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

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

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

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

The Five Ranks Of Merit
Thus far we have stated how to train our body and mind accord...

Bodhidharma And The Emperor Wu
No sooner had Bodhidharma landed at Kwang Cheu in Southern Ch...

How To Worship Buddha
The author of Vimalakirtti-nirdeca-sutra well explains our at...

The Second And The Third Patriarchs
After the death of the First Patriarch, in A.D. 528, Hwui Ko ...

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

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

Bodhidharma And His Successor The Second Patriarch
China was not, however, an uncultivated[FN#29] land for the s...

Shakya Muni And The Prodigal Son
A great trouble with us is that we do not believe in half the...

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

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

Sutras Used By Zen Masters
Ten Dai failed to explain away the discrepancies and contradi...

Three Important Elements Of Zen
To understand how Zen developed during some four hundred year...

Flight Of The Sixth Patriarch
On the following morning the news of what had happened during...

The Law Of Balance In Life
It is also the case with human affairs. Social positions hig...

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

The Sermon Of The Inanimate
The Scripture of Zen is written with facts simple and familia...

The Theory Of Buddha-nature Adequately Explains The Ethical States Of Man

This theory of Buddha-nature enables us to get an insight into the
origin of morality. The first awakening of Buddha-nature within man
is the very beginning of morality, and man's ethical progress is the
gradually widening expression of that nature in conduct. But for it
morality is impossible for man. But for it not only moral culture or
discipline, but education and social improvement must be futile.
Again, the theory adequately explains the ethical facts that the
standard of morality undergoes change in different times and places,
that good and bad are so inseparably knit together, and that the bad
at times become good all on a sudden, and the good grow bad quite
unexpectedly. First, it goes without saying that the standard of
morality is raised just in proportion as Buddha-nature or real self
extends and amplifies itself in different times and places.
Secondly, since good is Buddha-nature actualized to a large extent,
and bad is also Buddha-nature actualized to a small extent, the
existence of the former presupposes that of the latter, and the mess
of duality can never be got rid of. Thirdly, the fact that the bad
become good under certain circumstances, and the good also become bad
often unexpectedly, can hardly be explained by the dualistic theory,
because if good nature be so arbitrarily turned into bad and bad
nature into good, the distinction of good and bad nature has no
meaning whatever. According to the theory of Buddha-nature, the fact
that the good become bad or the bad become good, does not imply in
the least a change of nature, but the widening or the narrowing of
its actualization. So that no matter how morally degenerated one may
be, he can uplift himself to a high ethical plane by the widening of
his self, and at the same time no matter how morally exalted one may
be, he can descend to the level of the brute by the narrowing of his
self. To be an angel or to be a devil rests with one's degrees of
enlightenment and free choice. This is why such infinite varieties
exist both among the good and the bad. This is why the higher the
peak of enlightenment the people climb, the more widely the vista of
moral possibilities open before them.

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