Japanese Buddhist Proverbs
181
46.—Kokoro no shi to wa naré; kokoro wo shi to sezaré.
Be the teacher of your heart: do not allow your heart to become your teacher.
47.—Kono yo wa kari no yado.
This world is only a resting-place.[1]
48.—Kori wo chiribamé; midzu ni égaku.
To inlay ice; to paint upon water.[2]
49.—
Korokoro to
Naku wa yamada no
Hototogisu,
Chichi nitéya aran,
Haha nitéya aran.
The bird that cries korokoro in the mountain rice-field I know to be a hototogisu;—yet it may
- ↑ “This world is but a travellers’ inn,” would be an almost equally correct translation. Yado literally means a lodging, shelter, inn; and the word is applied often to those wayside resting-houses at which Japanese travellers halt during a journey. Kari signifies temporary, transient, fleeting,—as in the common Buddhist saying, Kono ye kari no yo: “This world is a fleeting world.” Even Heaven and Hell represent to the Buddhist only halting places upon the journey to Nirvâna.
- ↑ Refers to the vanity of selfish effort for some merely temporary end.
