Part 20

Or, “the Pain-Sea of Life and Death.”

87.—Sodé no furi-awasé mo tashō no en. Even the touching of sleeves in passing is caused by some relation in a former life.

88.—Sun zen; shaku ma. An inch of virtue; a foot of demon.

Ma (Sanscrit, Mârakâyikas) is the name given to a particular class of spirits who tempt men to evil. But in Japanese folklore the Ma have a part much resembling that occupied in Western popular superstition by goblins and fairies.

89.—Tanoshimi wa hanasimi no motoi. All joy is the source of sorrow.

90.—Tondé hi ni iru natsu no mushi. So the insects of summer fly to the flame.

Said especially in reference to the result of sensual indulgence.

91.—Tsuchi-botoké no midzu-asobi. Clay-Buddha’s water-playing.

That is to say, “As dangerous as for a clay Buddha to play with water.” Children often amuse themselves by making little Buddhist images of mud, which melt into shapelessness, of course, if placed in water.

92.—Tsuki ni murakumo, hana ni kazé. Cloud-wrack to the moon; wind to flowers.

The beauty of the moon is obscured by masses of clouds; the trees no sooner blossom than their flowers are scattered by the wind. All beauty is evanescent.

93.—Tsuyu no inochi. Human life is like the dew of morning.

94.—U-ki wa, kokoro ni ari. Joy and sorrow exist only in the mind.

95.—Uri no tsuru ni nasubi wa naranu. Egg-plants do not grow upon melon-vines.

96.—Uso mo hōben. Even an untruth may serve as a device.

That is, a pious device for effecting conversion. Such a device is justified especially by the famous parable of the third chapter of the Saddharma Pundarîka.

97.—Waga ya no hotoké tattoshi. My family ancestors were all excellent Buddhas.

Meaning that one most reveres the hotoké—the spirits of the dead regarded as Buddhas—in one’s own household-shrine. There is an ironical play upon the word hotoké, which may mean either a dead person simply, or a Buddha. Perhaps the spirit of this proverb may be better explained by the help of another: Nigéta sakana ni chisai wa nai; shinda kodomo ni warui ko wa nai—“Fish that escaped was never small; child that died was never bad.”

98.—Yuki no haté wa, Nehan. The end of snow is Nirvâna.

This curious saying is the only one in my collection containing the word Nehan (Nirvâna), and is here inserted chiefly for that reason. The common people seldom speak of Nehan, and have little knowledge of those profound doctrines to which the term is related. The above phrase, as might be inferred, is not a popular expression: it is rather an artistic and poetical reference to the aspect of a landscape covered with snow to the horizon-line,—so that beyond the snow-circle there is only the great void of the sky.

99.—Zen ni wa zen no mukui; aku ni wa aku no mukui. Goodness [or, virtue] is the return for goodness; evil is the return for evil.

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.

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?”