Who am I but my memories and thoughts. What makes me who I am, are the occurrences of the past. When I am born, I have thoughts but have no memory; but before death, I will have thoughts and so much memory. But what becomes of this memory when I die? As my brain waves cease, will all my memories be nonexistent like when I was born? But even without any memories, I may still be able to think. If I think, according to the great philosopher Descartes I would exist. Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). If my body and brain cease to function, where do my thoughts originate from; and if I exist where am I? But more important where am I going to?
Death
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Finding Happiness
What do people pray for? They pray for health. They pray for a perfect mate. They pray for that perfect job; and many even pray that their favorite team wins. But you don’t hear people praying for happiness.
What is happiness and how do we get it? Many think it is the possession of physical material, like money, fast cars, and expensive clothes that makes us happy. Others think our positions in society makes us happy. Some seek happiness in recreational drugs like marijuana, alcohol, and cocaine. Others believe that they can gain happiness by understanding the metaphysical world. But as many have found it, these endeavors of finding happiness may not work.
But what does it mean to be happy. The term spirited is often mentioned in the Tip of the Writing Brush (Ofudesaki). It is the attitude of joy in whatever happens. How do we gain this attitude? It is foretold in the Tip of the Writing Brush that we must eliminate greed, arrogance, and self love to become spirited. We must help others to become spirited ourselves. This appears contradictory to our wisdom; helping others to gain happiness?
It is with this understanding of being spirited, that we pray to God to help us eliminate evil (greed, arrogance, and self love). When we do this, we can become spirited. Every day will be like a “sunny day”. Pray for happiness!
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From a knot, buds sprout
What is the purpose of suffering? Some say that we become closer to God by sharing our grief with others. But most of us would sell our souls to avoid any sufferings. Others would say that suffering is God’s punishment and blame themselves.
Does God bring upon this suffering, or do we bring the suffering upon ourselves. Some believe that the universe has specific laws that are absolute, like the law of gravity. They believe that causality fits in this category. We bring upon our own sufferings or joy depending on our thoughts and behavior. The events in our future are contingent on our thoughts and behaviors of today. Suffering by this theory, develops from our evil (greed, arrogance, and self love) thoughts and actions.
Suffering serves to purify the mind. If we accept our sufferings joyously and purify our minds, we have the ability to plant seeds that will blossom into joy in the future. But many times, people become more irritated and annoyed when suffering occurs, which plants bad seeds that will turn into suffering again. But if we accept our suffering and purify our minds, we have the ability to eliminate suffering in the future.
The following is a quote from the Osashizu:
What is painful is a knot (suffering), yet buds sprout from knots. Have a spacious mind that allows you to accept your pain as a knot and a source of delight. This one truth is eternal. March 5, 1894
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Understanding Causality
What if the world is a reflection of our minds? The problems at work, the unexpected sufferings are all the results of our minds. The delivery of these sufferings and inconveniences may be from people familiar to us, or may even be strangers in the night. But like a common saying, “don’t kill the messenger that conveys the message”. If we can direct our response not to the messenger, but direct it within ourselves.
If we can direct the response inwards, then anger or worry will not arise when inconveniences occur. What is this response to adversary? It is not a feeling of hopelessness in facing an unchangeable fate. But it is the optimism even in suffering, that our good thoughts and actions today will plant a good seed for tomorrow. It is this positive action that will bring forth messengers that will delivers us joy in the future.
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Sorry God
How do we apologize to God for our past sins or evils? In the Tip of the Writing Brush (Ofudesaki), it states that God does not accept our verbal apologies for our past sins or evils. It is the determination not to act in the same manner when confronted with the same temptations, that God accepts as our apology. Words have less influence in contrast to action. To act joyously when confronted with the unexpected is what God accepts.
Words of apology have less influence on God because most of us have less faith, and are weak when confronted with temptation, stress, and sufferings. We may praise God, and ask God for forgiveness of our past evils; but when confronted with temptation, and stress, we may continue to follow the same evil path. It is only when we change our behavior that God will accept as an apology of our past sins or evils. Show God by your actions that you have eliminated greed, arrogance, and self-love from your minds. Then God will bless you!
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Understanding Causality
What if the world is a reflection of our minds? The problems at work, the unexpected sufferings are all the results of our minds. The delivery of these sufferings and inconveniences may be from people familiar to us, or may even be strangers in the night. But like a common saying, “don’t kill the messenger that conveys the message”. If we can direct our response not to the messenger, but direct it within ourselves.
