Some members leave the faith simply because other members are involved in a traffic accident or lose property in a fire. Isn’t this acting a little too impetuously? Such people seem to believe that someone with faith should not die, get hurt, meet any accident or suffer loss in any way. Were that to be true, it would create terrible confusion in society.
“How old are you, granny?”
“Three hundred and sixty-five.”
A person’s face already bears quite a few wrinkles at the age of sixty-five; what would it look like 300 years later?
Refrigerators would sell poorly.
“Even if we eat spoiled food, we won’t get sick because we practice faith.”
“Since we have faith, we won’t die even if we don’t eat. Therefore we don’t need to work.”
Thus the world would be filled with lazy people. However, none of these things are in any way true.
Now, some members may protest, “Then it makes no difference whether we have faith or not, does it?” But we cannot tell just by looking at the immediate occurrence whether it is a benefit or loss. No incident can be categorically defined as benefit or loss in and of itself. Each phenomenon invariably contains the potential for either.
Suppose someone’s house burns down. At the moment we cannot tell whether it is benefit or loss. What is important is how things will go after this mishap. Will he be able to live in a better house, or will he be reduced to living in a wretched shack? We need to wait for some time in order to determine whether that fire was a benefit or loss. As long as we continue our faith, we can change any kind of poison into medicine. Don’t be defeated by any difficulty or swayed by any external influence. Instead, continually strengthen your faith so that you can turn anyone and anything into a good influence, a springboard for you to advance towards your happiness.
Source: Guidelines of faith by Satoru Izumi
“How old are you, granny?”
“Three hundred and sixty-five.”
A person’s face already bears quite a few wrinkles at the age of sixty-five; what would it look like 300 years later?
Refrigerators would sell poorly.
“Even if we eat spoiled food, we won’t get sick because we practice faith.”
“Since we have faith, we won’t die even if we don’t eat. Therefore we don’t need to work.”
Thus the world would be filled with lazy people. However, none of these things are in any way true.
Now, some members may protest, “Then it makes no difference whether we have faith or not, does it?” But we cannot tell just by looking at the immediate occurrence whether it is a benefit or loss. No incident can be categorically defined as benefit or loss in and of itself. Each phenomenon invariably contains the potential for either.
Suppose someone’s house burns down. At the moment we cannot tell whether it is benefit or loss. What is important is how things will go after this mishap. Will he be able to live in a better house, or will he be reduced to living in a wretched shack? We need to wait for some time in order to determine whether that fire was a benefit or loss. As long as we continue our faith, we can change any kind of poison into medicine. Don’t be defeated by any difficulty or swayed by any external influence. Instead, continually strengthen your faith so that you can turn anyone and anything into a good influence, a springboard for you to advance towards your happiness.
Source: Guidelines of faith by Satoru Izumi
No comments:
Post a Comment