Part Two
Chapter 6: The Dark Future Casts a Shadow on the Present

WE MASK OUR ANXIETY ABOUT DEATH

Many readers may wonder how the dark mind uncertain about what lies beyond death could be the root cause of suffering in life. But what happens when the future is shadowy? To gain some insight, think of these examples: an important exam looming three days off weighs heavily on the mind of a student; a patient facing major surgery in five days is unable to relax and enjoy himself.

When one's future is dark, the present is likewise darkened. This is clear if you think of the mental state of airplane passengers who learn their aircraft is doomed. No meal could taste good to them, and no movie, however hilarious, could entertain. What might otherwise have been a pleasant trip has been transformed completely. Fearful and anxious, the passengers are thrown into confusion, some of them shrieking in terror. In this case the root of their suffering is the impending crash, but fiery death is not the only horror: the flight toward tragedy is itself a kind of hell.

To repeat, when the future is dark, the present is likewise darkened. The darkness of the present is owing to the darkness of the future. Anxiety about what may lie beyond death is inseparable from anxiety in the here and now. It stands to reason, therefore, that efforts to make the present bright without resolving this darkness of mind can only come to nothing.

When he was nearly fifty, the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) came to this very realization. Knowing that death might strike today or tomorrow, how could anyone rest easy? Shocked at this discovery, he lost all interest in work.

I simply felt astonished that I had failed to realize this from the beginning. It had all been common knowledge for such a long time. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (and they had already arrived) to those dear to me, and to myself, and nothing will remain other than the stench and the worms. Sooner or later my deeds, whatever they may have been, will be forgotten and will no longer exist. What is all the fuss about then? How can a person carry on living and fail to perceive this? That is what is so astonishing! It is only possible to go on living while you are intoxicated with life; once sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere trick, and a stupid trick!

Sooner or later, even my precious family must come up against death: that thought took away Tolstoy's joy in his family and in his art, the two things that had previously sustained him. His writing had been going well, but once he took a long, hard look at the inevitability of death, his world shattered into a thousand pieces.

Pascal expressed his misgivings this way: “We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.” Indeed, we are like runners going full tilt in pitch–darkness. Without masking our cold fear of the unknown—the answer to the question “What will become of me after death?”—we cannot go on living. The advances of material civilization may make life easier, but they certainly cannot provide lasting happiness; they may mask the darkness temporarily, but they do not eliminate it. They are simply different ways of masking our fear. No such distraction is permanent, in fact, nor does it solve anything. Whatever we may turn our hand to lasts only for a flash, and we can find no heart's ease, living in a fleeting world that is like a burning house.

THE CRUCIAL MATTER OF THE AFTERLIFE

If a man's birth could be likened to an airplane lifting off from an aircraft carrier, then a lifetime of fighting desperately against heavy odds would correspond to a struggle against air turbulence and tempests, amid skirmishes with enemy planes. After a fierce fight, the pilot returns, only to find the carrier gone without a trace. Nothing meets his eye but the vast ocean. His fuel gauge reads zero. He looks back on the long, desperate struggle he has just endured, wondering what it was for, and curses himself for a fool.

“As life ends, regret and fear occur by turns.” These words from the Larger Sutra of Infinite Life surely sum up the frame of mind of the pilot as his plane crashes into the sea. Just as for an airplane there is no worse fate than a crash, so in life there is no event of greater consequence than death. That is why Buddhism speaks of the “crucial matter of birth–and–death,” or the “crucial matter of the afterlife.”

We have squandered our days. We have sought the wrong objectives. Talent, property, and power have earned us the respect of others without affording us either joy or satisfaction. Why have we not rather sought happiness to satisfy the soul? We are left with nothing but sighs of regret. So wrote Seneca, a Roman philosopher who lived in the first century. This lament can only be the regret of someone taken aback by the blackness of his prospects after death (darkness of mind).

This is the pitfall that no one sees coming until the last curtain of life. Perhaps that is what prompted Russian writer Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) to write, “Life is a vexatious trap.”

In the Larger Sutra of Infinite Life we also read, “People of this world are shallow and vulgar, struggling over things of no urgency.” In other words, completely distracted by what is in front of their noses, people do not realize the essential task of life: to eliminate darkness of mind. This is the alarm sounded by S�La�Pkyamuni Buddha.

Shinran declared authoritatively that the root of suffering is darkness of mind, and that to eliminate this darkness and gain lasting happiness is the purpose of human life. The truth of this teaching should now be apparent.

Once we know this crucial matter of birth–and–death, debates over whether or not life has a purpose are beside the point. For indeed, at that very moment the purpose of life will be thrust upon us with unmistakable clarity.