true knowledge of this principle, and to practise it effectively until you have the restful feeling of a fish in water, and take the same pleasure in it that a bird does in the groves. It should be made one's very life at all times, never being departed from for a moment. If, so long as we live, we follow the Way, when we die these bodies of ours and the Way come to an end together, and a long peace ensues. Living for a day, let us fulfil the Way for that day and die; living for a month, let us fulfil the Way for that month and die; living for a year, let us fulfil the Way for that year and die. If we do so, there will be left not an atom of regret, even if we die in the evening after having learnt the Way in the morning.
"Looking at the matter in this light, why should the morning-glory resent that it must fade when the sun's rays fall upon it? Though its life is but for a day, it has bloomed to the full extent of its endowment, and there is nothing left. It is widely different from the thousand years of the fir-tree in length of time, but they are both alike in that they exhaust the command of Heaven [fulfil their destiny] and are satisfied. This is what is meant by the expression 'a heart differing not from that of the fir-tree.' Doubtless Matsunaga wished that his heart should become even like it, and therefore wrote this poem of the morning-glory."
In the following passage, which contains echoes of Taoist doctrines, Kiusō approaches very nearly to the idea of a personal Deity:—
"The Saden [an ancient Chinese book] says, 'God[1] is uniformly intelligent and just.' It is his very nature to
- ↑ Or "the Gods." The Chinese and Japanese languages rarely distinguish between singular and plural. The concluding part of this extract, however, shows that Kiusō was thinking of a single Deity.
