The Line of Destiny, otherwise called the Line of Fate is naturally one of the most important of the principal lines of the hand. Although one may never be able to explain why it is, this line undoubtedly appears to indicate at least the ma... Read more of The Line Of Destiny Or Fate at Palm Readings.org

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Samurai

Zen And The Regent Generals Of The Ho-jo Period
No wonder, then, that the representatives of the Samurai clas...

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

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

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

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

The Usual Explanation Of The Canon
An eminent Chinese Buddhist scholar, well known as Ten Dai Da...

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...

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

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

The Ten Pictures Of The Cowherd
[FN#275] The pictures were drawn by Kwoh Ngan (Kaku-an), a...

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

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

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

Life And Change
Transformation and change are the essential features of life;...

There Is No Mortal Who Is Purely Moral
By nature man should be either good or bad; or he should be g...

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

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

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

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

Wang Yang Ming (o-yo-mei) And A Thief

One evening when Wang was giving a lecture to a number of students on
his famous doctrine that all human beings are endowed with
Conscience,[FN#168] a thief broke into the house and hid himself in
the darkest corner. Then Wang declared aloud that every human being
is born with Conscience, and that even the thief who had got into the
house had Conscience just as the sages of old. The burglar,
overhearing these remarks, came out to ask the forgiveness of the
master; since there was no way of escape for him, and he was
half-naked, he crouched behind the students. Wang's willing
forgiveness and cordial treatment encouraged the man to ask the
question how the teacher could know such a poor wretch as he was
endowed with Conscience as the sages of old. Wang replied: It is
your Conscience that makes you ashamed of your nakedness. You
yourself are a sage, if you abstain from everything that will put
shame on you. We firmly believe that Wang is perfectly right in
telling the thief that he was not different in nature from the sages
of old. It is no exaggeration. It is a saving truth. It is also a
most effective way of saving men out of darkness of sin. Any thief
ceases to be a thief the moment he believes in his own Conscience, or
Buddha-nature. You can never correct criminals by your severe
reproach or punishment. You can save them only through your sympathy
and love, by which you call forth their inborn Buddha-nature.
Nothing can produce more pernicious effects on criminals than to
treat them as if they were a different sort of people and confirm
them in their conviction that they are bad-natured. We greatly
regret that even in a civilized society authorities neglecting this
saving truth are driving to perdition those criminals under their
care, whom it is their duty to save.

[FN#168] It is not conscience in the ordinary sense of the term. It
is 'moral' principle, according to Wang, pervading through the
Universe. 'It expresses itself as Providence in Heaven, as moral
nature in man, and as mechanical laws in things.' The reader will
notice that Wang's Conscience is the nearest approach to
Buddha-nature.

Next: The Bad Are The Good In The Egg
Previous: The Parable Of The Robber Kih

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