Daily Encouragement by Daisaku Ikeda

What is the purpose of life? It is happiness. But here are two kinds of happiness: relative and absolute. Relative happiness comes in a wide variety of forms. The purpose of Buddhism is to attain Buddhahood. In modern terms, this could be explained as realizing absolute happiness-a state of happiness that can never be destroyed or defeated.

Thursday

My Parents :: How They Met

It was a picnic where they first laid eyes

"Maybe it was my hair that made him look"

My mother shrugs back thirty years and sighs

My father snores, his hands around a book


 

"He brought me napkins when the food was served

My skirt was green and flared around my knees"

Under the weight of rice, their paper plates curved

They sat, two people meeting under the trees


 

"I guess it was my hair, I had it done –

short in back and curly on the top"

She runs a finger where a curl would be

Father stirs, the book he's holding drops


 

He rises now and climbs the stairs these nights

They meet again beneath ceilings painted white.

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