Embraced by Chaos
Rev. J.K. Hirano
I began to wonder whether the history of humanity is just an endless, but futile, struggle to impose order, certainty, and rationality onto a world defined by disorder, chance, and chaos. But I also began to flirt with an alluring thought: that we could find new meaning in that chaos, learning to celebrate a messy, uncertain reality, by accepting that we, and everything around us, are all just flukes, spit out by a universe that can’t be tamed.
Fluke: chance, chaos, and why everything we do matters, Brian Klaas
This quote is from a book suggested to me by Mike Monson, a former Minister’s Assistant of mine at the Ogden Buddhist Temple. He told me, “There is this new book that I think you will love?” This book was Fluke.
The Merriam-Webster.com online dictionary defines “fluke”:
Synonyms of fluke:
1 a stroke of luck
The discovery was a fluke
Her second championship shows that the first one was no mere fluke.
2 an accidentally successful stroke at billiards or pool
I think if you are a native English speaker or very familiar with the English language, you will understand this word. The older I get, the more I agree with this statement of Klass that “I began to wonder whether the history of humanity is just an endless, but futile, struggle to impose order, certainty, and rationality onto a world defined by disorder, chance, and chaos.”
I have spoken about my first experience when I thought Buddhism made sense to me. It was when I learned in Dharma School what cause and effect really was what made up our physical reality. Although this was said to be the meaning of Karma, it really isn’t. Karma literally means “Act or action”, not the effect of said act. However, for the sake of the general understanding when I say karma, I am referring to cause and effect. It must be about 1966 or 1967, because my Dad was driving a 1963 Buick special station wagon and he usually did not buy new cars. In Dharma School, I learned that everything was the result of karma. With this bit of knowledge, I couldn’t wait to tell my dad. Back then, parents usually didn’t go to service with their kids. Like my dad, the kids would be dropped off and the parents would pick them up after it was finished. This is something I would discourage. However, this was the way it was.
That day, when I got into the car, he usually said something like, “How was it? Did you learn anything?” My usual answer would be, “Not really….” But on this day, I said, “I learned the answer to everything. Ask me anything and I can answer it.” He said something, I don’t remember the question and I answered, “Cause and Effect! Ask me another!” As you could guess, this went on a bit and my answer was always “Cause and Effect.” The answer to everything. To my 9- or 10-year-old mind, Life was a very simple linear existence. And Buddhism answered anything I wanted to know.
After 66 years, I realize life doesn’t always work like that. It is guided by karma, but karma does not always work for our benefit or what we think would be to my benefit. As Rennyo Shonin states in his letter on White Ashes, which I read at all funerals, “Whether I am first or whether others are first; whether it is to be today or tomorrow, who is to know. Those who are sent off before us like the countless drops of dew.”
This implies that our lives are rather unknown. It doesn’t always follow that the old die before the young or get sick. I know of long-distance runners who drop dead at the finish line. Or children that may die before their parents. It would be wonderful if we could just plan on the old dying before the young or we could plan for our sickness and death. And that it would follow a predictable pattern.
I have had people ask me what I think about the LDS and Christian faiths and why I think people believe in their stories. I believe that in most Christian faiths, the idea of believing whatever the leaders tell them is tantamount to being a good or bad Christian. I was told by a Professor of BYU that although scientifically something doesn’t make sense, part of being LDS was to believe what the general authorities and the first presidency tell them to believe. When bad things happen to good people, God has a reason.
Whereas for Buddhists, Shakyamuni Buddha in the Kalama Sutra encourages us to question what we are told. “When you yourselves know; These things are bad; these things are blameable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill.’ Abandon them.
When you yourselves know: These things are good; these things are not blameable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.” This is quite different then having all the answers as Christianity or my nine-year-old self believed.
Experience has taught me that my life has not been a straight or black and white line. There have been many zigs and zags, yet I have learned from our Buddhist teachings that life is not centered around me. The causes and conditions are constantly changing. This is the nature of our lives. However, no matter what may come, if we trust and understand we are embraced by Amida Buddha just as we are, Flukes are part of life. In fact, it maybe the essence of our lives.
As Klass says, “But I also began to flirt with an alluring thought: that we could find new meaning in that chaos, learning to celebrate a messy, uncertain reality, by accepting that we, and everything around us, are all just flukes, spit out by a universe that can’t be tamed.” A Christian might want and expect a black and white existence. They get the answers to any question without really having to think about it. However, in Jodo Shinshu and Buddhism in general, we must understand that our lives are not black and white or going to go in a straight line. However, we are still embraced. This is the essence of our entrusting in the primal vow, this is the Nembutsu. To embrace the chaos in our life is to live in step with our Jodo Shinshu teachings.
March is when we hold our Ohigan Service, which is explained as balance. Night and Day are equal, the weather is not particularly hot or cold. However, we all know that there are times, when it is snowing on Ohigan. There are some Ohigans that are so hot. It is not always as we want, embrace the hurricane that is our life, this is the life of nembutsu. “Namo Amida Butsu!”