Michael Napiorkowski practices Nichiren Buddhism and writes about it here: http://ichinensanzen.ca/
Echoes of Echoes
Form
is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form can also be expressed within the framework of Cause and Effect; Cause IS
Effect and Effect IS Cause.
This is one of the profound expressions of
the Lotus Sutra: the simultaneity of cause and effect or the co-arising,
interdependent relationship of all phenomena being both cause and effect simultaneously in an ever present "now."
This is equally expressed
through the symbolism of the lotus flower blooming and producing its
seeds at the same time (which is rare).
The incredible part of this teaching is that although everything is an
expression of "effect," concurrently everything is an initiation of
"cause." This is what breaks the determinism trap by showing us that our
lax and lazy concept of time as inert billiard balls bouncing off one
another is not completely correct. Reality is far more complex than that.
There's nothing that's isolated or complete in and of itself.
Ideas of nouns, objects or things
(completed effects) only exist within language. In reality these are
simply concrete concepts for a transitory, provisional existence. All reality
would be better described as a verb or even more correctly as Emptiness.
Hence the importance of Meditation...
Our tendency is to
limit ourselves based on that incorrect understanding of nouns or of our own
self-identity as an objective Being. If we approach our lives like this then we end up trapped within
the cyclical manifestation of inner tendencies and outward actions (Karma).
Meditation allows us to break our attachment to thoughts of
a limited self-identity and conclusive opinions of reality as a collection of parts (nouns), and to see instead that everything is
an ineffable process (verb) known as "now."
Rigid identity is just an
illusion that we trap ourselves in. By not identifying conclusively with
nouns, we break the cycle of Samsara and see clearly that our actions
within the world are defining characteristics of how we experience our actual "self".
We're actually composed by those relationships we temporarily have with everything and everyone else,
and vice versa. As such, all can be better understood as the open space between events or processes of interconnectedness.
If
we free ourselves from self-imposed tendencies then our actions will be naturally liberated, and in that sense our "identity" shall follow suit.
