What if you could somehow turn every struggle, every difficult moment, every crisis into a gift? Well, you can.
What if you could turn every day into Christmas day and receive and give lovely gifts? Well, you can.
This is not some sort of magical gobbled-gook but the transformative power of Naikan, a meditative process of helping us make a mental shift in the way we live life.
This is not reality, you say? I say it is the only reality. Life is a gift to be given. It is the greatest re-cycling project ever seen. We receive that we may give. As a result we receive more of the beauty and wonder of life. And of this starts with a small seed.
In our Pure Land Buddhist practice, we chant the Buddha Name Remembrance. This is a process of continual oral reciting of the Amitabha Buddha’s name and meditation on his name. The word “remembrance” is quite appropriate. It comes from the Latin through French: re= again, member=limb. When we live our lives in struggle, anger, vexation and with self-interest we become disjointed, out of balance, fallen apart. Re-membering is a putting back together so that we are one whole again in oneness with our Buddha nature which is complete unity with all of creation. There is a deep peace and abiding joy at being with all being.
It was a gift of milk curd from the poor girl to the Buddha that may have been instrumental in him attaining Enlightenment. It was the Buddha’s gift to the world of his teaching that enables us to give the gift of life to others.
You wish that everyday could be a beautiful day? I say, don’t wish it, be it! Be the wish that you want. You are master of your own destiny. The only thing that stands in your way is yourself, that is, your “self”. When you become aware of this, no just as an intellectual exercise, but from the depths of your heart, then you can really awaken to the gift of life in its fullest.
