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Today's
quotation:
We
all long for things of beauty-- beauty of nature, of
appearance, of
life, a beautiful family and so on. But these cannot be
gained if we
are withdrawn and isolated, just looking at ourselves.
We must create
better relationships with other people and interact with our
community
and society with an open heart. We must be kind to
nature. It is only
through this process that we really grow and cultivate our own
beauty.
Daisaku Ikeda
Buddhism
Day by Day
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Today's
Meditation:
I think that
many people might wonder why their lives aren't full of
beauty. After all, they have good jobs, nice
families, and nice homes. And they can go and buy
beautiful pictures to hang on their walls, as well as
beautiful bedspreads, cars, towels-- you name it. But
Daisaku isn't talking about decorative beauty here.
He's not talking about aesthetics; rather, he's telling us
about community and our need to be a contributing part of
it.
Somehow
we're led to believe that beauty is all about aesthetics,
that it's only something that we see, or possibly
hear. But beauty is something that is inside of us,
and it comes out when we're doing things for others, when
we're contributing to the life around us rather than
simply living our own lives separate from the world we
live in. If we simply go to work all the time and
then come home and never make an effort to be a part of
our communities, then we're not giving the beauty inside
of us a chance to manifest itself, a chance to become a
part of who we are.
Some
people have jobs that drain them, and they often can do
little more than make it home and spend the evening trying
to recover. Many of these jobs, though, are exactly
what Daisaku is talking about-- giving to the communities
we live in. But if the job is so draining, there's a
chance that we're approaching it as something that's
difficult and that we dread, rather than something that is
trying to bring out the beauty in us by allowing us to
work in ways that contribute to the lives of many other
people. Our goal should be to try to bring our love
to the job, for when we work in love, our beauty shines.
If
you feel that you're missing beauty in your life, think
about how you spend that life-- alone, or with
others? Passively, or actively? The person who
spends eight hours a day in front of the television set
isn't likely to be able to create or find much beauty in
their lives. It's okay to take from our communities
if we're also giving, but there must be a balance, or the
beauty simply won't be there.
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For further
thought:
Looking
for the essence of beauty is comprehending and
appreciating that quality in an object which is fairer and better
than only what our eyes see or our ears hear, whether that be
a patch of blue in an overcast sky, the fleeting laughter
from a voice we love, or something as unexpected as the
rainbow colors in a spot of oil on the driveway.
Luci Swindoll
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