The writer Chikamatsu Monzaemon emphasized the importance of “deeper meaning” in prose. Yet this is not something to be said only of writing; it is a necessity in human life as well.
[Things of refinement and restrained depth seem rare in Western civilization.]
Man’s actions spring from the spirit, not from theory. More than the talented and resourceful show-off, the man of subtle depth is the one we seek out.
In all areas, I find the absence of refinement in today’s world utterly abhorrent.
Truly, modern man has reversed the value of the material and the spiritual. It has become a world where for desire of money men will endure any amount of spiritual indignity.
In this respect, the samurai of old clearly placed spirit over matter. At one time, a samurai would write upon an IOU, ” If I fail to repay this in the prescribed time, you may have me laughed at in public”. The reason for this was that to a samurai, public humiliation was a suffering so great that not even a thousand gold pieces could compensate for it.
Those who endure great spiritual hardship for the sake of saving a little money are legion. This is a truly mistaken approach to life.
The number of those who fail to understand that the spirit is primary and the material secondary has steadily grown. Of course, material possessions have great influence on mankind’s spirit—but whether we are able to use things freely depends entirely on the state of our hearts. In this way, we first come to sense the true joy of our existence here.
Yet, in spite of this, at every level, we are creating with our own hands a fettered and unnatural society.
In all things, we must never act against nature. If we raise flowers in a greenhouse, and they bloom out of season, these flowers are unnatural. A “success” that is forced is no true success. Unless everything flows naturally, following the changes of heaven and earth, there can be no true growth and development.
It is wrong to heedlessly endure great hardship merely in order to rise above one’s fellows. Diligence, pushed to the point of suffering, is no longer a good thing. When a person works strenuously out of a natural desire to do so, onlookers may think him quite industrious, but to the person working it is sheer pleasure.
On the other hand, those endure great torment in doing work which they hate are living in folly.
That this second type is far more common in our world today is truly a shame.
The absolute truth is soundless and shapeless, by no means a thing that can be shown or produced.
People who spend too much time looking for the absolute tend to be disappointed and pessimistic. It is actually better for us that there be no such thing [as the absolute].
Of all the myriad things in this world, not one, even for a brief second, ever returns to its previous state. All are ceaselessly moving and changing.
We cannot insist on something being a certain way now, simply because it was so in the past. In our day-to-day lives, adapting to diverse and everchanging circumstances is a matter of course.
Just as the needs of food, shelter, and clothing vary in accord with the seasons, so too do the thoughts and actions of the individual inevitably change with each new occasion.
The person who firmly grasps opportunity, and adapts himself to it, succeeds. To let such chance slip, and even act against it, brings certain failure.
Just as still water grows stagnant, the man who knows nothing of the creation of opportunity, and clings to just one thing, will be long-suffering.
The more one leafs through the history books of the world, the smaller one’s own existence appears.
Though there are only a few thousand years of recorded history, in this short time mankind has suffered greatly. The Buddha appeared, Christ appeared, Confucius appeared; the Buddha died, Christ died, Confucius died—yet the world is as full of suffering and damnation as ever. [ O God, please do something!]
Unless we run up against things, suffer for them, contemplate them, and finally come to understand them, they will not truly be ours. All the myriad phenomena of the universe are textbooks and teachers without limit.
We need merely make the effort to read them, and have the courage to ask questions of them.
Truth exists in the most insignificant of things. If one merely takes the trouble to be aware of and to reflect upon these things, anyone can be a great scholar of truth.
