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The Facts of Life
by Mike Lara
When we were growing up, there came a time upon entering puberty when, with sweaty palms, our parents either did or didn’t decide it was time for us to learn the “facts of life”. It came down to trying to let us know that the many changes we were experiencing, including physical, hormonal, even mental, were a natural part of life, a new phase in our growing up. In other words our sexual nature was beginning to manifest itself. Many parents, like mine, who were reticent and/or unclear how to broach the topic, either made broad fuzzy hints or left it unstated in the hopes that we would pick it up somehow. Of course, we all eventually came to terms with the matter, each in our own way.
However, when we begin to train in Buddhism, a larger perspective comes into view about what the “facts of life” are. This was brought into vivid focus when I recently read a statement by one of our leading newscasters. Several months ago, Peter Jennings was diagnosed with lung cancer. Although he had quit smoking for 20 years, he indicated he started again after the attack of 9/11. In a public statement he made after being diagnosed, he said the following: “Almost 10 million Americans are living with cancer. I am sure I will learn from them how to cope with the facts of life that none of us anticipated.”1 As I read his statement I was struck by the last 9 words: the facts of life that none of us anticipated. This statement speaks volumes about how our society hides from us the realities of life as they relate to the inevitable decline, disease and death that awaits us all. Although Peter Jennings, for close to 45 years, has covered the many faces of war and other catastrophes throughout the world, the fact that now he was on the receiving end of a life-threatening cancer at the age of 66, was, apparently, news he had not anticipated.
Peter Jennings, sad to say, is not the only person who will come to a similar conclusion when struck by a devastating illness. A few days later, I read another newspaper article by a woman who had also been diagnosed with lung cancer. In her case, she had never smoked. Here was her response: “This isn’t fair...there’s no justice in it. It is the lousy luck of life. Rotten things happen to good people. Who can explain it?”
A Catholic woman once asked a monk if Buddhists had any angels in their religion. He asked what she meant by angels and she replied they were spiritual beings, like Michael the Archangel and Gabriel, who are emissaries of God. He replied, “Oh yes, we have a similar teaching, only we refer to them as the four heavenly messengers: they are an old person, a sick person, a dead person and a monk.”2 Now, this response might seem laughable to most people. To compare beings of light who come in beautiful white robes and wings with Buddhism’s four heavenly messengers seems far-fetched. However, here is the connection: whereas the angels of light are coming from heaven with a message to this world of woe, the four sights, if seen with proper understanding, can lead us from samsara to what the Buddha referred to as nirvana, the cessation of all suffering.
The Buddha first encountered the four heavenly messengers at the age of twenty-nine after living a protected life as a prince in his three palaces. However, after the Buddha encountered the first three sights he said: “When an untaught ordinary man, who is subject to ageing, sickness and death, sees another who is aged, sick or dead he is shocked, humiliated and disgusted, for he forgets that he himself is no exception. “But”, the Buddha continued,” I too am subject to ageing... sickness... and death so it cannot befit me to be shocked, humiliated and disgusted on seeing another who is aged, sick or dead. When I considered this, the vanity of youth entirely left me.” Then he saw the fourth sight, that of a mendicant monk, someone who had renounced the world in order to seek enlightenment and liberation. This last messenger, the renunciate, awakened in Him the faith and conviction that complete freedom from suffering was possible.3
After these encounters, the Buddha renounced His former princely life and sought after the “unborn, ageing, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, undefiled supreme surcease of bondage, Nirvana.” He spent the next six years struggling to find the path to truth. After trying various teachings, as well as severe ascetic practices, he finally succeeded in His supreme quest under the Bodhi tree by returning to the meditation he had discovered as a young boy during a plowing festival. The Buddha then spent the rest of his long life offering the medicine for all suffering, the Dharma, to the world.
We are indeed fortunate to have made this precious connection with Buddhism. While all beings will experience ageing, illness and death, these facts of life are more than just depressing realities we cannot avoid; for those who have entered the path of training, they are really a wake-up call that this precious human life should not be wasted. Bodhidharma reminds us in his Outline of Practice that our present suffering, whatever form it takes, is not a mystery; it is a result of our turning away for countless eons from the essential to the trivial. It is one thing if our lack of merit does not allow us to hear the teachings of the Buddha. But having come in contact with the Buddha, the Dharma and those who have made the teaching true for themselves, the Sangha, it is encumbent on us to practice wholeheartedly ...for who knows when this opportunity will come again?
It is interesting to me that my first job at the age of 14 or so growing up in New York City was as a delivery boy with a messenger service. Since I recently turned 71, we could say I am back in the messenger business. After being a Buddhist for over 30 years I am also on the receiving end of getting at least one message: that whatever befalls me, in whatever time I have left, I cannot complain that it was not anticipated. The Buddha’s teaching points to the reality of life as it truly is; a reality that, contrary to common understanding, tells us that this fleeting world encompassing grief and sorrow as well as elation and happiness is but a fantasy and a dream; that no matter how our karma unfolds, we have never been separated from the boundless light of wisdom and joy that embraces the universe. May we all come to realize this Truth for ourselves.
1 S.F. Chronicle, 4/06/05; Matea Gold 2 Bikkhu Nanamoli, The Life of the Buddha, (Buddhist Publication Society, 1978), p 9 3 Ibid, p 10