The advent of each day brings us joys and challenges, each of which have the ability to alter our life-state in some way. Joys tend to raise our life-state, challenges may lower it if we let them, and therein lies the conundrum. We need to be vigilant, to observe our life-state from moment to moment, but in doing so, we affect that life-state.
Just as in quantum physics, the mere act of observation affects the phenomenon being observed, self observation of our life-state can, and most likely will affect it too. Imagine a situation where you become angry because something has not gone the way you would like. Initially you may be reacting instinctively, in an animalistic fashion. But as soon as you realise that you are reacting in such a manner, in other words, you observe your life-state, there is a large chance that you will change to that of a more calm and reflective mood, even into a state of tranquility.
So we have this little test for ourselves. We must be, as far as possible, aware of our life-state. Ideally we want to be in one of the higher states, not grubbing around in the worlds of Hell, Hunger, Animality or Anger, but in Learning, Realisation, Bodhisattva or even Buddhahood. The act of testing can help us raise our life-state through awareness, which is a good thing. But be warned, when the results come back, and you find you are in one of the lower worlds, that can be a sobering moment, when you realise that you are not as far along the path to enlightenment as you would like to be.
Sometimes the World of Tranquillity can be a true blessing, a lull after a period of intense effort.
One of the principles of Nichiren Buddhism concerns the Oneness of Self and the Environment and how that connection affects all of us in ways we sometimes fail to grasp.
Every day we have highs and lows, wins and losses, good things happen, bad things happen, every single day.
A life that is lived without purpose or focus, the kind in which one never discovers the reason why one was born, is joyless and lacklustre. To simply live, eat, sleep and die without any real sense of purpose, surely represents a life pervaded by the life-state of Tranquillity or Animality.
When we practice gongyo and chant daimoku before the Gohonzon, the good and evil capacities of our lives begin to function as the exalted form of fundamental existence.
Do you remember the day you mastered the art of riding a bicycle? Of course you do. For me, it was the culmination of a rather lengthy, and very frustrating process, and but for the perseverance of my father, I might never have learned at all.
You know the saying about taking the rough with the smooth? Well life generally consists of a mixture of good times and bad times, happiness and sadness, health as well as sickness. In general, it is the ratio of these opposites that makes us feel that life is going well, or going badly.
With ever increasing mindfulness, our own feelings will change as we reflect on the causes for those feelings.
The Search For Enlightenment 
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