A House on Fire

by Stephen L. Klick | 20,465 words

From Stephen L. Klick: "There is no safety in the threefold world; it is like a burning house, replete with a multitude of sufferings, truly to be feared…"...

Chapter 5 - One Family

I am writing this at a terrible time in the history of the United States. Terrorists have massacred more then 6,000 civilians while attempting to hide behind the cloak of a respectable religion. Whatever grievance these persons might have felt, there is no justification for such irrational acts. No sane person anywhere maintains that this action was anything but cold blooded murder.

Every religion has its extremists; these misguided people should be pitied and helped if possible. If they are found to be plotting evil or illegal acts they should be stopped or arrested, they should not be hunted down and killed. It troubles me to hear the President of the United States offer a five million dollar reward for Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive" because we are a nation of laws.

Osama Bin Laden should be tried in the world court because his crimes have injured people in numerous countries. If he were captured it would be impossible for him to receive a fair trail in the United States or Great Britain. If he were imprisoned in either country he would quickly be killed by inmates who, I"m told, hate him as much as anyone on the outside. If he is kept in solitary confinement that would quickly become "cruel and unusual punishment," which is theoretically illegal in the United States.

Laws are not just guidelines we should follow when they are convenient. These laws were written to protect society from abuses of power. It is these very laws that make us a society and if we do not live by them then we are no different then any terrorist. Our response to the monstrous actions of this criminal is a direct measurement of the societal system we have created.

If we kill Bin Laden without due process of law then our "free society" has failed an important test. Our country claims to value human rights and personal freedom but far too often we do not live up to these ideals.

A comprehensive study of the history of the United States makes it easy to understand why the liberty bell cracked when it was rang in this country. Under the circumstances it is almost miraculous that it did not explode!

It is not good for us to hate each other. It is not profitable. If we respond to the people who committed these criminal acts with hatred and brutality then we will have created the cause to experience even more violence in this country.

This book is entitled "A House On Fire" because many do not realize the urgency of their personal situation. At the moment you have earned the opportunity to change what will happen to you now and in future lives. If you do not "seize the moment" and work to attain Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi then your life, and many future lives will have been wasted.

We are not here to become famous, wealthy or popular, we are here to grow, develop as human beings, and bring benefit to all the numerous people around us. You can imagine how you would behave if you discovered that your house was literally on fire; your life must be lived with that same sense of urgency!

If we do nothing, if we just go to meetings every week to practice together, then our society will continue to follow the course it"s now on. We already know what the results of violence will be: more hatred, bloodshed, and war.

War must be viewed as the ultimate human atrocity because it is the direct opposite of what we should be accomplishing both as individuals and as a species.

War is not a natural, spontaneously occurring phenomena, it is a kind of rage that must be worked up by the people participating. Inept politicians create situations that precipitate wars but they never seem to risk themselves in the battle. The persons sent to war are always younger because they can be deceived easiest by noble sounding rhetoric about heroism, personal courage, and duty to country.

These child soldiers soon learn what their more mature counterparts already understand; there is no honor in killing other people and there is nothing glorious about having your friends intestines splattered across the countryside.

It is not easy to kill a total stranger whose only "crime" was to be born in a different country, it takes a great deal of training to make young men coldly murder one another on command. During World War 1 troops that spent too much time in the same trenches came to know their "enemies" across from them and would not attack one another so before the slaughter could continue the men had to be moved to a different area of the battlefield.

Some soldiers never kill anything in combat. If they fire their weapons at all they make certain that nobody is close to their line of fire. The men that do learn to kill change their lives forever. Why should people be surprised that combat veterans have mental problems and difficulties adjusting to peacetime society?

Any successful social structure is predicated on the concept of group protection, "do not kill" is the prime rule of law we all learn as young children. Irrespective of culture, this law is ingrained in the minds of all citizens.

A person who violates this rule has put themselves outside the parameters of the human family and is aware of that fact at some level of consciousness. By definition one human being does not know what it feels like to end the life of another. If this code is violated mental and physical suffering will inevitably ensue in this and future lives.

