How often we just give up without even trying! We can feel so overwhelmed by the mere idea of all the energy and effort needed to achieve a desired result that we never attempt to act on our dreams.
I have heard that Riyoko Ikeda, author of the immensely popular "Rose of Versailles" comic book epic, passed the entrance examination for Tokyo Music College at the age of forty-seven. I was impressed when she said, "I kept telling my vacillating self that if I was serious about achieving this, I would have to give up certain things."
No one knows for sure that she is going to get what she strives for. No decision is hard if success is probable; the hard decisions appear when victory is in doubt.
Those who can convince themselves that they will succeed against the odds are the most likely to triumph. When you confront a problem, swing with all your might. Do not let the problems just speed toward you while you squirm in indecision.
Confidence is something you build up within yourself after trying over and over again. I would also like to add how important it is to take risks at certain points in our lives.
In July 1963, as vice-head of the Peace Delegation of Religious Leaders for Banning Nuclear Weapons, I visited several European countries and met Pope Paul VI. I have had a few similar opportunities to meet Pope John Paul II. I was deeply moved by both men's intense dedication to their calling.
I once commented to one of John Paul II's aides that I was impressed by how many languages the pope could speak. The aide replied, "The English words decision and decide come from the Latin decidere, which can mean 'cut off' or 'discard." For example, if you are going to climb Mount Everest, you can take along only the very bare necessities for survival. Everything else has to be left behind. You will never reach the summit by adding one thing after another until you are burdened with too much weight. Mastering languages is like climbing a mountain; you have to concentrate on the essentials.
We Japanese live in an age of affluence. We want everything and seldom have to choose. We are so burdened with things that we cannot move one way or the other. So confusing are the choices before us that we have lost the capacity for single-minded concentration. We cannot let go of the unessential in order to achieve our ends. It is not surprising that some people claim that the heavens have punished us for our sins by giving us everything we could want.
Masahiro Mori, a professor emeritus of the Tokyo Institute of Technology and known to many as "Dr. Robot" for his robotic studies and his book The Buddha in the Robot, has profound scientific insight into Buddhism. For example, regarding the Buddhist tenet that all things are impermanent, he notes that only humans think of things as dying or breaking.
When a flower withers or a base breaks, we throw it away. Such things are no longer useful, we think. But that is a human bias; the drooping flower and the broken vase have, objectively speaking, only changed. Who is to say that they are no longer useful?
Take the instance of a metal plate. When it is shaped in a press, we say we are "making" something. But from the perspective of the metal plate, we re destroying its original form. In other words, creating and destroying are one and the same. You cannot create without changing something.
The head priest of the Tendai sect of Japanese Buddhism, Ven. Etai Yamada, often said in his later years that death was but one way to be reborn. Rather than being the fearful opposite of life, death is actually one and the same as life. What peace comes to us once we realize this fundamental truth! As Mahatma Gandhi said, the seed must die for the sprout of new life to emerge. Life also comes out of death.
Nikkyo Niwano
Buddhism For Everyday Life
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