The Sermons Of Kiu-O, Vol. I Sermon I

________________________________________________
Title:     The Sermons Of Kiu-O, Vol. I Sermon I
Author: Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford [More Titles by Freeman-Mitford]

THE SERMONS OF KIU-Ô, VOL. I SERMON I

Môshi[87] says, "Benevolence is the heart of man; righteousness is the path of man. How lamentable a thing is it to leave the path and go astray, to cast away the heart and not know where to seek for it!"

[Footnote 87: Môshi, the Japanese pronunciation of the name of the Chinese philosopher Mêng Tse, whom Europeans call Mencius.]

The text is taken from the first chapter of Kôshi (the commentator), on Môshi.

Now this quality, which we call benevolence, has been the subject of commentaries by many teachers; but as these commentaries have been difficult of comprehension, they are too hard to enter the ears of women and children. It is of this benevolence that, using examples and illustrations, I propose to treat.

A long time ago, there lived at Kiôto a great physician, called Imaôji--I forget his other name: he was a very famous man. Once upon a time, a man from a place called Kuramaguchi advertised for sale a medicine which he had compounded against the cholera, and got Imaôji to write a puff for him. Imaôji, instead of calling the medicine in the puff a specific against the cholera, misspelt the word cholera so as to make it simpler. When the man who had employed him went and taxed him with this, and asked him why he had done so, he answered, with a smile--

"As Kuramaguchi is an approach to the capital from the country, the passers-by are but poor peasants and woodmen from the hills: if I had written 'cholera' at length, they would have been puzzled by it; so I wrote it in a simple way, that should pass current with every one. Truth itself loses its value if people don't understand it. What does it signify how I spelt the word cholera, so long as the efficacy of the medicine is unimpaired?"

Now, was not that delightful? In the same way the doctrines of the sages are mere gibberish to women and children who cannot understand them. Now, my sermons are not written for the learned: I address myself to farmers and tradesmen, who, hard pressed by their daily business, have no time for study, with the wish to make known to them the teachings of the sages; and, carrying out the ideas of my teacher, I will make my meaning pretty plain, by bringing forward examples and quaint stories. Thus, by blending together the doctrines of the Shintô, Buddhist, and other schools, we shall arrive at something near the true principle of things. Now, positively, you must not laugh if I introduce a light story now and then. Levity is not my object: I only want to put things in a plain and easy manner.

Well, then, the quality which we call benevolence is, in fact, a perfection; and it is this perfection which Môshi spoke of as the heart of man. With this perfect heart, men, by serving their parents, attain to filial piety; by serving their masters they attain to fidelity; and if they treat their wives, their brethren, and their friends in the same spirit, then the principles of the five relations of life will harmonize without difficulty. As for putting perfection into practice, parents have the special duties of parents; children have the special duties of children; husbands have the special duties of husbands; wives have the special duties of wives. It is when all these special duties are performed without a fault that true benevolence is reached; and that again is the true heart of man.

For example, take this fan: any one who sees it knows it to be a fan; and, knowing it to be a fan, no one would think of using it to blow his nose in. The special use of a fan is for visits of ceremony; or else it is opened in order to raise a cooling breeze: it serves no other purpose. In the same way, this reading-desk will not do as a substitute for a shelf; again, it will not do instead of a pillow: so you see that a reading-desk also has its special functions, for which you must use it. So, if you look at your parents in the light of your parents, and treat them with filial piety, that is the special duty of children; that is true benevolence; that is the heart of man. Now although you may think that, when I speak in this way, I am speaking of others, and not of yourselves, believe me that the heart of every one of you is by nature pure benevolence. I am just taking down your hearts as a shopman does goods from his shelves, and pointing out the good and bad qualities of each; but if you will not lay what I say to your own accounts, but persist in thinking that it is all anybody's business but yours, all my labour will be lost.

Listen! You who answer your parents rudely, and cause them to weep; you who bring grief and trouble on your masters; you who cause your husbands to fly into passions; you who cause your wives to mourn; you who hate your younger brothers, and treat your elder brothers with contempt; you who sow sorrow broadcast over the world;--what are you doing but blowing your noses in fans, and using reading-desks as pillows? I don't mean to say that there are any such persons here; still there are plenty of them to be found--say in the back streets in India, for instance. Be so good as to mind what I have said.

Consider, carefully, if a man is born with a naturally bad disposition, what a dreadful thing that is! Happily, you and I were born with perfect hearts, which we would not change for a thousand--no, not for ten thousand pieces of gold: is not this something to be thankful for?

