Time to reflect:

Life is unpredictable and because it is so, it is interesting. Unfortunately, most of us want life to be predictable, but we find it is not so. Why is life so unpredictable?

Because, the world in which we live is interdependent, and yet constantly changing.  In that changing process, there are the polar events constantly moving within our lives. They are the positives and negatives which are ever present in our life process.

The problem that we have is that we love the positive, but want nothing to do with the negative. For example, we love life but hate death, love success but hate failure, want happiness but not sorrow, victory and not defeat and on and on and on.

The Buddha is telling us that we need to look at both the positives and negatives because they are a part of our lives. If we do not, we will suffer because we are ignoring one important truth of our own lives. We are not working with the truth of our lives.  There is nothing wrong with the positives of life, but always remember you cannot hang on to only the positives because they will change.  We should not run away from the negatives of life because they can become the bridge to meaning. Negatives can change if we have the courage to work with it.

To live and work with the positives and negatives in our lives is to walk the middle path. In Shinran’s terms it simply means to appreciate our lives within the truth of positives and negatives and keep moving.

Reflection: To live means to walk the path between the positives and negatives of life and still see the light.