All The Worlds In Ten Directions Are Buddha's Holy Land

: LIFE

We are to resume this problem in the following chapter. Suffice it

to say for the present it is the law of Universal Life that

manifoldness is in unity, and unity is in manifoldness; difference is

in agreement, and agreement in difference; confliction is in harmony,

and harmony in confliction; parts are in the whole, and the whole is

in parts; constancy is in change, and change in constancy; good is in

bad, and bad in
good; integration is in disintegration, and

disintegration is in integration; peace is in disturbance, and

disturbance in peace. We can find something celestial among the

earthly. We can notice something glorious in the midst of the base

and degenerated.



'There are nettles everywhere, but are not smooth, green grasses more

common still?' Can you recognize something awe-inspiring in the rise

and fall of nations? Can you not recognize something undisturbed and

peaceful among disturbance and trouble? Has not even grass some

meaning? Does not even a stone tell the mystery of Life? Does not

the immutable law of good sway over human affairs after all, as

Tennyson says-



I can but trust that good shall fall

At last-far off-at last, to all.



Has not each of us a light within him, whatever degrees of lustre

there may be? Was Washington in the wrong when he said: Labour to

keep alive in your heart that little spark of celestial fire called

conscience.



We are sure that we can realize the celestial bliss in this very

world, if we keep alive the Enlightened Consciousness, of which

Bodhidharma and his followers showed the example. 'All the worlds in

ten directions are Buddha's Holy Lands!' That Land of Bliss and

Glory exists above us, under us, around us, within us, without us, if

we open our eyes to see. 'Nirvana is in life itself,' if we enjoy it

with admiration and love. Life and death are the life of Buddha,

says Do-gen. Everywhere the Elysian gates stand open, if we do not

shut them up by ourselves. Shall we starve ourselves refusing to

accept the rich bounty which the Blessed Life offers to us? Shall we

perish in the darkness of scepticism, shutting our eyes to the light

of Tathagata? Shall we suffer from innumerable pains in the

self-created hell where remorse, jealousy, and hatred feed the fire

of anger? Let us pray to Buddha, not in word only, but in the deed

of generosity and tolerance, in the character noble and loving, and

in the personality sublime and good. Let us pray to Buddha to save

us from the hell of greed and folly, to deliver us from the thraldom

of temptation. Let us 'enter the Holy of Holies in admiration and

wonder.'



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