This perfect heart is called in my discourses, "the original heart of man." It is true that benevolence is also called the original heart of man; still there is a slight difference between the two. However, as the inquiry into this difference would be tedious, it is sufficient for you to look upon this original heart of man as a perfect thing, and you will fall into no error. It is true that I have not the honour of the personal acquaintance of every one of you who are present: still I know that your hearts are perfect. The proof of this, that if you say that which you ought not to say, or do that which you ought not to do, your hearts within you are, in some mysterious way, immediately conscious of wrong. When the man that has a perfect heart does that which is imperfect, it is because his heart has become warped and turned to evil. This law holds good for all mankind. What says the old song?--"When the roaring waterfall is shivered by the night-storm, the moonlight is reflected in each scattered drop."[88] Although there is but one moon, she suffices to illuminate each little scattered drop. Wonderful are the laws of Heaven! So the principle of benevolence, which is but one, illumines all the particles that make up mankind. Well, then, the perfection of the human heart can be calculated to a nicety, So, if we follow the impulses of our perfect heart in whatever we undertake, we shall perform our special duties, and filial piety and fidelity will come to us spontaneously. You see the doctrines of this school of philosophy are quickly learnt. If you once thoroughly understand this, there will be no difference between your conduct and that of a man who has studied a hundred years. Therefore I pray you to follow the impulses of your natural heart; place it before you as a teacher, and study its precepts. Your heart is a convenient teacher to employ too: for there is no question of paying fees; and no need to go out in the heat of summer, or the cold of winter, to pay visits of ceremony to your master to inquire after his health. What admirable teaching this is, by means of which you can learn filial piety and fidelity so easily! Still, suspicions are apt to arise in men's minds about things that are seen to be acquired too cheaply; but here you can buy a good thing cheap, and spare yourselves the vexation of having paid an extravagant price for it. I repeat, follow the impulses of your hearts with all your might. In the Chin-yo, the second of the books of Confucius, it is certified beyond a doubt that the impulses of nature are the true path to follow; therefore you may set to work in this direction with your minds at ease.

[Footnote 88:
"The moon looks on many brooks;
The brooks see but one moon."--T. MOORE.]

Righteousness, then, is the true path, and righteousness is the avoidance of all that is imperfect. If a man avoids that which is imperfect, there is no need to point out how dearly he will be beloved by all his fellows. Hence it is that the ancients have defined righteousness as that which ought to be--that which is fitting. If a man be a retainer, it is good that he should perform his service to his lord with all his might. If a woman be married, it is good that she should treat her parents-in-law with filial piety, and her husband with reverence. For the rest, whatever is good, that is righteousness and the true path of man.

The duty of man has been compared by the wise men of old to a high road. If you want to go to Yedo or to Nagasaki, if you want to go out to the front of the house or to the back of the house, if you wish to go into the next room or into some closet or other, there is a right road to each of these places: if you do not follow the right road, scrambling over the roofs of houses and through ditches, crossing mountains and desert places, you will be utterly lost and bewildered. In the same way, if a man does that which is not good, he is going astray from the high road. Filial piety in children, virtue in wives, truth among friends--but why enumerate all these things, which are patent?--all these are the right road, and good; but to grieve parents, to anger husbands, to hate and to breed hatred in others, these are all bad things, these are all the wrong road. To follow these is to plunge into rivers, to run on to thorns, to jump into ditches, and brings thousands upon ten thousands of disasters. It is true that, if we do not pay great attention, we shall not be able to follow the right road. Fortunately, we have heard by tradition the words of the learned Nakazawa Dôni: I will tell you about that, all in good time.

It happened that, once, the learned Nakazawa went to preach at Ikéda, in the province of Sesshiu, and lodged with a rich family of the lower class. The master of the house, who was particularly fond of sermons, entertained the preacher hospitably, and summoned his daughter, a girl some fourteen or fifteen years old, to wait upon him at dinner. This young lady was not only extremely pretty, but also had charming manners; so she arranged bouquets of flowers, and made tea, and played upon the harp, and laid herself out to please the learned man by singing songs. The preacher thanked her parents for all this, and said--

"Really, it must be a very difficult thing to educate a young lady up to such a pitch as this."

The parents, carried away by their feelings, replied--

"Yes; when she is married, she will hardly bring shame upon her husband's family. Besides what she did just now, she can weave garlands of flowers round torches, and we had her taught to paint a little;" and as they began to show a little conceit, the preacher said--

"I am sure this is something quite out of the common run. Of course she knows how to rub the shoulders and loins, and has learnt the art of shampooing?"

