The Religion of the Samurai: A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and JapanNukariya, Kaiten
Religion
The Religion of the Samurai: A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan
Nukariya, Kaiten
Buddhism -- China; Buddhism -- Japan; China -- Religion; Human beings -- Origin; Japan -- Religion; Zen Buddhism
of bare facts? Is not Jesus an abstraction and an ideal, entirely
different from a concrete carpenter's son, who fed on the same kind
of food, sheltered himself in the same kind of building, suffered
from the same kind of pain, was fired by the same kind of anger,
stung by the same kind of lust as our own? Can you say the person
who fought many a sanguinary battle, who got through many cunning
negotiations with enemies and friends, who personally experienced the
troubles of polygamy, was a person sinless and divine? We might
allow that these ancient sages are superhuman and divine, then our
classification has no business with them, because they do not
properly belong to mankind. Now, then, who can point out any sinless
person in the present world? Is it not a fact that the more virtuous
one grows the more sinful he feels himself? If there be any mortal,
in the past, the present, and the future, who declares himself to be
pure and sinless, his very declaration proves that he is not highly
moral. Therefore the existence of the first class of people is open
to question.
6. There is no Mortal who is Non-Moral or Purely Immoral.
The same is the case with the third and the fourth class of people
who are assumed as non-moral or purely immoral. There is no person,
however morally degraded he may be, but reveals some good nature in
his whole course of life. It is our daily experience that we find a
faithful friend in the person even of a pickpocket, a loving father
even in a burglar, and a kind neighbour even in a murderer. Faith,
sympathy, friendship, love, loyalty, and generosity dwell not merely
in palaces and churches, but also in brothels and gaols. On the
other hand, abhorrent vices and bloody crimes often find shelter
under the silk hat, or the robe, or the coronet, or the crown. Life
may fitly be compared with a rope made of white and black straw, and
to separate one from the other is to destroy the rope itself; so also
life entirely independent of the duality of good and bad is no actual
life. We must acknowledge, therefore, that the third and the fourth
propositions are inconsistent with our daily experience of life, and
that only the second proposition remains, which, as seen above,
breaks down at the origin of morality.
7. Where, then, does the Error Lie?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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