{"id":17098,"date":"2019-01-28T23:56:56","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T23:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/?p=17098"},"modified":"2019-01-31T03:24:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T03:24:43","slug":"20190129","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/ja\/20190129\/","title":{"rendered":"\u6075\u5149\u306e\u8f2a\u8b1b\u300c\u79d1\u5b66\u3084\u6587\u5316\u306e\u767a\u5c55\u3092\u7d20\u6674\u3089\u3057\u3044\u3068\u601d\u3046\u3042\u306a\u305f\u3078\u300d &#038; \u300c\u7dcf\u7406\u5927\u81e3\u306f\u3084\u3063\u3071\u308a\u5049\u3044\u3068\u601d\u3063\u3066\u3044\u308b\u3042\u306a\u305f\u3078\u300d\u30012019\u5e741\u670829\u65e5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WEGH72B-FUk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b>16. To you who are impressed by scientific and cultural progress<\/b><\/p>\n<p>We mustn\u2019t forget that today\u2019s science and culture have only developed out of the lowest levels of consciousness.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEverybody is talking about culture, but what is it besides a refinement of our illusions?<br \/>\nHowever much we iron out our drives, from a Buddhist standpoint, it\u2019s got nothing to do with progress or civilization.<br \/>\nEveryone is talking these days about progress, but I wonder in which direction we\u2019re actually progressing.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEverybody is talking about culture, but what kind of culture is it really? Lewd music, erotic dancing, pornographic literature \u2013 completely barbaric.<br \/>\nWe stir up our own illusions and then complain about today\u2019s youth and ask, \u201cWho\u2019s responsible for education these days?\u201d<br \/>\nFaith means clarity and purity. It means settling down.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEveryone is talking about art, but what is it really? Men and women glued to each other. What is it besides stimulation for our sexual desires?<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nNo animal is as dishonest as a human being. Humans eat their party snacks and dance in a circle; they do scientific research and drop hydrogen bombs on each other.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhen you observe insects in a tank, you see how they bite into each other and hold on with all their might. It must be amusing to observe from another corner of the universe how humans stock up on atomic and hydrogen bombs.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nActing clever while at the same time being the biggest idiots \u2013 that\u2019s human fate.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nPeople love it when things are complicated. Though things are complicated enough \u2013 even when we try to keep them as simple as possible \u2013 there are still some who make an effort to be especially complicated in everything they do.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe modern world musters up all of its knowledge just to run down a dead end street.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWisdom means having a thoroughly solid faculty of judgment at your disposal.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nPeople were idiots in the old days too. They wasted a fortune in gold and manpower building castles. And what was it all for? To bicker with each other.<br \/>\nToday, people are even dumber. They build atomic and hydrogen bombs in order to erase humanity with one push of a button.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nHow is it that humanity itself, unlike its science, hasn\u2019t progressed in the least?<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe Americans are only ordinary people, the Russians are ordinary people, the Chinese too are ordinary people: ordinary people who desperately compete with other ordinary people.<br \/>\nNo matter how much coal you pile up, it\u2019s still just coal.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nScience can build on the results of others, so it constantly makes progress. But humans can\u2019t build on the lives of others, so they make no progress. That\u2019s why everywhere we look we see helpless greenhorns brandishing deadly weapons \u2013 and that\u2019s dangerous!<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nAn idiot sits at the computer, a dimwit in the cockpit of the jet and a madman at the control panel of the atomic rockets \u2013 that\u2019s the current problem.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIn the buddha-dharma, we can\u2019t live on what others have left behind. The reason science progresses is that it can build on what previous generations have left behind. In the buddha-dharma, it\u2019s just the opposite \u2013 it\u2019s to stop wanting to feed on what others have left behind.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nPerhaps we can save our friends with atomic and hydrogen bombs \u2013 but not our enemies. Only zazen is capable of saving friends as well as enemies.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEveryone is worried about humanity, but it\u2019s a matter of putting an end to what ordinary people call \u201chumanity\u201d and turning everyone into a buddha.