Accepting our mortality

I have heard it said that "existence just is" and that we should "accept our mortality".

Existence certainly just "is" but what it "is" is the question. Myself, I tend to think that once we settle upon a final answer, reach a conclusion, then we are as good as dead. 

 "Our Mortality" can be such an answer, a conclusion, certainly today when such is the "spirit of the age", breathed in the air around us - with all its implications. "When you are dead you are dead" and all that's left is "tales told by idiots, signifying nothing." Making the most of nihilism. Sorry, saying this is by no means a " judgement" or an "accusation" against anyone,  just  the thoughts of my own mind. 

But to me "embracing our mortality" are only words, but the words are weighted with assumptions. The assumptions then create our very own axioms....

 

That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
   Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

(W H Auden)

 

.......or others.....but whatever our axioms are, we begin to solidify as "selves", set in our ways, our anticipations, and finally the world simply comes back to us as echoes. 

 

Conveying oneself toward all things to carry out practice-enlightenment is delusion. All things coming and carrying out practice-enlightenment through the self is realization. (Dogen)

 

How do we allow the world to come to us, without our imprint upon it? Is it possible?

 

Why is their Something rather than Nothing? What is our very own Cosmology......which introduces a passage from "Zen Cosmology" by Dan Berringer:-

 

Affirmation of God does not require projection of a macro-substance, an impregnable identity, a secure foundation, to which one must cling, and which constricts the freedom of the spirit. The Buddhist deconstruction of such a God could be a service to biblical faith, overcoming a God who is substance for a God who is Spirit, and who is thus more, not less real.

Our cosmology functions as the very foundation of our conduct. We think, speak, and act in the world in accordance with what our understanding of the world is. The more our view of reality diverges from the way reality actually is, the more unreliable our thoughts, words, and deeds in reality will be. One does not need to be a scientist to recognize we would do well to establish a more reliable cosmology – and sooner rather than later.

Later on, Berringer writes:-

......as Zen contends, knowledge (epistemology) and existence (ontology) are not two different things – our ‘cosmology’ is not simply how we see the universe it is how the universe is actualized. The significance of this point is succinctly illustrated in the following observation by Hee-Jin Kim concerning Dogen’s (hence Zen’s) view of the unity of knowledge and reality: "To Dogen, mind was at once knowledge and reality, at once the knowing subject and the known object, yet it transcended them both at the same time. In this nondual conception of mind, what one knew was what one was—and ontology, epistemology, and soteriology were inseparably united."

 

The point is, such is not fixed. It is always "Now" but Now is always on the move and can never be finally captured. At least, not by words. 

What is the difference between saying that "meaning" is inherent in Reality but such meaning is unique to each, ongoing, not fixed - and saying that there is no meaning except what each unique being chooses to believe and live? Is there any difference? I tend to think that there is, but my thoughts lack clarity on the issue. 

But I am a good little Buddhist, and seek the "heartwood of the Dharma":-

So this holy life.....does not have gain, honour, and renown for its benefit, or the attainment of virtue for its benefit, or the attainment of concentration for its benefit, or knowledge and vision for its benefit. But it is this unshakeable deliverance of mind that is the goal of this holy life, its heartwood, and its end.

 

Anyway, having questioned the word "mortality" and its possible implications, I am not sneaking immortality in by the back door - in fact I'm not sneaking anything in. No conclusions. Which I can trace to the so called "Silence of the Buddha" on all metaphysical questions - any conclusion, belief, answer, is inimicable to the Holy Life , the road to the end of suffering.

There is a Biblical Proverb:- "Those who answer a thing before they hear it, it is a shame and a folly unto them."

What is it to truly "hear" a thing? Is there a "thing" to be heard once and for all and the job is done, and we wait for our eternal reward when we have said "Yes"? Or is what is to be heard constantly on the move, yet with a direction toward Buddha (as Dogen claimed). The Circle of the Way. 

Well, my rambling has taken up a half hour or so while I drink my coffee.