HAPPY CONTINUATION DAY!

Rebirth happens to us daily. Isn’t it true that you are reborn in every moment of your daily life? Is it possible for you to renew yourself in every moment of your daily life? Is it possible for you to transform your suffering and your lack of understanding and become a new person ?

If you practice looking deeply, you will see that the notion of birth and death can be transcended.

To be born means that from no one you suddenly become someone, from nothing you suddenly become something. That is our idea of birth. But when you look deeply at a wave, you see that a wave does not come from nothing. Nothing can come from nothing. Before a tree is here, it was somewhere else. It was a seed, and before that it was part of another tree. Before the rain is here, it was a cloud . The rain was not born, it is only a transformation of the cloud. It is a continuation. If you look deeply into the rain, you recognize the cloud which is the former life of the rain.

There is no birth, according to the Buddhist teaching. There is only a continuation.

On your birthday, it is advisable that you don’t sing, “Happy Birthday,” but that instead of sing, “Happy Continuation Day”. You have been here, you don’t know since when. You have never been born and you are not going to die, because to die means from someone you suddenly become no one. From something, you suddenly become nothing. Nothing is like that. Even when you burn a piece of cloth, it will not become nothing. It will become the heat that penetrates into the cosmos. It will become smoke that rises into the sky to become part of a cloud. It will become some ash that falls to the ground that may manifest tomorrow as a leaf, a blade of grass, or a flower. So there is only a continuation.

Looking deeply helps us transcend the notion of birth and death. Rebirth is not such a good word. A better word is continuation. Everyone can witness the nature of no birth and no death of anything. The French scientist Lavoisere said, “Nothing is created and nothing dies” (Rien ne se crée, rien ne se perd). He used the exact words that are used in the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra.

If you touch the phenomenal realm deeply, you touch the ultimate realm which is the realm of no birth and no death. The ultimate is nirvana, it is God, and it is available to us twenty-hour hours a day.

A Zen teacher in Vietnam of the tenth century, Master Thien Hoi, was asked by a student where to find the world of no birth and no death. The Zen teacher replied, “You find it right in the world of birth and death”. It’s so simple and so clear. Looking deeply into the nature of something, like a tree, a piece of cloth, or a cloud , you discover the nature of no birth and no death in it. It is very important to have enough time and enough of the energy of mindfulness in us to touch things deeply enough to discover their birthless and deathless nature.

Going home – Jesus and Buddha as Brothers
– by Thich Nhat Hanh