Because This Is the Life I Have Been Given
Rev. Takashi Maeda
Director, Rissho Kosei-kai International
Sometimes I find myself wondering, why was I born in this particular era? Why was I born to these parents and raised in this family? Why did I meet this person and come to share my life with these children? And why am I living the way I do today?
These are questions we do not often ask ourselves in our daily lives. Yet, according to the Lotus Sutra, “because we wish it, we are born in this world.” If so, might we not view even the encounters and events that seem to happen by chance as karmic connections that give us opportunities to cultivate our lives and live for the sake of others? Life brings not only joy but also hardship and circumstances that do not unfold as we wish. Yet as we face and accept each of these experiences, our lives are gradually refined.
From the perspective of eternal life, our time in this world is but a fleeting moment. How will we spend that moment? Will we lament, asking, “Why must my life be this way?” Or will we choose to live with the conviction that “because this is the life I have been given, there must be something only I can do”?
It is worth embracing the era into which we were born, our families, the people we meet, and even this very day, as the stage we have been given on which to make the most of our lives. When we do, life may cease to be something we lament by asking “Why?” and instead become an opportunity to take a step forward and ask, “Then, how shall I live?”
