichiren Daishonin, 1255

It means that we, as living human beings have the power and potential to be happy and fulfilled whatever our circumstances.

Finding meaning

Buddhist enlightenment is the way to find meaning in life and its sufferings and joys.

The holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl said it well:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

As Frankl points out, it is our choice and comes from the search for meaning. And Nichiren wrote several hundreds of years earlier:

“When deluded, one is called an ordinary being, but when enlightened, one is called a Buddha. This is similar to a tarnished mirror that will shine like a jewel when polished. A mind now clouded by the illusions of the innate darkness of life is like a tarnished mirror, but when polished, it is sure to become like a clear mirror, reflecting the essential nature of phenomena and the true aspect of reality.” — Nichiren Daishonin, 1255.

Polishing your mirror

We all can become happy, i.e. enlightened, if we polish our mirrors.

It doesn’t mean we must eradicate and eliminate our earthly desires or try to escape death by becoming empty and annihilating consciousness.

On the contrary, it means that we must live to the fullest and become who we truly want to be, using desires and sufferings as fuel and motivation for our transformation.

It is our mission in this life: to transform our lives to reveal our true selves, i.e. to change our greed, anger and ignorance into compassion, wisdom and courage to live to the fullest and help others to do the same.

How to know when somebody is enlightened?

That’s easy.

Enlightened people radiate hope, empathy and joy. They have found their meaning and willingly help others to do the same. They give more than they take.

I want to be one of them. And I want to be enlightened in this life and not in some distant future existence. How about you?