Today I attended the new year lecture at Mugi no ie (House of Wheat).
The lecture was on "No Wealth But Life: " by Mr.Tensyun Aramaki, Honorary Prof of Kyoto University.
He raised a question from Buddhist scholar:
"Hasn't the concept of Economy become different from what it originally meant?"
Originally wealth should be something to protect our lives.
A life in this sense is not a selfish life but a life by grace of the others.
We live our lives but we live not only lives of ourselves
but live the greater life, feeling connection to the others or something greater than ourselves.
The realization of this fact is important.
This is exactly what I have been thinking these days.
And he continues....In the Buddhism, "KU(Nothing)"means this greater life - connections to the others.
This greater life is connected to each other, so this is uncountable.
In mathematics, something uncountable is "Zero".
So "Zero" can mean two things at the same time: unlimited smallness and unlimited greatness(infinity).
Once a person realizes this greater life, each life begins to shine brightly by his/her uniqueness.
Then what determines his/her uniqueness?
This is determined by what you truly like.
While you are searching for it, "Zero"will come to you and give you an answer.
True self is not self built by society,.
True self is the infinite life, that is lived by the greater life.
This will come to you naturally.
For that moment, let's prepare yourself.
He gave us the following advice by referring the words by Genjou Sanzo:
1) quest for not social self but true self
2) continuous efforts on realization of what you really like
3) concentration on what you really like and keep going on
4) it will make you shine naturally
5) transformation of you will come out when you abandon the old self.
The lecture was such big encouragement for me.
Especially I made a big decision in my life.
Here are photos from Mugi no ie.
All the dishes were made of the vegetables grown by Yamazaki family here.
After the lecture, we had an early dinner together.