philosophers-from-japan

"The five worst infirmities that afflict the female are indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy, and silliness."

"The end of learning is the formation of character."

"問 神、何衣、何食、何宅 曰 衣道、食道、宅道 如人、衣於道、食於道、宅於道，則亦猶神"

"If we do not admonish the evil priests, how can we hope to do good?"

"In judging the relative merit of Buddhist doctrines, I, Nichiren, believe that the best standards are those of reason and documentary proof. And even more valuable than reason and documentary proof is the proof of actual fact."

"The people of today all turn their backs upon what is right; to a person, they give their allegiance to evil."

"天降生民有一生而無再生。"

"神懸三拾六法と云ふは神達に上中下の品位あり。而して有形無形之差別あり。亦自感法他感法神感法あり。三法合せて二百九十八法なる。亦た妖魅界亦邪神界とも云ふありて、神界に准じて十は法ある故に正邪合せて三拾六法と成る。"

"人心也者大精神之分派。"

"帰神の法を幽斎の法といふ。神界に感合するの道は至尊至貴、濫に語る可き者に非ず。吾朝古典往々其実績を載すと雖も、中世祭祀の道衰へ其術を失ふ既に久し。神法に依り其古に復す。是即ち玄理の窮極、皇祖の以て皇孫に伝へし治国の大本にして祭祀の蘊奥なり。"

"一、天地の真象を観察して真神の体を思考す可し。"

"必ずや霊魂の其物体に憑依するの神法有りて、確乎として動す可らざるを信ず。"

"一、身体衣服を清潔にす可し。"

"幽斎は宇宙の主宰に感合し親しく八百万神に接す。其の修し得るに至ては至大無外、至小無内、無遠近、無大小、無広狭、無明暗、過去と現在と未来とを問はず一も通ぜざるは無し。是即ち惟神の妙法。"

"常に服膺すべき者あり。玆に其概を挙ぐ。"

"親德拾は歳皇史を拝読し、此の神法の今時に廃絶したるを慨歎し、岩窟に求め草庵に尋ね、終に三拾五歳にして神懸三十六法あることを覚悟り、夫れより幽冥に正し現事に徴し、古事記日本紀の真奥を知り、古先達の説々悉く皆謬解たるを知り弁へたりき。"

"Of course the pen in my hand writes the spiritual teachings in this book, but once I sit at my desk to write for it, I am no longer the ordinary “I.” Holy spirit comes over and inspires me. The strong words for my weak character pour out from my pen. I was surprised at my own words pouring down into the “Holy Song for the Seicho-No-Ie” which has appeared in the House Organ No. 2. When I was at Kameoka I was one day concentrating my mind to write on our teachings. Mr. Kato who had the faculty of clairvoyance was sitting beside me, and told me afterward that he saw a spiritual man quite different from myself writing at the desk. I do not know if we may believe his words. But if there is any founder of the spiritual teachings of “Seicho-No-Ie” it can not be this earthly I."

"O Parent God who gives life to all living beings, fill my whole being with Your Spirit and all blessings. My life is not my own to claim, it is the life of God, who permeates the universe. My acts are not my own to claim. They are the acts of God, who permeates the universe. May the Lord of Seicho-No-Ie, who has appeared to teach us the Way of God, the Parent of heaven and earth, guide us and protect us."

"[And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)] What must be noted here is the plural form used in the statement, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us....” It is not only in Jesus the Christ that the Word dwelt. The Word of God—the Holy Name of the Buddha—dwells in all people and that is what is appearing as the physical body. It is stated here, “... we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Here, St. John is saying that within us dwells the Word of God, that is, the Holy Name of the Buddha, that he saw the glory of it, that this was the glory of God’s only begotten son. This means that we are all the only begotten of God. There are a large number of only begotten sons. People who are lost because they do not realize that they are the only begotten of the Father are like the “prodigal son” who has lost his way. Christians who stick to the usual explanation on this point think that Jesus was the only begotten son of God. However, St. John tells us that we are all children of God, that the glory of God dwells in all human beings, that we are all shining forth, and that we are all the only begotten son of the Father."

"God is all of everything, everywhere. I'm a child of God, His spirit within me. When in Oneness I pray, Heaven and Earth respond. When in Oneness I move, the Universe moves."

"It may be that Japan is only a speck on a world map drawn by Europeans, but the country consisting of a chain of islands has played and is still playing an important part because of its situation lying east of the continent in the Pacific Ocean. From a cultural point of view Japan is an eastward limit of penetration, and a treasure-house, so to speak, in the history of world civilization. Another important thing is that Japan stands out as the first country in Asia which adopted modern mechanical civilization and carried it to the Asiatic Continent."

