We live in a culture where it has been rubbed into us in every conceivable way that to die is a terrible thing. And that is a tremendous disease from which our culture in particular suffers.
We don't have a major problem right now in our country, and life is normal. Things like unemployment, which the youth are suffering from, and the rate of inflation - these are chronic conditions and we have to solve them.
If to enjoy even an enjoyable present we must have the assurance of a happy future, we are “crying for the moon.” We have no such assurance. The best predictions are still matters of probability rather than certainty, and to the best of our knowledge every one of us is going to suffer and die. If, then, we cannot live happily without an assured future, we are certainly not adapted to living in a finite world where, despite the best plans, accidents will happen, and where death comes at the end.
It is my fundamental belief that all human beings share the same basic aspirations: that we all want hapiness and that we all share suffering. Asians, just like Americans, Europeans, and the rest of the world, share a desire to live life to its fullest, to better ourselves and the lives of our loved ones.
Whatever suffering there is in this world,all arises from desiring only myself to be happy.And whatever joy there is in this world,all arises from desiring to share my happiness with everyone.
There is superstition in science quite as much as there is superstition in theology, and it is all the more dangerous because those suffering from it are profoundly convinced that they are freeing themselves from all superstition.
The saddest thing in life and the hardest to live through, is the knowledge that there is someone you love very much whom you cannot save from suffering.
But what if pleasure and pain should be so closely connected that he who wants the greatest possible amount of the one must also have the greatest possible amount of the other, that he who wants to experience the "heavenly high jubilation," must also be ready to be "sorrowful unto death"?