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThat which serves humans only leads them down a dead end.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nPeople negotiate the market price of objects, but this market price isn\u2019t something you can rely on. Things whose market value can be disputed are just practical commodities. They\u2019re products.<br \/>\nBuddha isn\u2019t a product.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe Chinese character for \u201cfalsehood\u201d [itsuwari ?!] means \u201cserving humans\u201d. Today, we consider culture and arts to be a service to humanity.<br \/>\nThe world of culture and arts is constantly changing. Culture doesn\u2019t mean anything more than the further development of artifice. That\u2019s why culture is a tragedy.<br \/>\nWhat can we rely on no matter where we go? Only on life itself \u2013 which is unlimited in all directions.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe inventions and ideas of Europeans are just playthings which have nothing to do with life itself.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhen we carefully read Marx and Engels, we realize that the whole thing is just a matter of how we split up the loot.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEven if the whole of humanity were communist, until each and every one of us attains true freedom, we would still have this ceaseless bickering.<br \/>\nAs long as each of us isn\u2019t truly free, none of us can truly enjoy peace of mind.<\/p>\n<p><b>6. To you who think the prime minister is a really special person<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Alexander the Great, Julius Cesar and Genghis Khan were just big bandits. Stalin or Hitler leave even master thieves like Ishikawa Goemon or Tenichibo in the dust. They put on a good show, but in the end it was only a question of how far they could go with their daring, just like the crook, Kunisada Ch\u016bji.<br \/>\nFootnote: Ishikawa Goemon (1568-1594), Ten\u2019ichib\u014d (first half of the 18th century), and Kunisada Ch\u016bji (1810-1850) were outlaws who lived during the Azuchi-Momoyama and Tokugawa periods in Japan. Ishikawa was a thief who, together with his gang and family, was put to death by being cooked alive in boiling water. Ten\u2019ichib\u014d was involved in a coup d\u2019etat, and Kunisada was involved in various illegal activities. It is said that he helped poor farmers with the money he earned with gambling. Ten\u2019ichib\u014d and Kunisada were also punished with death penalty. The lives of this three gangsters provide material for many historical dramas in Japan.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s strange is that these gang bosses are so admired \u2013 by small-time crooks like ourselves.<br \/>\nZazen goes far beyond this: when we penetrate zazen, we don\u2019t have to steal from others anymore.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nSo you are \u201cgood\u201d? The question is simply: good for what?<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIn every age, people have been misused and misled by politicians.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWe act as if our eccentricities are what make up our true nature.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIsn\u2019t it clear that you\u2019re a thief as soon as you steal someone\u2019s property? Yet today everyone seems to believe that you aren\u2019t guilty as long as you haven\u2019t been caught by the police, interrogated by the inspector, convicted by the judge and finally locked up in a cell.<br \/>\nThe same goes for corrupt politicians: as long as they can hide all evidence to the contrary, they consider themselves to be competent and successful. That shows how far group stupidity has taken us.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEven when the Chinese Emperor was surrounded by shrewd advisors, he always had enough \u201cwisdom\u201d to mislead them. This type of wisdom has nothing to do with the wisdom of the buddha-dharma.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nYou don\u2019t have to be a Ishikawa Gozaemon to be a thief. Even somebody who\u2019s stolen something only once, on a whim, is still a complete thief.<br \/>\nIn the same way, Shakyamuni isn\u2019t the only buddha. Everyone who imitates Buddha\u2019s zazen is a complete buddha.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWe all develop peculiar habits. The powerful, and the teachers and intellectuals who serve them, do their best to train us in these peculiarities. In this way we are tied and twisted in the most complicated ways. Religion means untying these knots.<br \/>\nIn the end, there is only emptiness.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nAll those who rely on their political power \u2013 are they anything more than a pile of wannabe bosses?<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEveryone is trying to make themselves out to be important according to their worldly criteria. How sickening!<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhat one system built, the other will destroy. What one political power accomplished, will be repealed by the next.