"God the Parent “Tenri-Ō-no-Mikoto” may be called an “umgreifend Deity” and likened to a circle of infinite diameter."

"A transcendent deity is not connected with man, while an immanent deity is connected with man. An umgreifend deity is, however, both connected and disconnected with man. To speak in greater detail, the umgreifend deity reveals Himself not only to His believers but to those who wish to know Him. He tries as far as possible to appeal to human wisdom, gives persuasion and satisfaction and waits anxiously in the expectation of human evolution."

"Buddhists try to escape from their life, while Christians attach greater importance to their life in heaven than to that on earth. As for believers of Tenrikyo, however, the greatest emphasis is always put on this life on earth. Neither life nor death can exist independently of God the Parent."

"The deity who guides us must, and must not, be among us mankind; He must be both immanent and transcendent. In other words, He must be the Deity who renders satisfaction to human wisdom on one hand, and leads us up to things too high to give satisfaction to it on the other. Again, He must be apparent as well as hidden. Such a deity is umgreifend. It may well be said that a pantheistic god is apparent while a transcendent god is hidden."

"“Tenri-Ō-no-Mikoto” god is the umgreifend Deity, both pantheistic and theistic, both immanent and transcendent."

"A transcendent deity will speak what man cannot understand, and man is forced just to obey. A pantheistic deity will never speak to man, but will leave all to human thinking. However, in the case of the umgreifend deity He and man are enabled to talk with each other. The umgreifend deity, appealing to human wisdom, will try to win persuasion. But after all He both negates and transcends human wisdom, and discloses His true intention in a way that man cannot perceive."

"It may safely be said that the Japanese people embrace all of the greatest religions of the world. In Japan there are various stages of belief, from primitive Shamanism to Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, Confucianism, Mohammedanism and Shintoism originating in Japan. And they co-exist with no bloody strife, each having its own ardent followers. There is nothing like such religious wars as were seen in European history."

"Tenrikyo is a unique faith which is neither theistic nor pantheistic. The Kami (Deity) of Tenrikyo, “Tenri-Ō-no-Mikoto,” is, to speak exactly, umgreifend and all the universe lives in His bosom. The Kami of Tenrikyo may be perceived as a crossing of pantheism plus determination of space, and theism plus determination of time. A pantheistic god is immanent, while a theistic god transcendent. But an umgreifend god is both immanent and transcendent. A pantheistic god is rational, while a theistic god irrational. An umgreifend god, is, however, transrational. An intellectual understanding of such a god is possible up to a certain point, but beyond it. In other words, a relative man is able to comprehend only a part of the functions of an absolute god. The mysterious god who is beyond human intellectual understanding is one who gives us light from far beyond the limitation of human thinking. Such being the case, the god is not one which blinds modern scientific people but which lights up their way. Once they lose sight of the light, they will fall into a dark world. Human civilization will be ruined unless supported by such a god."

"It may be said that pantheism and theism in world civilization were derived from the Aryan and Semitic races, respectively. These two still form the backbone of the Western ideas which have been dominating the world since the Industrial Revolution, which ended in favor of a mechanical civilization. And it is natural that the people of the Western sphere of civilization view from no other perspectives than these two. As for us people of the East, we have traditions quite different from those of the West, and view from perspectives unlike those of Westerners."

"As for the revelation of the Semitic race, which comes under the former category, such an address was made solely with divine authority and without any regard to human thinking, seems to be filled with many contradictions. We are, frankly speaking, in blank dismay when we come across such fundamental doctrines of Christianity as the conception of the Virgin Mary and the Resurrection of Christ. Is there no other teaching to persuade us a little further?"

"The Japanese nation is, generally speaking, so generously disposed towards any system of thought that varying contradictions are kept on with no inconvenience whatever; it seems as if the Japanese nation were gifted with special capacity for tolerance. For instance, religions present an apt example of tolerance on the part of the Japanese nation."

"這箇是阿誰，不曾知名，非可為身，非可為心。"

"夫坐禪者，直令人開明心地，安住本分，是名露本來面目，亦名現本地風光。"

"不得好說法教化，散心亂念從是而起。"

"叢林之中，善知識處，深山幽谷，可依止之。綠水青山，是經行之處。谿邊樹下，是澄心之處也。觀無常不可忘，是勵探道心也。"

"坐禪觀舉體無二，抛下萬事，休息諸緣，佛法世法不管，道情世情雙忘，無是非無善惡，何防止之有乎，此是心地無相戒也。"

"直須休去歇去，冷湫湫地去，"

"打坐工夫，或向胞胎未生，不起一念已前行履工夫，二空忽生，散心必歇。"

"Without Indian influence Japanese culture would not be what it is today."

