Finito! ^.^

Well... it's about 12:30pm on December 31, 2004 and I had just finished THE BOOK!!

Very inspirational in terms of reaffirming my Buddhist faith and practice. I would like to quote some passages from the last few pages because I really feel and agree with them from the experiences of my practice in Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism.

On pg 218 (from Life; An Enigma, a Precious Jewel), Daisaku Ikeda writes:

• In Man's Concern with Death, Prof. Toynbee speaks of an "immortal sea," which is mentioned in a poem by Wordsworth. Of it, he writes: "We might think of a human person - which is the only kind of person that we know - a being a wave that rises and falls, or a bubble that forms and bursts, on the 'immortal sea's' surface. Like a wave or a bubble, a human person is ephemeral in hemself.... The person who lives and dies in a psychosomatic organism on this planet may be a manifestation of Eternal Spiritual Reality."

Well... this is how I view life itself... it is something eternal in the sense of universal cosmos.

On the next page (pg 219) he also writes:

• So long as one is a sentient being, it is possible to change one's basic tendency. The path is open toward self-reformation and the creation of a new life-tendency.

And finally on the last couple of pages (pg 229 - 230):

• For the Buddhist philosophy of eternal life is not an expedient designed to persuade people to accept their mortality; it is a realistic and unfailing view of life established through myriad struggles against the sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death. It teaches us to face up to the harsh realities of life with conviction and hope; it enjoins us to devote all our actions and our thoughts to the welfare of otehrs, because compassion is the ultimate source of cosmic life.

• By cherishing this philosophy we can trun each difficulty into a source of power bringing joy to our lives. The trials we face become ingredients for the building of our characters. Hardship becomes the fertile soil in which tiny new shoots spring up and flourish. Each bead of sweat expended in the struggle for self-protection and the betterment of our society becomes the seed of greater energy.

But in all fairness, you must read the book as these passages are here for my posterity sake ^.^ and may be taken out of context.

Have a Happy New Year Amigos!!