真実に迫る瞬間
The Moment of Approaching the Truth
2024-09-14 18:00:00
For example, when listening to music, there are times when it sounds incredibly beautiful, completely different from usual.
And this feeling is not limited to music; it could be in the form of scenery or a landscape.
The pinnacle of this experience is feeling it in interactions with others.
In such moments, one may wonder what they had been seeing all this time and feel as if they have touched something profound and essential that they hadn’t noticed before.
Likewise, a Buddhist practitioner may encounter a moment when a passage from a scripture they have read countless times suddenly feels immensely significant.
In such cases, it can be considered that the merits they had accumulated have ripened, resulting in the emergence of an opportunity for enlightenment.
And in this case, the opportunity can be seen as ‘a moment approaching the truth.’
Here, a practitioner may engage in the necessary introspection, solidifying a feeling of disdain for the world, accomplish the completion of contemplation (= cessation and contemplation), or recall phrases of the Dharma heard in the past, thereby coming significantly closer to enlightenment.
What is important here is that when one feels 'as if they have understood something,' it is often merely a misconception. It is in the moment when one feels 'I might truly understand something' that it is seen as the fruition of virtue.
Thus, an excellent practitioner will, driven by this momentum, pursue something further or face a turning point in their itinerant practice.
In any case, these moments become opportunities to approach the truth.
In this sense, it is said that a Buddhist practitioner should always confront whatever they see or hear with a fresh perspective.
Specifically, it means to see what is not supposed to be visible and to hear voices that are not supposed to be audible.
The moment when the truth is revealed arrives there.
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