One of my memories in younger days suddenly popped up in my mind. It was when I was 13 years old. I was in the class room with my classmates at the junior high school. Our social studies teacher was a male teacher. He often shared his knowledge of his belief, which was a mix of Shinto and Buddhism as pretty common among Japanese. One day he shared a story of Buddhism. In the snowy mountain, there were a bear, a fox, and a rabbit. When they saw an old man who was exhausted and hungry, they tried to help the old man. The bear and the fox were helpful to gather some foods for the old man, but the rabbit could not gather any food. So, the rabbit gathered woods and asked the old man to build a fire. When the fire was built, the rabbit jumped into the fire and offered his own meat to the old man. This old man was actually God. The God felt sorry for the rabbit and put the rabbit into the moon so that the rabbit could live forever. The teacher also shared a story of airplane crush and the survivors ate the dead people’s meat to survive. And the teacher asked the class what was our opinions and what would we do for the situation.
At that time when I was 13 years old, I seriously thought I wouldn’t mind to act like the rabbit to offer my life, and I wouldn’t mind if somebody eats my dead body after I die. I was the only one who said so, and other classmates were against of my opinion. They all said they would think hard to find other ways to help the old man and they would not want anybody eat their dead body even after their death.
Now that almost 40 years have passed. I am with the other classmates. I would care my life. I think I was careless my life when I was a child.
three wisdom 