As the old Japanese saying goes,
“The flow of the river never ceases, and yet the water is not the same.”
This is from “The Ten Foot Square Hut”, written by Kamo no Chohmei. The passage is tend to quote when someone explaining a sense of the evanescence of life that stems from Buddhism. In my junior high school age, our teacher said to the class that since about 900 years ago, Japanese people have possessed the value of a kind of nihilism, like Wabi Sabi represented Zen or Sadoh, the tea ceremony. Buddhism try to understand that everything is the same and end in the same. Moreover, the world that our eyes catch in daily life is just a wrong impression, it is called 空, Kū. When I was dumb, that dogma is used by the way of a revolt against my parents. And my friends told someone that annoyed theirselves that all the things is 空 Kū not cool, there is no room to discuss because the world is nothing.
I do not remember the time discarding the childish misunderstandings. Recently, I have reconsidered the value of Buddhism lessons through the book that is written by Suzuki Daisetz who was once the professor of Columbia University and an evangelist of the spirits of Zen. While I had read his book, I thought Buddhismic nihilism is devalued by interpretation to stress its passive and negative attitude. One of characteristic traits is embracing the whole world as it is in one’s mind, but ascetics does not become in bad spirits, if a buddism priest get along with them, supporting them to be enlightened is also his or her role.
I am not sure that how does the mind that incorporate dogmas have an impact on actual world, because to train them in the temple, it also needs money. Even modern society, they rely on donations from those who believes it. But I assume ancient lessons are useful and universal to a certain extent, not believe but worth considering.
Comments