The Subscription or ending of a letter consists of the term of respect or affection and the signature. The term depends upon the relation of the person addressed. Letters of friendship can close with such expressions as: Yours lovi... Read more of SUBSCRIPTION at Speaking Writing.com

Privacy

Samurai

Each Smile A Hymn Each Kindly Word A Prayer
The glorious sun of Buddha-nature shines in the zenith of Enl...

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

No Need Of The Scriptural Authority For Zen
Some Occidental scholars erroneously identify Buddhism with t...

Man Is Not Good-natured Nor Bad-natured But Buddha-natured
We have had already occasion to observe that Zen teaches Bud...

Where Then Does The Error Lie?
Where, then, does the error lie in the four possible proposit...

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

The Manliness Of The Zen Monk And Of The Samurai
Thirdly, both the Zen monk and the Samurai were distinguished...

The Great Person And Small Person
For these reasons Zen proposes to call man Buddha-natured or ...

Let Go Of Your Idle Thoughts
[FN#263] A famous Zenist, Mu-go-koku-shi, is said to ha...

The Parable Of The Robber Kih
Chwang Tsz (So-shi) remarks in a humorous way to the followi...

The Theory Of Buddha-nature Adequately Explains The Ethical States Of Man
This theory of Buddha-nature enables us to get an insight int...

The Four Alternatives And The Five Categories
There are, according to Zen, the four classes of religious an...

Life Change And Hope
The doctrine of Transcience never drives us to the pessimisti...

Enlightenment Is Beyond Description And Analysis
In the foregoing chapters we have had several occasions to re...

Zen Is Iconoclastic
For the followers of Bodhidharma, however, this conception of...

The First Step In The Mental Training
Some of the old Zen masters are said to have attained to supr...

The Examination Of The Notion Of Self
The belief in immortality is based on the strong instinct of ...

Buddha Dwelling In The Individual Mind
Enlightened Consciousness in the individual mind acquires for...

Enlightened Consciousness Is Not An Intellectual Insight
Enlightened Consciousness is not a bare intellectual insight,...

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

The Bad Are The Good In The Egg

This is not only the case with a robber or a murderer, but also with
ordinary people. There are many who are honest and good in their
homesteads, but turn out to be base and dishonest folk outside them.
Similarly, there are those who, having an enthusiastic love of their
local district, act unlawfully against the interests of other
districts. They are upright and honourable gentlemen within the
boundary of their own district, but a gang of rascals without it. So
also there are many who are Washingtons and William Tells in their
own, but at the same time pirates and cannibals in the other
countries. Again, there are not a few persons who, having racial
prejudices, would not allow the rays of their Buddha-nature to pass
through a coloured skin. There are civilized persons who are humane
enough to love and esteem any human being as their brother, but so
unfeeling that they think lower creatures as their proper food. The
highly enlightened person, however, cannot but sympathize with human
beings and lower creatures as well, as Shakya Muni felt all sentient
beings to be his children.

These people are exactly the same in their Buddha-nature, but a wide
difference obtains among them in the extent of their expressing that
nature in deeds. If thieves and murderers be called bad-natured,
reformers and revolutionists should be called so. If, on the other
hand, patriotism and loyalty be said to be good, treason and
insurrection should likewise be so. Therefore it is evident that a
so-called good person is none but one who acts to promote wider
interests of life, and a so-called bad person is none but one who
acts to advance narrower ones. In other words, the bad are the good
in the egg, so to speak, and the good are the bad on the wing. As
the bird in the egg is one and the same as the bird on the wing, so
the good in the egg is entirely of the same nature as the bad on the
wing. To show that human nature transcends the duality of good and
evil, the author of Avatamsaka-sutra declares that 'all beings are
endowed with the wisdom and virtue of Tathagata.' Kwei Fung (Kei-ho)
also says: All sentient beings have the Real Spirit of Original
Enlightenment (within themselves). It is unchanging and pure. It is
eternally bright and clear, and conscious. It is also named
Buddha-nature, or Tathagata-garbha.

Next: The Great Person And Small Person
Previous: Wang Yang Ming (o-yo-mei) And A Thief

Report
Privacy

SHARE

BOOKMARK

Viewed 801