Observe Life

Buddhism teaches the world to observe life as it is and says that mind and body form life. If we follow the Buddha, we have to observe life, especially our life, not that of others. To observe life, we have to divide it into two sections; body and mind. The body seems to be easy to observe because it is obvious, we can feel easily such things as bodily pain, sickness and old age. As for mind, it is harder to observe and, because it is complicated, mankind forgets it, just lets it work randomly, but Buddhism pays the most importance to the training of the mind. The mind is stressed as is said, "To train the body is not better than to train the mind, or to ordain the mind is better than to ordain the body." This is because the mind is the chief of all things.

The Buddha taught the world three basic trainings; moral behaviour, meditation and mind-development. The mind is the primary point of Zen, as Boddhidhamma said, "Zen stresses the mind-training, not clinging to scriptures." So in Zen, a meditator can do anything just for a concentrative mind. "Do we observe our mind?", this is a question which we should ask ourselves. Some may say, "Yes, I do observe my mind." To just say is not enough, we have to do it through our experience, and practice. If we don't train our mind, we won't know our real selves.

Life is like a movie frame. If we investigate it closely and continuously, we can see it frame by frame, moment by moment. This movie of life will be seen clearly; happy, funny, exciting, sorrowing and suffering etc. A wise man said that the mind was a mirror which could reflect the feeling through it. Feeling also can be known through some of the six sense doors, as a blind man said to his friend, "Friend, I cannot see people's faces, so I notice people by listening to their voices. I will know those who have loving kindness, greed, aversion and delusion by listening." It is true that kind people will show their kindness. On the contrary, cruel people will show their cruelty. It is easy to know people's feeling or our own, we just investigate life closely.