The way back for an individual who has killed is long and difficult. It takes less then a second to kill in our modern world but the debts that are incurred will not be paid off for thousands of years.

Our species has poured endless amounts of energy, resources, and money into developing better ways of killing one another: trillions of dollars and countless man hours have been drained from our social coffers. Can you imagine the wonders our society could have created with this same effort?

Instead of smart bombs we could have smart students, instead of invisible bombers we could have vast networks of public transportation, and instead of living in fear we could all treat others like human beings and friends.

This world society could become a place where people wouldn"t have to struggle to find their daily food. If we stopped wasting resources on "new and improved" methods of destruction we could begin to focus on wiping out disease and establishing world literacy.

If we really want to live in a Buddhist Pure Land then people"s daily needs must be met. The individual who spends all of his waking hours seeking food and shelter does not have time to worry about spiritual advancement. If countries based their foreign policies on love and compassion then war and starvation could both become bad memories.

Everybody wants to be loved. Love is something all people need; our society obsesses about it in movies, books, poetry and song. Yet, in spite of all the enthusiasm displayed, the sad truth is that most people never experience much real love in their lives.

Far too many people settle for a shoddy imitation of love and lead lives filled with misery and needless suffering. At first they are drawn to one another by a strong sexual attraction. When this initial attraction fades what they are left with is often an unpleasant or possibly ugly relationship that can even become violent. Jealousy is not a symptom of love; it is a demonstration of immaturity and improper attachment.

Love is selfless and giving, love never has an ulterior motive and is free from attachment. There are never any strings attached to love, it is completely unconditional. The goal of one who loves is to bring widespread and long lasting happiness to the person or persons being cherished. Therefore, love does not lead to pain and suffering, it is always life affirming.

To be a Bodhisattva you must love all beings. In this simple statement we find expressed much of the wisdom of all the great spiritual teachers. You could as easily exchange the word Bodhisattva for Christian, Muslim, or Jew and few would argue.

It was my teacher, Nichiren, called "Shonin" or "Daishonin", who provided the greatest example of a Bodhisattva demonstrating how to practice love. He taught realized Truth to anyone interested all of his adult life and he did it in the face of constant hatred and abuse. A true Bodhisattva will persevere even after "common sense" tells most people that it"s time to pack it in and quit.

The love and compassion of my Teacher has spread the Dharma all across the world and the movement he created is growing larger every year. As followers of this great Bodhisattva, identified as "Superior Practices" in "The Lotus Sutra" we must identify our individual mission and then strive tirelessly to fulfill it during the short time that we are present in this world system.

I can honestly say that this is, by far, the most difficult thing I have ever tried to do. When I became part of Buddhist Information my intentions were to help as many people as possible. I saw that people could not find the Buddhist practices they were looking for and I wanted to help them. The people who work for Buddhist Information are never paid for their time. In fact, the people who work here pay the bills that keep us running from year to year.

The reaction has been…mixed. The people that we"re here to actually serve have been warmly appreciative and this has been enough to motivate us to continue. However, while intending only good things, offering only unconditional love to any person we encountered we have been reviled, slandered, abused, ostracized, spit on, cursed and occasionally threatened with death.

As disturbing as this has sometimes been, it is nothing compared to what our Teacher had to face. This has served to point out to me the greatness of Nichiren. To persevere in the face of constant hatred and animosity, yet still have the compassion to bring benefit to all the beings in this world system clearly demonstrates and defines love.

As the illness eating away at the body I inhabit continues its work, I can clearly see that my time here is limited. The closer we perceive physical death to be, the clearer our vision becomes. People often lose sight of what is truly important and they forget to love. The "great secret" to being loved is laughably easy to discern from here. If you want to be loved you must open your heart to the universe and love everyone, especially when they do not love you.

We are all one family and we have many more things in common then the silly things that separate us from each other. It is pitiful that we spend the small amount of time we have here hating one another; the Earth is a beautiful place, truly a Buddhist Pure Land if we only have the wit to see it and the heart to live in it.

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