There are many passages, paragraphs and pages from the book the Coffinman,  by the Japanese writer, Shinmon Aoki , that intrigue and inspire me. The bottom paragraph starting on pages 30 to 31 is just one of them. On the bottom of page 30, Mr. Shinmon Aoki explains that in the West most of us have the idea that it is got to either life or death and that we must one or the other. Then, he goes on to state that we dont grasp LifeDeath as a single unit. I find this profound and inspiring. It reminds me of Shinran's metaphor of ice being transformed into the water of enlightenment.  Ice and water is a single unit made of H2O. Its all H2O, nothing more. Likewise H2O can transmute into vapor and then can transform into rain and then mix with a river that eventually flows into an ocean that in due course is consumed by a living being and then is released as waste water and on and on. So, throughout this endless process, its still made of H2O. Life and death are just the ebbs and flows of the tide of one reality. Consequently, in ultimate terms, there is no beginning or end, just the ceaseless transformation from form to form. LifeDeath is a whole and we only need to wake up to its reality and say Namu-Amida-Butsu, entrusting our spiritual H2O to the eternal tide of the cosmos.