"Indians conducted far more elaborate speculations than the Westerners of antiquity and the Middle Ages with respect to the theory of numbers, the analysis of psychological phenomena, and the study of linguistic structures. The Indians are highly rationalistic, insofar as their ideal is to recognize eternal laws concerning past, present, and future. The thought represented by Tertullian's aphorism, "credo quia absurdum," or "I believe because it is absurd," had no receptivity in India. The Indians are, at the same time, logical since they generally have a tendency to sublimate their thinking to the universal; they are at once logical and rationalistic. On the contrary, many religions of the West are irrational and illogical, and this is acknowledged by the Westerners themselves. For example, Schweitzer, a pious and most devoted Christian, says, "Compared to the logical religions of Asia, the gospel of Jesus is illogical.""

"India is culturally, Mother of Japan. For centuries it has, in her own characteristic way, been exercising her influence on the thought and culture of Japan."

"“I had for many years been a devout believer in Shushi says Nakaye Toju (1608-48), “when, by the mercy of Heaven, the collected works of Oyomei were brought for the first time to Japan. Had it not been for the aid of their teaching, my life would have been empty and barren.”"

"Man’s mind is the mind of the sensible world, but we have another mind which is called conscience. This is reason itself, and does not belong to form (or “mode”). It is infinite and eternal. As our conscience is one with (the divine or universal) reason, it has no beginning or end. If we act in accord with (such) reason or conscience, we are ourselves the incarnations of the infinite and eternal, and have eternal life."

"In Japan, even more than in China, the influence of Confucius on philosophic thought overwhelmed all the resistance of unplaced rebels on the one hand, and mystic idealists on the other. The Shushi school of Seigwa, Razan and Ekken took its name from Chu Hsi, and followed his orthodox and conservative interpretation of the Chinese classics. For a time it was opposed by the Oyomei school, which took its lead from Wang Yangming, known to Nippon as Oyomei. Like Wang, the Japanese philosophers of Oyomei sought to deduce right and wrong from the conscience of the individual rather than from the traditions of society and the teachings of the ancient sages. “I had for many years been a devout believer in Shushi says Nakaye Toju (1608-48), “when, by the mercy of Heaven, the collected works of Oyomei were brought for the first time to Japan. Had it not been for the aid of their teaching, my life would have been empty and barren.” So Nakaye devoted himself to expounding an idealist monism, in which the world was a unity of ki and ri—of things (or “modes”) and reason or law. God and this unity were one; the world of things was his body, the universal law was his soul. Like Spinoza, Wang Yang-ming and the Scholastics of Europe, Nakaye accepted this universal law with a kind of amor dei intellectualis, and accounted good and evil as human terms and prejudices describing no objective entities; and, again strangely like Spinoza, he found a certain immortality in the contemplative union of the individual spirit with the timeless laws or reason of the world."

"Nakaye was a man of saintly sincerity, but his philosophy pleased neither the people nor the government. The Shogunate trembled at the notion that every man might judge for himself what was right and what was wrong."

"Buddhas bear the same relation to sentient beings as water does to ice. Ice, like stone or brick, cannot flow. But when it melts it flows freely in conformity with its surroundings. So long as one remains in a state of delusion he is like ice. Upon realization he becomes as exquisitely free as water. And remember, there is no ice which does not return to water. So you will understand there is no difference between ordinary beings and Buddhas except for one thing - delusion. When it is dissolved they are identical."

"People give names to persons and things, and then suppose that if they know the names, they know that which the names refer to."

"All things that are in the world are linked together, one way or the other. Not a single thing comes into being without some relationship to every other thing. Scientific intellect thinks here in terms of natural laws of necessary causality; mythico-poetic imagination perceives an organic, living connection; philosophic reason contemplates an absolute One. But on a more essential level, a system of circuminsession has to be seen here, according to which, on the field of Śūnyatā, all things are in a process of becoming master and servant to one another. In this system, each thing is itself in not being itself, and is not itself in being itself. Its being is illusion in its truth and truth in its illusion. This may sound strange the first time one hears it, but in fact it enables us for the first time to conceive of a force by virtue of which all things are gathered together and brought into relationship with one another, a force which, since ancient times, has gone by the name of "nature" (physis)."

"In the locus of emptiness, beyond the human standpoint, a world of "dependent origination" is opened up in which everything is related to everything else. Seen in this light, there is nothing in the world that arises from "self-power" and yet all "self-powered" workings arise from the world."