Let’s
live pleasantly
I
decided to live my life pleasantly at the age of 22.
The fact
that I had met Master Shigemasa Wada was the biggest reason that inspired me to
make the decision.
Having
met him, I paused to realize how my way of life had been far from pleasant.
Since
then, I have lived my life, occasionally telling myself to live pleasantly.
I’m well
aware that I have no words to reply with if someone asks, “You’re pleasant?
How?”
At the
same time, it’s true that I think I’m living much more pleasantly than before I
made the decision.
Anyway,
to be more precise, my expression “let’s live pleasantly” would be “let’s live
pleasantly no matter what the circumstances may be or no matter what may happen.”
This is
because life does not always go the way you want.
“Life
does not always go the way you want.” This is an absolute truth.
For your
thoughts originally differ from facts.
In other
words, the stream of thoughts differs from the stream of facts.
You can
envision something and try to influence a fact accordingly, but it cannot be
said that doing so necessarily makes or changes the fact as you wish.
Consequently,
it’s a big loss to feel depressed or unhappy or get angry when you find that
things failed to work out as you wish. It might be better to say it’s utterly
foolish.
Many
people assume somewhere in their minds that facts must end up as you want, which
is really illusion and also delusion.
So many
people also seem to be bound by the idea of “having to do things.”
Mind you
examine the idea carefully. There’s essentially nothing you have to do in the
world.
I cannot
help but hope that people will realize as soon as possible how silly they are
to be bound by the illusion, rather, the delusion that things have to be a certain
way, which makes themselves as well as people around them suffer.
These may
sound like very rude or arrogant comments, but I’m forced to accept that I
myself was most silly.
Some
people might say, “Actually, I’m not really sure if this is an illusion or a
delusion.”
I
recommend a method to these people.
The
method is to live from this very moment with a determination to live pleasantly
no matter what the circumstances may be or no matter what may happen, even
though you are not sure if that is an illusion or a delusion.
That way
you can really live pleasantly no matter what the circumstances may be or no
matter what may happen. In addition, you’ll naturally realize that the ideas
such as “facts end up as expected” and “facts will work out as expected” are
illusions or delusions.
You’ll
see once you try it.
