Nimble and his friend Dodger the Deer picked themselves up off the ground where they had fallen after their collision in the air. They did not feel any too pleasant. One of Dodger's sharp tines had given Nimble a good prick. And one of Nimble... Read more of Mr Crow Looks On at Children Stories.ca

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Samurai

The Development Of The Southern And Of The Northern School Of Zen
After the death of the Fifth Patriarch the venerable Shang Si...

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

A Sutra Equal In Size To The Whole World
The holy writ that Zen masters admire is not one of parchment...

Idealism Is A Potent Medicine For Self-created Mental Disease
In so far as Buddhist idealism refers to the world of sense, ...

Idealistic Scepticism Concerning Objective Reality
But extreme Idealism identifies 'to be' with 'to be known,' a...

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

Buddha-nature Is The Common Source Of Morals
Furthermore, Buddha-nature or real self, being the seat of lo...

Epicureanism And Life
There are a good many people always buoyant in spirit and mir...

Buddha The Universal Life
Zen conceives Buddha as a Being, who moves, stirs, inspires, ...

Idealistic Scepticism Concerning Religion And Morality
Similarly, it is the case with religion and morality. If we ...

Buddha Is Unnamable
Give a definite name to Deity, He would be no more than what ...

Nature Favours Nothing In Particular
There is another point of view of life, which gave the presen...

Life And Change
A peculiar phase of life is change which appears in the form ...

All The Worlds In Ten Directions Are Buddha's Holy Land
We are to resume this problem in the following chapter. Suff...

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

Calmness Of Mind
The Yogi breathing above mentioned is fit rather for physical...

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

Zen Under The Toku-gana Shogunate
Peace was at last restored by Iye-yasu, the founder of the To...

Personalism Of B P Bowne
B. P. Bowne[FN#204] says: They (phenomena) are not phantoms o...

Nature Is The Mother Of All Things
Furthermore, man has come into existence out of Nature. He i...

Retribution In The Past The Present And The Future Life

Then a question suggests itself: If there be no soul that survives

body (as shown in the preceding chapter), who will receive the

retributions of our actions in the present life? To answer this

question, we have to restate our conviction that life is one and the

same; in other words, the human beings form one life or one

self--that is to say, our ancestors in the past formed man's past

life. We ourselves now form man's present life, and our posterity

will form the future life. Beyond all doubt, all actions of man in

the past have brought their fruits on the present conditions of man,

and all actions of the present man are sure to influence the

conditions of the future man. To put it in another way, we now reap

the fruits of what we sowed in our past life (or when we lived as our

fathers), and again shall reap the fruits of what we now sow in our

future life (or when we shall live as our posterity).

There is no exception to this rigorous law of retribution, and we

take it as the will of Buddha to leave no action without being

retributed. Thus it is Buddha himself who kindles our inward fire to

save ourselves from sin and crimes. We must purge out all the stains

in our hearts, obeying Buddha's command audible in the innermost self

of ours. It is the great mercy of His that, however sinful,

superstitious, wayward, and thoughtless, we have still a light within

us which is divine in its nature. When that light shines forth, all

sorts of sin are destroyed at once. What is our sin, after all? It

is nothing but illusion or error originating in ignorance and folly.

How true it is, as an Indian Mahayanist declares, that 'all frost and

the dewdrops of sin disappear in the sunshine of wisdom!'[FN#221]

Even if we might be imprisoned in the bottomless bell, yet let once

the Light of Buddha shine upon us, it would be changed into heaven.

Therefore the author of Mahakarunika-sutra[FN#222] says: When I

climb the mountain planted with swords, they would break under my

tread. When I sail on the sea of blood, it will be dried up. When I

arrive at Hades, they will be ruined at once.

[FN#220] The retribution cannot be explained by the doctrine of the

transmigration of the soul, for it is incompatible with the

fundamental doctrine of non-soul. See Abhidharmamahavibhasa-castra,

vol. cxiv.

[FN#221] Samantabhadra-dhyana-sutra.

[FN#222] Nanjo's Catalogue, No. 117.

Next: The Eternal Life As Taught By Professor Munsterberg
Previous: The Application Of The Law Of Causation To Morals

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