Part 19

Meaning that a wicked man usually marries a wicked woman.

69.—Onna no ké ni wa dai-zō mo tsunagaru. With one hair of a woman you can tether even a great elephant.

70.—Onna wa Sangai ni iyé nashi. Women have no homes of their own in the Three States of Existence.

71.—Oya no ingwa ga ko ni mukuü. The karma of the parents is visited upon the child.

Said of the parents of crippled or deformed children. But the popular idea here expressed is not altogether in accord with the teachings of the higher Buddhism.

72.—Rakkwa éda ni kaerazu. The fallen blossom never returns to the branch.

That which has been done never can be undone: the past cannot be recalled.—This proverb is an abbreviation of the longer Buddhist text: Rakkwa éda ni kaerazu; ha-kyō futatabi terasazu: “The fallen blossom never returns to the branch; the shattered mirror never again reflects.”

73.—Raku wa ku no tané; ku wa raku no tané. Pleasure is the seed of pain; pain is the seed of pleasure.

74.—Rokudō wa, mé no maë. The Six Roads are right before your eyes.

That is to say, Your future life depends upon your conduct in this life; and you are thus free to choose for yourself the place of your next birth.

75.—Sangai mu-an. There is no rest within the Three States of Existence.

76.—Sangai ni kaki nashi;—Rokudō ni hotori nashi. There is no fence to the Three States of Existence;—there is no neighborhood to the Six Roads.

Within the Three States (Sangai), or universes, of Desire, Form, and Formlessness; and within the Six Worlds, or conditions of being,—Jigokudō (Hell), Gakidō (Pretas), Chikushōdō (Animal Life), Shuradō (World of Fighting and Slaughter), Ningendō (Mankind), Tenjōdō (Heavenly Spirits)—all existence is included. Beyond there is only Nirvâna. “There is no fence,” “no neighborhood,”—that is to say, no limit beyond which to escape,—no middle-path between any two of these states. We shall be reborn into some one of them according to our karma.—Compare with No. 74.

77.—Sangé ni wa sannen no tsumi mo hōrobu. One confession effaces the sins of even three years.

78.—San nin yoréba, kugai. Where even three persons come together, there is a world of pain.

Kugai (lit.: “bitter world”) is a term often used to describe the life of a prostitute.

79.—San nin yoréba, Monjū no chié. Where three persons come together, there is the wisdom of Monjū.

Monjū Bosatsu [Mañdjus’ri Bodhisattva] figures in Japanese Buddhism as a special divinity of wisdom.—The proverb signifies that three heads are better than one. A saying of like meaning is, Hiza to mo dankō: “Consult even with your own knee;” that is to say, Despise no advice, no matter how humble the source of it.

80.—Shaka ni sekkyō. Preaching to Sâkyamuni.

81.—Shami kara chōrō. To become an abbot one must begin as a novice.

82.—Shindaréba, koso ikitaré. Only by reason of having died does one enter into life.

I never hear this singular proverb without being re-minded of a sentence in Huxley’s famous essay, On the Physical Basis of Life:—“The living protoplasm not only ultimately dies and is resolved into its mineral and lifeless constituents, but is always dying, and, strange as the paradox may sound, could not live unless it died.”

83.—Shiranu ga, hotoké; minu ga, Gokuraku. Not to know is to be a Buddha; not to see is Paradise.

84.—Shōbo ni kidoku nashi. There is no miracle in true doctrine.

Nothing can happen except as a result of eternal and irrevocable law.

85.—Shō-chié wa Bodai no samatagé. A little wisdom is a stumbling-block on the way to Buddhahood.

Bodai is the same word as the Sanscrit Bodhi, signifying the supreme enlightenment,—the knowledge that leads to Buddhahood; but it is often used by Japanese Buddhists in the sense of divine bliss, or the Buddha-state itself.

86.—Shōshi no kukai hetori nashi. There is no shore to the bitter Sea of Birth and Death.