La Filosofia di Buddhism

Famigli e Amici,

Many of you already know that Jenny and I are making our way towards entry into Classical Chinese Medicine at the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM). However, what you may not know is that we are also exploring other spiritual and philosophical teachings of the East: Buddhism, Sufism, Taoism, and Confuscism.

While we are not exploring these philosophies in hopes of converting--we are quite happy with our present spiritual beliefs--we are eager to understand what two-thirds of the non-Western world is taught as foundational knowledge for life. Wisdom, it seems, is not gained from solo pursuits of specific, technical knowledge. Rather, it seems that wisdom is most often gained from opening the mind to alternative ideas and letting them gestate over time. Yes, I know--it sounds cliche, but we feel it is important to come back to the cliche time and time again, re-evaluating how we can further expand our mind at each period in our life.

As we explore, we wanted to share some of our thoughts with our family and friends. Recently, we came across a passage that was especially germane to our immediate family. Not long ago, two very close friends of ours lost a baby (born still) and a brother. Both events touched us deeply and caused us to think hard about the nature of life and death.

A few weeks later while in the library, we came across two books by Thich Nhat Hanh, one called "Anger" and the other called "No Death, No Fear." Many passages from his books have touch our life, but one seemed especially important that helped us ease the suffering we felt for our dear friends Bekka and Kenny. We offer it to them and anyone else who has suffered from a loss that affected them deeply.

This is from "No Death, No Fear" and it is Hanh writing about and experience and revelation he had.

QUOTE
In my hermitage in France there is a bush of japonica, Japanese quince. The bush usually blossoms in the spring, but one winter it had been quite warm and the flower buds had come early. During the night a cold snap arrived and brought with it frost. The next day while doing walking meditation, I noticed that all the buds on the bush had died. I recognized this and thought, 'This New year we will not have enough flowers to decorate the alter of the Buddha.'

A few weeks later the weather became warm again. As I walked in my garden I saw new buds on the japonica manifesting another generation of flowers. I asked the japonica flowers: "Are you the same as the flowers that died in the frost or are you different flowers?" The flowers replied to me: "Thay, we are not the same and we are not different. When conditions are sufficient we manifest and when conditions are not sufficient we go into hiding. It's as simple as that."

This is what the Buddha taught. When conditions are sufficient things manifest. When conditions are no longer sufficient things withdraw. They wait until the moment is right for them to manifest again.

Before giving birth to me, my mother was pregnant with another baby. She had a miscarriage, and that person wasn't born. When I was young I used to ask the question: was that my brother or was that me? Who was trying to manifest at that time? If a baby has been lost it means that conditions were not enough for him to manifest and the child has decided to withdraw in order to wait for better conditions. "I had better withdraw; I'll come back again soon, my dearest." We have to respect his or her will. If you see the world with eyes like this, you will suffer much less. Was it my brother that my mother lost? Or maybe I was about to come out but instead I said, "It isn't time yet," so I withdrew.
END QUOTE

Excerpt from NO DEATH, NO FEAR. Pps: 3-4. Unified Buddhist Church; Riverhead Books, New York; 2002.

To Bekka and Kenny: We feel that when the time is right to manifest your child, he or she will arrive. We have great faith and happiness that on that day, you will be joyous. Until that time we send you all our love.

Yours in love,
Nate and Jen