It is genuinely true, as Nichiren says, that 'now is the last moment of one’s life.' 2 President Toda also said: 'In truth, we practice Buddhism for the time of our death.' That’s why it is so important to live fully right now, so that we will have no regret if we die at any moment.įrom the perspective of eternity, even a century is just an instant. Upon reflection, whether death awaits in three days, three years, or three decades, the reality is essentially the same. When the final moment comes, it’s too late for regrets.

We simply choose to forget this.Īs someone once noted: 'Death does not lie in wait before us it creeps up on us from behind.'Īs we keep procrastinating, telling ourselves, 'I’ll challenge myself harder someday' or 'I’ll make greater efforts after I finish doing this,' our lives slip by and, before we know it, we are facing death without having achieved anything, without having accumulated any really profound inner treasures of life. The possibility of death is always with us-be it from an earthquake, an accident, or a sudden illness. Young people naturally try to brush aside the thought of death, but this is even true of older people, and perhaps increasingly so as we age.īut the reality of life is that it may come to an end at any moment. But we cling to that idea of 'someday,' expecting it to be far off in the future. (Adapted from the dialogue The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra, Vol.4, published in Japanese in December 1998 1) Restoring Our Connections with the World.Cultural Institutes and Cultural Exchange.The Dawn of a Century of Humanistic Education.Building a Society That Serves the Essential Needs of Education (2000).Reviving Education: The Brilliance of the Inner Spirit (2001).Education for Sustainable Development Proposal (2002).For a Sustainable Global Society: Learning for Empowerment and Leadership (2012).Global Citizens and the Imperative of Peace.A Global Network of Humanistic Education.Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue.Normalization of Sino-Japanese Relations.The 1970s-Dialogue, Breaking New Ground.

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