[76] Not so commonplace a proverb as might appear at first sight; for it refers especially to the Buddhist belief that every kindness shown to us in this life is a return of kindness done to others in a former life, and that every wrong inflicted upon us is the reflex of some injustice which we committed in a previous birth. 100.—_Zensé no yakusoku-goto._ Promised [or, destined] from a former birth.[77] [77] A very common saying,—often uttered as a comment upon the unhappiness of separation, upon sudden misfortune, upon sudden death, etc. It is used especially in relation to _shinjū_, or lovers’ suicide. Such suicide is popularly thought to be a result of cruelty in some previous state of being, or the consequence of having broken, in a former life, the mutual promise to become husband and wife. Suggestion I had the privilege of meeting him in Tōkyō, where he was making a brief stay on his way to India;—and we took a long walk together, and talked of Eastern religions, about which he knew incomparably more than I. Whatever I could tell him concerning local beliefs, he would comment upon in the most startling manner,—citing weird correspondences in some living cult of India, Burmah, or Ceylon. Then, all of a sudden, he turned the conversation into a totally unexpected direction. “I have been thinking,” he said, “about the constancy of the relative proportion of the sexes, and wondering whether Buddhist doctrine furnishes an explanation. For it seems to me that, under ordinary conditions of karma, human rebirth would necessarily proceed by a regular alternation.” “Do you mean,” I asked, “that a man would be reborn as a woman, and a woman as a man?” “Yes,” he replied, “because desire is creative, and the desire of either sex is towards the other.” “And how many men,” I said, “would want to be reborn as women?” “Probably very few,” he answered. “But the doctrine that desire is creative does not imply that the individual longing creates its own satisfaction,—quite the contrary. The true teaching is that the result of every selfish wish is in the nature of a penalty, and that what the wish creates must prove—to higher knowledge at least—the folly of wishing.” “There you are right,” I said; “but I do not yet understand your theory.”