People live in different environments. Although one's environment may appear to look the same, there are always slight changes that take place from day to day. It is also true that one person may look at something and feel differently from another person.
For example, there are people who may look at an apple falling from a tree and be reminded of Newton’s law of gravity. There are others who may think of it as being delicious. There could also be merchants who may think of how much it could be sold for.
As ten people have ten different views, every person has his or her own unique way of perceiving things. People create their own lives spurred on by their environments. In this sense, people cannot exist without the environment in which they live and the environment cannot exist without them.
Buddhism looks into this relationship between life and its environment and explains the principle of Esho Funi (The Oneness of Life and its Environment). Esho is the combination of the first syllables of Eho and Shoho. Shoho denotes a living being and eho its environment on which it is dependent for its life activities and survival.
Funi is short for nini-funi, which means two in phenomenon but not two in essence. Esho Funi means that life and its environment are two independent phenomenon but one in their fundamental essence.
Ho of shoho and eho also means reward or effect. It indicates that life constitutes a subjective self that experiences the effect of its past actions, and its environment is an objective realm in which the individual’s karmic reward finds expression. Each living being has its own unique environment. The effects of karma appear in oneself and in one’s objective environment because the self and environment are two integral aspects of an individual.
Man and his environment are inseparable, but Esho Funi as a concept goes further than just denoting the inseparable relationship between the two. Oneness of life and its environment is a principle that shows how people can influence and reform their environment through inner change, or the elevation of their life condition. Contained within is the idea that just as the environment influences the individual, the individual can also effect a change in the environment.
We are integrated with and live in harmony with our environment. In turn, we form our own unique existence in accordance with the laws of individualization, and each one of us shapes an individual environment that is compatible to oneself. Each of us has an environment and all are essentially distinct so we all relate to our surroundings differently. The way we see the environment differs depending on our life condition and circumstances.
An environment is a reflection of the inner life of the individual living within it. It takes on characteristics which accord with the life condition of the person in question. In other words, life extends its influence into the surroundings.
Nichiren Daishonin states in the Gosho: “The ten directions are the environment and the living beings are life. To illustrate, environment is like the shadow and life the body. Without the body, no shadow can exist, and without life no environment. In the same way life is shaped by its environments.” (WND-1, Pg. 644).
He also writes in ‘On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime’: “If the minds of living beings are impure, their land is also impure, but if their minds are pure, so is their land. There are not two lands, pure or impure in themselves. The difference lies solely in the good or evil of our minds.” (WND-1, Pg. 4).
Whether we turn the land that we live in (environment) into a pure and rich world or into an impure land full of suffering all depends on our own life. Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism enables us to transform the place where we are now into a ‘Land of Eternally Tranquil Light’ and there construct a palace of happiness. In order to do that, we have to dramatically transform our own life condition. When we change our own state of life our environment will naturally start changing as well. This is the principle of the oneness of life and its environment. A grand palace of happiness exists within our own heart. Faith is the key that opens the door to that palace.
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