A fellow Buddhist, recently told me that her son spoke to her with illogical statements and showed some symptoms that stunned her very much. I knew straight away that was schizophrenia because I happened to have just watched a video not long ago about this disease. I felt very sorry for this mother because I also knew from her that her son was very obedient and supportive to her. Every week on the payday, her son would be just automatically giving his total earning of that week to the mother, and then only spent whatever amount mother put into his wallet. So I could appreciate how sorrowful and helpless my friend must be. I am so sorry for her.Two months ago, my ex-colleague called me out of my expectation. From the conversation, I could tell his mood was quite low. After a few exchanges of pleasantry and our personal updates, he inserted this shocking news. "Shirley has just passed away." I could not believe what I had heard. I yelled "what!!! Who has passed away?" He replied, "Shirley, my wife."
Shirley was a kind, friendly, and generous woman. Every time when we were invited to their home, she always took the best food or delicacy from the fridge to treat us, and also tried to pack something up for us to take home when we were leaving. Two months before her demise, I had my last phone chat with her, and I could not believe she had any health problem. "What was the cause of her death?" I asked my ex-colleague. "hepatitis"
I think that is why whenever I recount these two episodes happened on my friends, I always agree with the quote that most of the Buddhists are familiar with-- "life is impermanent." (人生無常).
Probably for this reason, I intended to practice my English writing on the topic of "the meaning of life." As usual, I began this process by asking my wife some questions about this topic the other day. Without any hesitation, she answered: "Life is to get ourselves to be prepared for our soul to transmigrate to the blissful pure land". She answered in a way like she was being quizzed by the master. She is a devoted follower of the Mahayana Buddhism of pure land tradition, so I understood what she meant, but that was not the type of answer that I expected. So I pressed on "put your religion belief aside, and tell me frankly what you feel about the meaning of life." "Then, I think the meaning of life is enjoying what you have contentedly and happily." I reckoned she was giving an honest answer.
Then I asked many other friends of the same question. And I found all of the answers I collected were more or less different from each other.Everyone is an unique individual I also checked for the definition of life on the Web by Google search and found there were innumerable collection of quotes, and finally I landed on the page of Wikipedia about this topic, and I found Wikipedia provides the most thorough information. It gives summarized thoughts of the major religions, ideologies, regions of the globe, academic advocates.
I asked myself the same question, and I found it was not so easy to just give an answer that matches every aspect of my thoughts, my philosophy, my personality and my belief. Having checked throughout the archive in my brain, it came up with one like this -- "life is for us to fulfill what we are destined to accomplish."
To conclude this post, I would like to quote "life is to settle the issues which your Karma casts upon you." (人生酬業)
Indeed we are born to accept either punishment or reward that are recorded accurately in our Karma. And in the process of accepting punishment or reward, all sorts of experiential viewpoint are naturally expressed according to the Karma.
