A new arrival in Hell was brought before the devil. The devil told his demon to put the man to work on a rock pile with a 20-pound sledge hammer in 95 degree heat with 95% humidity. At the end of the day, the devil went to see how the man was doi... Read more of Like Georgia in hell at Free Jokes.ca

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Zen And Idealism
Next Zen makes use of Idealism as explained by the Dharmalaks...

The Mystery Of Life
Thus far we have pointed out the inevitable conflictions in l...

The Courage And The Composure Of Mind Of The Zen Monk And Of The Samurai
Fourthly, our Samurai encountered death, as is well known, wi...

Zen Is Not Nihilistic
Zen judged from ancient Zen masters' aphorisms may seem, at t...

Zen And Supernatural Power
Yoga[FN#250] claims that various supernatural powers can be a...

Zazen And The Forgetting Of Self
Zazen is a most effectual means of destroying selfishness, th...

The Buddha Of Mercy
Milton says: Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt; Surp...

Our Conception Of Buddha Is Not Final
Has, then, the divine nature of Universal Spirit been complet...

Thing-in-itself Means Thing-knowerless
How, then, did philosophers come to consider reality to be un...

The Spiritual Attainment Of The Sixth Patriarch
Some time before his death (in 675 A.D.) the Fifth Patriarch ...

The Third Step In The Mental Training
To be the lord of mind is more essential to Enlightenment, wh...

True Dhyana
To sit in Meditation is not the only method of practising Zaz...

The Absolute And Reality Are But An Abstraction
A grain of sand you, trample upon has a deeper significance t...

Zen And Nirvana
The beatitude of Zen is Nirvana, not in the Hinayanistic sens...

The Application Of The Law Of Causation To Morals
Although it may be needless to state here the law of causatio...

Life Consists In Conflict
Life consists in conflict. So long as man remains a social a...

Man Is Good-natured According To Mencius
Oriental scholars, especially the Chinese men of letters, se...

Bodhidharma's Disciples And The Transmission Of The Law[fn#31]
[FN#31] For details, see Chwen Tang Luh and Den Ka Roku, b...

The Fourth Patriarch And The Emperor Tai Tsung (tai-so)
The Third[FN#40] Patriarch was succeeded by Tao Sin (Do-shin)...

The Irrationality Of The Belief Of Immortality
Occidental minds believe in a mysterious entity under the nam...

Idealism Is A Potent Medicine For Self-created Mental Disease

In so far as Buddhist idealism refers to the world of sense, in so
far as it does not assume that to to be known is identical with to
be, in so far as it does not assert that the phenomenal universe is a
dream and a vision, we may admit it as true. On the one hand, it
serves us as a purifier of our hearts polluted with materialistic
desires, and uplifts us above the plain of sensualism; on the other
hand, it destroys superstitions which as a rule arise from ignorance
and want of the idealistic conception of things.
It is a lamentable fact that every country is full of such
superstitions people as described by one of the New Thought writers:
'Tens of thousands of women in this country believe that if two
people look in a mirror at the same time, or if one thanks the other
for a pin, or if one gives a knife or a sharp instrument to a friend,
it will break up friendship. If a young lady is presented with a
thimble, she will be an old maid. Some people think that after
leaving a house it is unlucky to go back after any article which has
been forgotten, and, if one is obliged to do so, one should sit down
in a chair before going out again; that if a broom touches a person
while someone is sweeping, bad luck will follow; and that it is
unlucky to change one's place at a table. A man took an opal to a
New York jeweller and asked him to buy it. He said that it had
brought him nothing but bad luck, that since it had come into his
possession he had failed in business, that there bad been much
sickness in his family, and all sorts of misfortune had befallen him.
He refused to keep the cursed thing any longer. The jeweller
examined the stone, and found that it was not an opal after all, but
an imitation.'

Idealism is a most potent medicine for these self-created mental
diseases. It will successfully drive away devils and spirits that
frequent ignorant minds, just as Jesus did in the old days. Zen
makes use of moral idealism to extirpate, root and branch, all such
idle dreams and phantasmagoria of illusion and opens the way to
Enlightenment.

Next: Idealistic Scepticism Concerning Objective Reality
Previous: Zen And Idealism

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