The Star of Venus is very difficult, and not well to be calculated, as all Mathematicians and Astronomers will bear me witness; for its course is found to be otherwise than that of the other six Planets, and therefore its Birth is otherwise; ... Read more of Of The Spirit Of Copper at Occultism.ca

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Samurai

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

Man Is Both Good-natured And Bad-natured According To Yan Hiung
According to Yang Hiung and his followers, good is no less re...

Enlightened Consciousness
In addition to these considerations, which mainly depend on i...

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

Change As Seen By Zen
Zen, like Hinayanism, does not deny the doctrine of Transienc...

Life In The Concrete
Life in the concrete, which we are living, greatly differs fr...

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

The Fifth And The Sixth Patriarchs
Tao Sin transmitted the Law to Hung Jan (Ko-nin), who being e...

Do Thy Best And Leave The Rest To Providence
There is another point of view which enables us to enjoy life...

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

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

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

Where Does The Root Of The Illusion Lie?
Now let us examine where illusion lies hidden from the view o...

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

The World Is In The Making
Our assertion is far from assuming that life is now complete,...

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

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

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

The Honest Poverty Of The Zen Monk And The Samurai
Secondly, the so-called honest poverty is a characteristic of...

Zen After The Downfall Of The Ho-jo Regency
Towards the end of the Ho-Jo period,[FN#90] and after the dow...

The Parable Of The Monk And The Stupid Woman

The confused or unenlightened may be compared with a monk and a
stupid woman in a Japanese parable which runs as follows: One
evening a monk (who was used to have his head shaved clean), getting
drunk against the moral precepts, visited a woman, known as a
blockhead, at her house. No sooner had he got into her room than the
female fell asleep so soundly that the monk could not wake her nap.
Thereupon he made up his mind to use every possible means to arouse
her, and searched and searched all over the room for some instrument
that would help him in his task of arousing her from death-like
slumber. Fortunately, he found a razor in one of the drawers of her
mirror stand. With it he gave a stroke to her hair, but she did not
stir a whit. Then came another stroke, and she snored like thunder.
The third and fourth strokes came, but with no better result. And at
last her head was shaven clean, yet still she slept on. The next
morning when she awoke, she could not find her visitor, the monk, as
he had left the house in the previous night. 'Where is my visitor,
where my dear monk?' she called aloud, and waking in a state of
somnambulation looked for him in vain, repeating the outcry. When at
length her hand accidentally touched her shaven head, she mistook it
for that of her visitor, and exclaimed: 'Here you are, my dear, where
am I myself gone then? A great trouble with the confused is their
forgetting of real self or Buddha-nature, and not knowing 'where it
is gone.' Duke Ngai, of the State of Lu, once said to Confucius:
One of my subjects, Sir, is so much forgetful that he forgot to take
his wife when be changed his residence. That is not much, my
lord, said the sage, the Emperors Kieh[FN#173] and Cheu[FN#174]
forgot their own selves.[FN#175]

[FN#173] The last Emperor of the Ha dynasty, notorious for his
vices. His reign was 1818-1767 B.C.

[FN#174] The last Emperor of the Yin dynasty, one of the worst
despots. His reign was 1154-1122 B.C.

[FN#175] Ko-shi-ke-go.

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