Until one has reached a considerable age and has risen to a fair station in life, one cannot accomplish one’s true work.
Even though young people may possess a slightly superior talent, when they demonstrate this people will not readily accept it. Should such a person be taken on by a superior and promoted to a higher rank, their colleagues and others still will not be easily impressed.
Also, if one has no official position, then no matter how meritorious one’s words and actions are, people will not judge one solely by these, but will discount one on the basis of one’s status, age, and lineage.
Looking around the world, those people who are highly esteemed by their fellows are actually more numerous than those who are famous, but unfortunately, because they have achieved no fame, these people are often ill-treated by others.
When the troubles of others are conveyed to us, we are apt to feel troubled as well. However, depending upon our individual strength of character, this can to some extent be controlled.
However, if everyone around you is grieving, it is hardly appropriate for you alone to remain indifferent.
The suffering of others is to a certain degree one’s own suffering, and the happiness of others is to some extent one’s own happiness. Following this line of thought, unless our joys and sorrows are shared, this world will not know true happiness.
Though we think and plan various things for the future, humans are essentially creatures of the present. Danger over, our fears are soon forgotten, and in the depths of winter we cannot remember summer’s heat.
To follow the shallow way of thinking of most men and forcefully go through with things as originally planned, regardless of the situation, is a grave mistake.
On the whole, mankind’s intellect is a highly imperfect thing, and in looking at various people’s particular way of thinking we find great disparity. Therefore we must never swallow the opinions of others whole, without thinking for ourselves.
Children in today’s schools are conditioned to take every statement of their seniors as the absolute truth. However, this will come to have an extremely harmful effect in later years, because young people will lack sufficient critical ability, and so their preconceptions and failure to question things will result in them holding biased views.
All things around us in this world are no more than reference points for own selves.
Absolute truth, as such, is in no way something which is plainly revealed. What we now see before our eyes is no more than a small part of the whole truth. Such a small part is by no means an absolute truth.
Above all, our hidebound way of thought regarding law and custom is a great problem.
We must at all costs consider our social institutions by using man’s spirit as a basis.
Water moves without cease. Time passes without cease. With the passing of time, the face of the truth shifts.
Summer is the time to wear light clothing, winter the time to wear many layers. Even so, there is no law regulating the number of layers of clothing a person must wear. Nevertheless, essentially all of the laws and regulations of our modern world are expressed in the sense that one “must do something.” As people’s clothing changes with the different seasons, so for different people there naturally should be greatly different laws. This is because for each individual person the cause and effect of a particular situation can hardly be expected to be the same.
If we could only behave in a natural manner, we would be in harmony with the truth, but instead modern man insists on fettering himself with the making of various regulations and schemes.
It is a great mistake to think that by educating any given person we can impart to them the ability to do absolutely anything. No matter how vigorously one rubs a rock, it will not turn into a gem. Yet even a precious stone, if left covered with dirt, will appear to people to be no more than a clod of earth.
Because each of us has been blessed by God with a spiritually good nature, if we spend our lives in cultivating this nature with all our strength, such effort alone is enough. This is the task of man.