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe whole world is only busy trying to cover up the symptoms \u2013 and with rubbing lotion!<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhen I was a child, they told me that I shouldn\u2019t look into the eyes of the nobility, \u201cotherwise you\u2019ll go blind!\u201d Terrified, I closed the shutters. Now, I\u2019m not impressed by anyone.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nOne guy sat in prison before the war,<br \/>\nanother sat in prison during the war,<br \/>\nanother sat in prison after the war.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nTo be loyal to the orders given by whoever\u2019s in power at the moment, a policeman has to be ready to put his life on the line in the course of duty. That\u2019s not so easy. I couldn\u2019t do it.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nHe who seeks his true mission won\u2019t want to pursue a career. A person who wants to become president doesn\u2019t know where he\u2019s going in life.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nTheir election is so important to them that presidents and congressmen campaign to rally votes. Idiots! Even if they asked me to become president, I\u2019d turn it down: \u201cHow dumb do you think I am anyway?\u201d<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nOne guy loses the presidential election, so he cries. Next time around he wins the election, and then he smiles into the camera. What makes politicians different from little children anyway? It\u2019s exactly the same way with a crying child: you offer him some candy and already a smile breaks out on his teary face.<br \/>\nA little more maturity would be nice.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nAnyone who relies on his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 is a failure.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nOrdinary people play with their status and reputation.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nMost people don\u2019t live from their own strength. They let themselves be fed by the system.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\n\u201cHe\u2019s a great guy: he can drink two liters of wine just like that!\u201d What\u2019s called \u201cgood\u201d is usually nothing special. Each clique has their own standard which they use to explain something as \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cnot so good\u201d.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIn the world everything\u2019s discussed only from the standpoint of \u201cdecent\u201d ordinary people.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nPeople are impressed by strange things. You only need to be a little different and the whole world is impressed.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIt\u2019s karma that an owl can see at night. It\u2019s karma that an otter swims quickly. It\u2019s karma that a whale is so big. And it\u2019s also karma that he is killed by a harpoon.<br \/>\nHowever good or bad the karma may be, it\u2019s still only karma and nothing special. You\u2019re clever or dumb, liked or disliked, talented or untalented \u2013 that\u2019s all karma. And whether that makes you a minister or a beggar is also karma.<br \/>\nWhen a tomcat and a tiger have a fight, the tiger wins, but that doesn\u2019t mean that the tiger is something special: it\u2019s karma. That the dumb are told by the clever what they have to do and say is karma. But that doesn\u2019t mean that the clever are better than the dumb \u2013 it\u2019s just karma. It has nothing to do with the buddha-dharma. People are always running after their karma, but don\u2019t let yourself be misled by karma!<br \/>\nIf you see a pretty girl, you turn your head. If you\u2019re offered a nice sum of money, you work like crazy. You are always being misled by little things. Not being misled by karma means doing something without being misled by time.<br \/>\n[footnote: i.e. Living our lives in the eternal present, without being misled by a hallucinatory past or future.]<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nSome are strong like lions. Others are long, like snakes. Others can see even at night, like weasels. Some have their young stolen one after the other, until the day when someone breaks their neck, like chickens. Some are taken advantage of their whole lives long, and in the end they are slaughtered and eaten, even the bones and the skin are put to use, like cows. Others always have a place on a woman\u2019s lap, where they\u2019re happy, like tomcats. All of that is karma. It is neither good nor bad.<br \/>\nIn the end a person whose karma is too good falls headfirst into hell.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe rat is an enthusiastic worker. That\u2019s its karma. We don\u2019t need to pay it any respect by saying, \u201cI wish I were as hard-working as you.\u201d<br \/>\nWe don\u2019t need to be amazed either when somebody can see better at night than others \u2013 even a tomcat can do that. It\u2019s natural that humans can\u2019t see so well at night.