As we humans cannot recognize things but relatively, in order to see ourselves, we must leave from ourselves once. To see the earth as it is, we must leave from the earth once. To see life, we must leave from life once. Self-negation, the earth-negation, life-negation, longing for the other world, desire for death, these are inevitable ways of negation to dive into total affirmation. Various penances in religion can be seen as a variety of these ways. Fasting is denial of appetite and we cannot live without eating, so it is denial of life and denial of the earth. We need oxygen to maintain life and Buddhist scripture said that Buddha practiced a penance to stop breathing so hard that he became a critical condition and the new of his death reached his family. It is an extreme example of life-negation. To persist in remaining single is denial of sexual desire and no new life without sexual desire, so it is denial of life, and we ourselves come from combination of man and woman, so it is self-negation, the earth-negation. To pain one's body or to deny desire is self-negation and life-negation in physical aspect. They aim to reflect life, reflect oneself, reflect the earth by leaving life, leaving oneself and leaving the earth once. But though we aim to leave life, we cannot leave life completely, and when we leave it completely it means death, so we cannot recognize perfectly self, life, the earth in a relative way. Now is there nothing but death? Yes, in the world of reason. But no in the world of spirit. That is, on the edge of death by life-negation God will bless you and your spiritual eye will open so that you can see yourself, life, the earth with your new spiritual eye. This is so called "enlightenment". Buddha and many men of religion got enlightenment at the end of penance may mean that at the end of the negation road God blessed them and their spiritual eyes opened. Buddha practiced a lot of penance but he is also said to have thrown away his penance. But if one completes his penance, one is to die, so it is reasonable, rather spiritual, to stop penance on the edge of it.
Above is negative way through physical deeds, we can say, but there is another way of negation through mental deeds. Reason, which is words in the first place, bases on negation. At first, A exists, and denial of A creates B, which is not A, then denial of A&B creates C. We recognize objects by denial. That I am not you creates the recognition of myself for the first time. We recognize objects in negative way like that this is different from that, then we label a new word with it. Words are born from negation. In this way, in the process of pursuit of the truth, where we go back to our recognition of the earth that was born from infinite negation, we keep on denying this and that and we reach the final one. It is natural that we reach the last one because we ascend the way to the origin. We call it God. However, when we are about to reach the last one, no object exists to be denied. We are to fail at the last moment because we cannot see Him relatively. For words is relative, if there is nothing but one thing, we cannot recognize it relatively and it is impossible for us to recognize it. If we dare to say that it exists, it is God, and if we say that it doesn't exist because it cannot be recognized, it is naught in Buddhism. After all we cannot see God by words, by negation, by reason. Still, in the negative way of mental deeds with words, at the final moment God blesses us and our spiritual eyes open, then getting out of the recognition of reason we come to see God, in the view of spirit. In the one that is neither existence nor nonexistence, which is called middle in Buddhism, we can see God. That is, what monotheism points is equal to what Buddhism points. We call the one beyond negation God or Buddha.
As we see, whether the way of physical negation(penance) or the way of mental negation(scriptures), at the final point of negation we would need God's help, His grace, and at that time God always blesses us, in the view of religion, also of Amiyan. But either way is hard for us and on the way to the final most will drop out, I'm afraid. It cannot be salvation if it is so. Therefore there is another way of belief, the way of love, the way to throw ourself upon God, throw oneself upon Buddha. In this stream, Islam and Protestant, Martin Luther and Shinran, Jodo Buddhism and Ramakrishna exist, I think. But now I'm afraid that our modern problem is that we cannot believe at first, that we cannot get belief which becomes a clue to throw ourselves upon God. In this atheistic time, what should we do for human happiness? That matters to Amiyan.
