This Mount is considered negative when it appears very flat on the hand, and it may also be taken as negative when people are found to be born between the dates of January 21st and February 20th, and in a minor degree, until about February 2... Read more of The Mount Of The Moon (negative) at Palm Readings.org

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Buddhism

There Is No Mortal Who Is Non-moral Or Purely Immoral
The same is the case with the third and the fourth class of p...

The Betterment Of Life
Again, people nowadays seem to feel keenly the wound of the ...

Great Men And Nature
All great men, whether they be poets or scientists or religio...

The Awakening Of The Innermost Wisdom
Having set ourselves free from the misconception of Self, nex...

Man Is Neither Good-natured Nor Bad-natured According To Su Shi
(So-shoku). The difficulty may be avoided by a theory given ...

Life Consists In Conflict
Life consists in conflict. So long as man remains a social a...

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

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

Bodhidharma's Disciples And The Transmission Of The Law
For details, see Chwen Tang Luh and Den Ka Roku, by Kei Z...

Zen After The Restoration
After the Restoration of the Mei-ji (1867) the popularity of ...

The Creative Force Of Nature And Humanity
The innate tendency of self-preservation, which manifests its...

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

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 ...

The Social State Of Japan When Zen Was Established By Ei-sai And Do-gen
Now we have to observe the condition of the country when Zen ...

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

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

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

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

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

Shakya Muni And The Prodigal Son

A great trouble with us is that we do not believe in half the good
that we are born with. We are just like the only son of a
well-to-do, as the author of Saddharma-pundarika-sutra tells
us, who, being forgetful of his rich inheritance, leaves his home and
leads a life of hand-to-mouth as a coolie. How miserable it is to
see one, having no faith in his noble endowment, burying the precious
gem of Buddha-nature into the foul rubbish of vices and crimes,
wasting his excellent genius in the exertion that is sure to disgrace
his name, falling a prey to bitter remorse and doubt, and casting
himself away into the jaw of perdition. Shakya Muni, full of
fatherly love towards all beings, looked with compassion on us, his
prodigal son, and used every means to restore the half-starved man to
his home. It was for this that he left the palace and the beloved
wife and son, practised his self-mortification and prolonged
Meditation, attained to Enlightenment, and preached Dharma for
forty-nine years; in other words, all his strength and effort were
focussed on that single aim, which was to bring the prodigal son to
his rich mansion of Buddha-nature. He taught not only by words, but
by his own actual example, that man has Buddha-nature, by the
unfoldment of which he can save himself from the miseries of life and
death, and bring himself to a higher realm than gods. When we are
Enlightened, or when Universal Spirit awakens within us, we open the
inexhaustible store of virtues and excellencies, and can freely make
use of them at our will.

See 'Sacred Books of the East,' vol. xxi., chap. iv., pp.
98-118.

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