chapter 31 - Know who is our real life supporter

We depend on the breath as life force, but we had neglected the breath and took it for granted most of our life time. So do we have neglected the earth, water, the power of wind and heat from the sun that provide us with oxygen, heat, food and water that we need to survive (both vegetarian and non vegetarian), and we had took them for granted.

Our minds are too busy in our daily life routines, busy with too many receptions of the senses, indulge in happiness and avoiding unhappiness, busy with the thoughts in mind, actions of the body and speech by the mouth, and busy chasing after our desires most of the time, without tiny moment being aware of the existent of the breath, and not knowing who is the one supporting our life? Not our parents, not ourselves and certainly not money.

Unless one day we woke up with a serious blocked nose, then we will realize ‘Ah…! I have forgotten that there is a thing called breath and it is so important more than my job, my responsibilities, my pride, my knowledge, my beauty, my feelings, my fears and worries, or my desires… I need to breathe. If I can’t breathe, if my heart stops beating, if my nervous system breaks down, I am dead, I am nobody, I have no life... What is there for me to moan and complain about the past and worry about the future then? This present moment if I can breathe and being alive is the most precious thing that can be and all that I need…’

But once the blocked nose is cleared, we will forget about all these and back to our busy life about accumulating wealth, busy with happy and unhappiness, fulfilling our desires, indulge in enjoyments and gossips.

There’s nothing wrong with this too. But when we encounter with some difficult situations, painful sorrows or disappointment in life later on, who are we going to cry to? When impermanence strikes, are we still able to sit back and smile? If we can, there’s no problem at all.

City people eat and drink very often in everyday life, thinking that if we have money, we can get food and drinks conveniently, enjoy eating and drinking, forgetting that actually it is nature that provides the basic needs for our life through earth, water, air and sunlight.

If the earth, water and air are polluted, and the sunlight is not available anymore, then no matter how much money we have, how successful we are, how big ego and powerful we are, there will be no food, no drinks, no oxygen and heat in the environment for us to stay alive.

When come to death, everyone is the same rotten smelly dead corpse, nothing so called dying elegantly or not.

Living beings need space (Akasa), earth (Prithivi), fire (Agni/Tejas), wind (Vayu), and water (Apas/Jala) to exist. Lives do not exist without these five elements of nature. Thus all living beings including plants, animals and human beings are depending on these five elements to be here.

We all are one same species (one consciousness that without name and form, no quality and ever exist) that is sharing the same space in this universe depending on the power of nature for survival. We should be respecting and be kind to each other including all the plants and the animals. There is no superiority or inferiority.