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In Ghostly Japan
9.—Enkō ga tsuki wo toran to suru ga gotoshi.
Like monkeys trying to snatch the moon’s reflection on water.[1]
10.—En naki shujō wa doshi gatashi.
To save folk having no karma-relation would be difficult indeed![2]
11.—Fujō seppō suru hōshi wa, hirataké ni umaru.
The priest who preaches foul doctrine shall be reborn as a fungus.
- ↑ Allusion to a parable, said to have been related by the Buddha himself, about some monkeys who found a well under a tree, and mistook for reality the image of the moon in the water. They resolved to seize the bright apparition. One monkey suspended himself by the tail from a branch overhanging the well, a second monkey clung to the first, a third to the second, a fourth to the third, and so on,—till the long chain of bodies had almost reached the water. Suddenly the branch broke under the unaccustomed weight; and all the monkeys were drowned.
- ↑ No karma-relation would mean an utter absence of merit as well as of demerit.
comes to us. Every good thought and act contributes to the evolution of the Buddha-nature within each of us. Another proverb [No. 10],—En naki shūjo wa doshi gatashi,—further illustrates the meaning of this one.
