Your house is on fire. Even with smoke billowing out of the windows most people don’t pay attention to the warnings. Thich Nhat Hanh explains it this way in Peaceful Action, Open Heart:
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p49“When we hear this story [of the burning house], we may think it’s just a children’s story and that it doesn’t really have anything to do with our lives. But if we look more deeply into our minds and the state of mind of those around us, we see that this parable expresses the truth about our situation. We’re full of craving, always running after things. We want to become the director or president of a company, we want to buy a beautiful car or a nice house, or go on an exotic vacation. We don’t see that the world we’re living in, driven by craving and delusion, is like a burning house.”
And this brings suffering, which is the first Truth taught by the Buddha. As the Introduction to the Lotus Sutra explains:
“From the Buddhist viewpoint, suffering is an inescapable fact of life, as illustrated in the dictum, ‘All existence is suffering.’ Many people think this view is too pessimistic, but that is not the case. The dictum is presented as a bare fact, neither good or bad. Biological suffering is a part of life. The question is, What can we do about it?”
Re-read that last question: What can we do about it? The old man in the Parable of the Burning House knows he’s strong enough to carry his children to safety, but he wouldn’t be able to save them all. As Nikkyō Niwano explains in Buddhism for Today, the Buddha purposely doesn’t use his divine powers but instead inspires us to act by luring us with the things we desire.
Buddhism for Today, p58-59“To imagine attractive playthings to oneself means that one has already entered into the mental state of śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, or bodhisattva. To run out of the burning house means that one is already seeking after the Buddha’s teachings. When living beings remove illusions from their minds, they can immediately escape from the burning house of suffering in this world.
“However, they do not yet think of being saved from the burning house. Their minds are filled with the desire to obtain one of the attractive carts … . Then they ask the Buddha for these carts. This means that each asks for his own enlightenment. Then quite unexpectedly, beyond the enlightenment of the three vehicles, they see the supreme teaching, that is, the enlightenment of the One Buddha Vehicle (the great white-bullock cart), shining brilliantly.
“The Buddha really wishes to give this great cart to all living beings. So he gives the same thing unsparingly and equally to anyone who has advanced to the mental state of seeking supreme enlightenment.”
That mental state of seeking supreme enlightenment is called faith. It takes only a single moment of faith to start us on our way through the gate and to safety.
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