Living Your Infinitesimally Short Life Meaningfully

The impermanence of life…oh how it reigns true in our religious traditions! Coming into Thanksgiving, it reminds us to be thankful where we are and spread ourselves thin for the benefit of others.

Here are four examples of reflections on impermanence: Two from the New Testament, one from the Jewish Bible, and the other is a story from the Jodo Shinshu tradition of Buddhism. Two are exhortations; the other two are narrative examples.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” – The Epistle of James 4:13-16

The Master said, “One day, on my way to Kyoto, I went to Moji and stayed at a hotel where I waited for the departure of my boat. My room was upstairs. In the next room was a merchant who was intently reckoning on an abacus. Before long, a servant of the lodging house told us that the departure time would come soon. The merchant packed his account books and abacus in his wicker trunk and got on board with other passengers. When the boat set sail, he produced those things and resumed his work. Being his roommate, I thought to myself: What wonderful timing! If he had not stopped his work when the departure time was announced, he would have missed the boat. How amazing it is that he stopped his work in time and got on the boat while he admirably resumed his work once on board! “When I urge people to listen to the Dharma, they would say ‘I am busy with my work,’ or ‘I am too young to listen to the Dharma’. They do not know that the wind of impermanence can suddenly blow at any time. Why do they not learn from this merchant? Why do they not first get on board the Boat of the Vow of Great Compassion and then keep themselves busy with secular work?” – a story from Master Gôjun Shichiri (1835-1900)

 

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”  - The Gospel of Luke 12:16-21

Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. – Ecclesiastes 11:9