The master of the house bristled up at this and answered--

"I may be very poor, but I've not fallen so low as to let my daughter learn shampooing."

The learned man, smiling, replied, "I think you are making a mistake when you put yourself in a rage. No matter whether her family be rich or poor, when a woman is performing her duties in her husband's house, she must look upon her husband's parents as her own. If her honoured father-in-law or mother-in-law fall ill, her being able to plait flowers and paint pictures and make tea will be of no use in the sick-room. To shampoo her parents-in-law, and nurse them affectionately, without employing either shampooer or servant-maid, is the right path of a daughter-in-law. Do you mean to say that your daughter has not yet learnt shampooing, an art which is essential to her following the right path of a wife? That is what I meant to ask just now. So useful a study is very important."

At this the master of the house was ashamed, and blushing made many apologies, as I have heard. Certainly, the harp and guitar are very good things in their way; but to attend to nursing their parents is the right road of children. Lay this story to heart, and consider attentively where the right road lies. People who live near haunts of pleasure become at last so fond of pleasure, that they teach their daughters nothing but how to play on the harp and guitar, and train them up in the manners and ways of singing-girls, but teach them next to nothing of their duties as daughters; and then very often they escape from their parents' watchfulness, and elope. Nor is this the fault of the girls themselves, but the fault of the education which they have received from their parents. I do not mean to say that the harp and guitar, and songs and dramas, are useless things. If you consider them attentively, all our songs incite to virtue and condemn vice. In the song called "The Four Sleeves," for instance, there is the passage, "If people knew beforehand all the misery that it brings, there would be less going out with young ladies, to look at the flowers at night." Please give your attention to this piece of poetry. This is the meaning of it:--When a young man and a young lady set up a flirtation without the consent of their parents, they think that it will all be very delightful, and find themselves very much deceived. If they knew what a sad and cruel world this is, they would not act as they do. The quotation is from a song of remorse. This sort of thing but too often happens in the world.

When a man marries a wife, he thinks how happy he will be, and how pleasant it will be keeping house on his own account; but, before the bottom of the family kettle has been scorched black, he will be like a man learning to swim in a field, with his ideas all turned topsy-turvy, and, contrary to all his expectations, he will find the pleasures of housekeeping to be all a delusion. Look at that woman there. Haunted by her cares, she takes no heed of her hair, nor of her personal appearance. With her head all untidy, her apron tied round her as a girdle, with a baby twisted into the bosom of her dress, she carries some wretched bean sauce which she has been out to buy. What sort of creature is this? This all comes of not listening to the warnings of parents, and of not waiting for the proper time, but rushing suddenly into housekeeping. And who is to blame in the matter? Passion, which does not pause to reflect. A child of five or six years will never think of learning to play the guitar for its own pleasure. What a ten-million times miserable thing it is, when parents, making their little girls hug a great guitar, listen with pleasure to the poor little things playing on instruments big enough for them to climb upon, and squeaking out songs in their shrill treble voices! Now I must beg you to listen to me carefully. If you get confused and don't keep a sharp look-out, your children, brought up upon harp and guitar playing, will be abandoning their parents, and running away secretly. Depend upon it, from all that is licentious and meretricious something monstrous will come forth. The poet who wrote the "Four Sleeves" regarded it as the right path of instruction to convey a warning against vice. But the theatre and dramas and fashionable songs, if the moral that they convey is missed, are a very great mistake. Although you may think it very right and proper that a young lady should practise nothing but the harp and guitar until her marriage, I tell you that it is not so; for if she misses the moral of her songs and music, there is the danger of her falling in love with some man and eloping. While on this subject, I have an amusing story to tell you.

Once upon a time, a frog, who lived at Kiôto, had long been desirous of going to see Osaka. One spring, having made up his mind, he started off to see Osaka and all its famous places. By a series of hops on all-fours he reached a temple opposite Nishi-no-oka, and thence by the western road he arrived at Yamazaki, and began to ascend the mountain called Tenôzan. Now it so happened that a frog from Osaka had determined to visit Kiôto, and had also ascended Tenôzan; and on the summit the two frogs met, made acquaintance, and told one another their intentions. So they began to complain about all the trouble they had gone through, and had only arrived half-way after all: if they went on to Osaka and Kiôto, their legs and loins would certainly not hold out. Here was the famous mountain of Tenôzan, from the top of which the whole of Kiôto and Osaka could be seen: if they stood on tiptoe and stretched their backs, and looked at the view, they would save themselves from stiff legs. Having come to this conclusion, they both stood up on tiptoe, and looked about them; when the Kiôto frog said--

"Really, looking at the famous places of Osaka, which I have heard so much about, they don't seem to me to differ a bit from Kiôto. Instead of giving myself any further trouble to go on, I shall just return home."

