“Living at the Very Center of a Wish”
We go about our days believing that we are “living our own lives”—that we choose with our own minds and walk forward by our own strength. Yet when we pause and look back, we are sometimes compelled to ask ourselves: can we truly say that with certainty?
We are sustained by a single word from someone, helped in ways we do not even notice. Amid countless relationships, the person we are today has taken shape. In other words, we do not live “on our own.” Rather, we are continuously sustained within the workings of others.
Here, I would like to focus on the word “wish.” This does not refer to our own desires—what we want to do or become. Instead, it points to the wishes directed toward us by others; in other words, a working that says, “No matter what happens, you are precious—you matter.” We are already living at the very center of that wish.
A valedictory speech delivered at a certain high school graduation ceremony this past March has drawn much attention. A male student, speaking on behalf of the graduates, expressed his gratitude to two mothers.
He lost the mother who gave birth to him to illness when he was just one year old. Though he had no memory of her, several years ago a relative handed him an envelope that revealed her feelings. On the front were the words, “To Daijiro (his name), for when you are in trouble.” Inside, however, there was nothing. In the little time she had left, his mother had intended to write him a letter for the hardships he might face in life, but her condition worsened, and she passed away before she could complete it. Though the envelope contained no letter, he encountered the heart of a mother who had continued to think of him until her very last moments. “I received a great, gentle, and warm love from my mother. Thank you for trying to leave me a letter,” he said, expressing his gratitude to the mother who gave him life.
He then went on to thank the mother who had raised him since he was three, after his father remarried. Until that graduation day, out of a sense of shyness, he had not called her “mother,” instead addressing her by a nickname. But at last he said, “Mom, thank you for raising me until today. The time we have shared is an irreplaceable happiness, a treasure of my life.” Many in attendance were moved to tears by his words.
Perhaps this student had come to recognize himself as someone embraced by the great love and deep wishes of two mothers. Feeling that he stood at the very center of their love, a natural sense of gratitude arose within him.
Even on days when things do not go as we hope, even when we face moments of disappointment in ourselves, there is already a wish directed toward us that says, “No matter what happens, it’s all right—you will not be left alone.” It is within this very working that we live.
In this sense, we are not so much “living toward a wish” as we are already “living within a life that is wished for.” When we come to realize this, our understanding of the “meaning of life” begins to change. When we awaken to the fact that we are sustained within a wish already given, we can receive our lives as not meaningless. Here lies a meaning not so much “discovered” as “awakened to.”
Moreover, this wish is never conditional. It is not granted because we have succeeded, nor is it something we earn by being admirable. It reaches us as we are—imperfect, wavering, and carrying our weaknesses. And precisely because of this, when we become aware of such a wish, we begin to be released, little by little, from the strain of feeling that we must be a certain way.
In his book The Meaning of Life, Noriyuki Ueda writes: “Many people feel that there is some kind of center in society, and that they themselves have been pushed far away from it. But I create my own ‘meaning of life’ and give meaning to the world in which I live; the center of the world lies within myself. For when we acknowledge that we ourselves are the center that generates meaning, we come to see that there are many centers around us—not only ourselves.”
At the same time, we may also begin to sense this: if I am a being who lives because I am wished for, then the person before me, too, is a being who lives because they are wished for. In that moment, our relationships with others begin to change. Instead of evaluation or comparison, we encounter one another anew as “beings who dwell together within a wish.”
We are already living within a wish. And that wish is the working of others—it is love.
When we come to notice this, even if only for a moment, both the path we have walked and the step we are about to take begin to be received as carrying a sure and abiding meaning.
English version prepared with AI assistance
Japanese version:
hittps:// hifuka-otibohiroi.net.ne.jp/宿縁 五月号 中原寺-2/
Japanese version