- On suicide ... this life may be a dream, or not a dream, but even if a dream, it is "our dream", this dream to be lived, a dream that we were born to dream and had best get on with! Dogen called this reality a "Dream within a Dream" ... a dream so dreamy that it is real as real can be. Now, whether you choose to make it a dream of peace and liberation through your words, thoughts and acts ... or a nightmare of greed, anger and ignorance ... is up to you.
Life is a treasure, sacred ... why would one wish to snuff it out? To find liberation? Why not find that right here ... in this life, where liberation can be lived.
- On children ... this world can be "illusions and attachments", or lived free of "illusions and attachments" even amid this messy world. Why not simply (to quote Crosby, Stills and Nash), teach our children well? One can live this life, in this dreamy world, without being Mara's prisoner.
Those are my answers. Do you think the best way is to escape this world by never being born or by dying early? Or do you feel that the best way might be to be born in this world, live and eventually die ... all while tasting that free of
coming and going, birth and death (that's my view). It is kind of having one's cake and eating it too!
Gassho, Jundo