If we can direct the response inwards, then anger or worry will not arise when inconveniences occur. What is this response to adversary? It is not a feeling of hopelessness in facing an unchangeable fate. But it is the optimism even in suffering, that our good thoughts and actions today will plant a good seed for tomorrow. It is this positive action that will bring forth messengers that will delivers us joy in the future.
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A prayer to save mankind
In the Tip of the Writing Brush, it is stated that the whole world is the body of God.
I shall teach you step by step that this world is
the body of God. Ponder over it. 3-40
If this is true, then God is not whole and healthy because there is suffering in the world. Only when everyone in the world is joyous can God be considered spirited and whole. It is said that when God is whole and spirited, the world will see prosperity and joy that has never been seen.
It is with this vision, that we have a prayer that prays for the salvation of all mankind. We have a special prayer asking God to sweep the evils (greed, arrogance, and self love) that are imbued in the hearts of mankind. We know that only when the whole world is joyous, can we ourselves have true joy.
Our prayer is: Evil (greed, arrogance, and self love) sweeping. Save them please, Universal Saving God.
Try this prayer daily, and wait for God to help sweep evil from the hearts of mankind.
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Seeking Salvation
The secret to salvation is to get rid of greed, arrogance, and self-love. Easy said, but almost impossible to do.
We human beings want to be spirited by nature. We believe that having possessions (greed), will make us spirited. When our plans are blocked, we become arrogant blaming others for our shortcomings. We tend to think only about our families or ourselves. This often leads to depression and more greed. The concept of removing greed and selfishness in order to become spirited goes contrary to our beliefs.
It is this message of helping others to become spirited that has been conveyed by the sages and prophets of the past. Whether the spiritedness comes as a reward from God, or whether it comes from a natural law, it does not matter. But to many, it is like God asking one to take a leap of faith, like jumping out of a twenty-story building. We do not believe that God will catch us. We have too much faith in what appears to give us happiness. We think only about our families and ourselves. It is ironic that to become spirited one must not think of oneself, but think about others. This is why it is so difficult to become spirited. This is why many of us seek pleasure in all of the wrong places.
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Our Actions are What God Accepts
In one of the sacred books, it states that God does not accept our apologies for our past sins or evils. It is the determination to not act in the same manner when confronted with the same temptations that God accepts as our apology. Words have less influence, in contrast to action. To live joyously when confronted with the unexpected is what God accepts.
Some of us have less faith, and are weak when confronted with temptation, stress, and sufferings. We may praise God, and ask God for forgiveness of our past evils; but when confronted with temptation, and stress, we may continue to follow the same evil path. It is only when we change our behavior that God will accept as an apology from our innermost heart. It is at this stage of true sincerity, can we become spirited in mind, like the mind of God.
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The soul
In many religions, there is a reference to the heart, separate from the mind. Phrases like from the innermost heart and purity of the heart are found. What is this heart?
In the Tip of the Writing Brush, it is said that this heart functions to sweep our evils (greed, arrogance, and self love) produced by our minds. Like the sand that attracts the waste in our sewer system, this heart functions to isolate and contain our evils in our bodies
Prepare to clear this mind quickly. Purify it by using a filter and sand. 3-10
This filter, where do you think it is. The heart and the mouth are the sand and filter. 3-11
Like the organs in our bodies that are designated to removed the impurities in our bodies (Golgi), the heart functions to remove our mental dusts. Some may say that the heart as we know it physically, is this organ. Others may say that this heart is our soul that is immeasurable by instruments. This heart (soul) collects and stores our evils, and eventually eliminates it from our bodies.
Where do our evils that are trapped by the heart go? They go out the body and are converted to another form of energy, coming back to us in the form of some type of physical occurrence. A strenuous incident, an angry co-worker, an illness may be the result of this released energy from the heart. These occurrences have the energy potential of generating more evil in our minds if we do not understand this cycle of energy transfer.
Many of us will become frustrated by these occurrences, and react by producing more evil thoughts. But for those who understand this concept of causality, they will joyously accept these occurrences as a way of sweeping our existing evils from our hearts: and will avoid producing more evils of greed, arrogance, and self-love.
In one of the sacred books, it states that God does not want us to apologize for our past sins or evils. But it is the determination to live joyously when confronted with causality that God will accept as our apology. We have a natural process of sweeping our minds of evil. Our hearts (soul) and our true sincerity provide a way of eliminating evil from our minds. When our minds are pure, our hearts will be pure as they were in the beginning. There will be no more suffering.
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OFUDESAKI-GOD'S TEACHINGS 