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThat a weasel sees well at night and an otter swims quickly is their karma, it doesn\u2019t make them special. What is considered something special in the world is usually nothing more than karma. You are clever and pass every exam? That\u2019s only karma. It doesn\u2019t mean that you have understood anything about life.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe world judges by strange standards: somebody sees in the dark and he\u2019s admired by everyone. At the same time every owl sees at night and every ostrich runs quickly.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nIf you throw a kitten into a tiger\u2019s cage, it\u2019ll be afraid and will try to run away. But the tiger will catch it and swallow it in a single gulp.<br \/>\nThe kitten as well as the tiger embodies our weaknesses as living beings. Only Saigy\u014d\u2019s silver cat has it better.<br \/>\n[Footnote: Saigy\u014d received this silver cat statue as a present from the Sh\u014dgun in power at the time, then gave it away to children playing outside the castle gate]<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhat could be more boring than showing off your skills? Skills are only relative: they\u2019re not really worth anything. What lies beyond your talents, that\u2019s what matters.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nTokugawa Ieyasu was so unlikable and cowardly! I wouldn\u2019t want to be like him. If Ieyasu came into fashion and everyone was like him, the world would be filled with phony bills.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThroughout history, beginning with the one in Osaka, people built many \u201cinvincible\u201d castles. Yet in the end they all fell with their castles. Just how stupid were they anyway?<br \/>\nTokugawa Ieyasu is called a sly fox. He made his mischief with talent. But was his rule eternal? No, in the end he was also just an idiot.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nWhen you look at heroes, East and West, past and present, you can clearly see that the strong as well as the weak didn\u2019t do anything besides exhaust themselves and die in the end. They all gave everything they had, wearing themselves out for an illusion and accumulating bad karma.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nAll beings are blind to the dharma \u2013 and that doesn\u2019t just go for punks and hooligans. Children who are born blind to the dharma are raised by blind parents, educated by blind teachers and misled by politicians who are blind to the dharma \u2013 how could anyone around here not be blind to the dharma.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nOnce there was a great madman in the Sugamo hospital who called himself \u201cAshiwara Sh\u014dgun\u201d. He hung a cardboard medal around his neck and bestowed dignified words to those he met to take with them on their way. Now that the war is over, we can see clearly that what the military did wasn\u2019t at all different. And now they want to reintroduce medals yet again.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nAfter winning the Russo-Japanese war, we thought we\u2019d won colonies. But what really came of it? After losing the Second World War, we realized that we had only earned the hatred of the Russians.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEveryone is talking about loyalty to the fatherland. The question is simply where this loyalty will take us. I too was completely convinced when I went to war against the Russians, but after our defeat, I realized that we had done something that we shouldn\u2019t have. In any case, it\u2019s better not to make war in the first place.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nThe life and death of many depends on whether a single Stalin is born or not. Whether a single person is born or not makes a huge difference. That\u2019s why it is so significant that the single person, Shakyamuni, was born.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nPeople are good as they originally are, but unfortunately they drift off in the wrong direction. That\u2019s because they follow bad examples.<br \/>\nThe Buddhist school, S\u014dkagakkai promises you happiness, but where is this happiness supposed to come from? From earning money they say! But what does money have to do with happiness anyway? Shakyamuni renounced palace and throne to go begging as a monk.<br \/>\nLosing your balance because of happiness and unhappiness is what\u2019s called \u201cillusion\u201d.<br \/>\n**<br \/>\nEverybody\u2019s karma is different. What\u2019s important is the fact that everyone is pulled forward by buddha in the same way.<br \/>\nDropping off body and mind means to stop wearing yourself out, and instead to trust in buddha, to let yourself be pulled by buddha.<br \/>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>16. To you who are impressed by scientific and cultural progress We mustn\u2019t forget that today\u2019s science and culture have only developed out of the lowest levels of consciousness. ** Everybody is talking about culture, but what is it besides a refinement of our illusions? However much  [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17098"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17119,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17098\/revisions\/17119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}