The Osaka frog, blinking with his eyes, said, with a contemptuous smile, "Well, I have heard a great deal of talk about this Kiôto being as beautiful as the flowers, but it is just Osaka over again. We had better go home."

And so the two frogs, politely bowing to one another, hopped off home with an important swagger.

Now, although this is a very funny little story, you will not understand the drift of it at once. The frogs thought that they were looking in front of them; but as, when they stood up, their eyes were in the back of their heads, each was looking at his native place, all the while that he believed himself to be looking at the place he wished to go to. The frogs stared to any amount, it is true; but then they did not take care that the object looked at was the right object, and so it was that they fell into error. Please, listen attentively. A certain poet says--

"Wonderful are the frogs! Though they go on all-fours in an attitude of humility, their eyes are always turned ambitiously upwards."

A delightful poem! Men, although they say with their mouths, "Yes, yes, your wishes shall be obeyed,--certainly, certainly, you are perfectly right," are like frogs, with their eyes turned upwards. Vain fools! meddlers ready to undertake any job, however much above their powers! This is what is called in the text, "casting away your heart, and not knowing where to seek for it." Although these men profess to undertake any earthly thing, when it comes to the point, leave them to themselves, and they are unequal to the task; and if you tell them this, they answer--

"By the labour of our own bodies we earn our money; and the food of our mouths is of our own getting. We are under obligation to no man. If we did not depend upon ourselves, how could we live in the world?"

There are plenty of people who use these words, myself and my own, thoughtlessly and at random. How false is this belief that they profess! If there were no system of government by superiors, but an anarchy, these people, who vaunt themselves and their own powers, would not stand for a day. In the old days, at the time of the war at Ichi-no-tani, Minamoto no Yoshitsuné[89] left Mikusa, in the province of Tamba, and attacked Settsu. Overtaken by the night among the mountains, he knew not what road to follow; so he sent for his retainer, Benkei, of the Temple called Musashi, and told him to light the big torches which they had agreed upon. Benkei received his orders and transmitted them to the troops, who immediately dispersed through all the valleys, and set fire to the houses of the inhabitants, so that one and all blazed up, and, thanks to the light of this fire, they reached Ichi-no-tani, as the story goes. If you think attentively, you will see the allusion. Those who boast about my warehouse, my house, my farm, my daughter, my wife, hawking about this "my" of theirs like pedlers, let there once come trouble and war in the world, and, for all their vain-gloriousness, they will be as helpless as turtles. Let them be thankful that peace is established throughout the world. The humane Government reaches to every frontier: the officials of every department keep watch night and day. When a man sleeps under his roof at night, how can he say that it is thanks to himself that he stretches his limbs in slumber? You go your rounds to see whether the shutters are closed and the front door fast, and, having taken every precaution, you lay yourself down to rest in peace: and what a precaution after all! A board, four-tenths of an inch thick, planed down front and rear until it is only two-tenths of an inch thick. A fine precaution, in very truth!--a precaution which may be blown down with a breath. Do you suppose such a thing as that would frighten a thief from breaking in? This is the state of the case. Here are men who, by the benevolence and virtue of their rulers, live in a delightful world, and yet, forgetting the mysterious providence that watches over them, keep on singing their own praises. Selfish egotists!

[Footnote 89: The younger brother of Minamoto no Yoritomo, who first established the government of the Shoguns. The battle of Ichi-no-tani took place in the year A.D. 1184.]

"My property amounts to five thousand ounces of silver. I may sleep with my eyes turned up, and eat and take my pleasure, if I live for five hundred or for seven hundred years. I have five warehouses and twenty-five houses. I hold other people's bills for fifteen hundred ounces of silver." So he dances a fling[90] for joy, and has no fear lest poverty should come upon him for fifty or a hundred years. Minds like frogs, with eyes in the middle of their backs! Foolhardy thoughts! A trusty castle of defence indeed! How little can it be depended upon! And when such men are sleeping quietly, how can they tell that they may not be turned into those big torches we were talking about just now, or that a great earthquake will not be upheaved? These are the chances of this fitful world. With regard to the danger of too great reliance, I have a little tale to tell you. Be so good as to wake up from your drowsiness, and listen attentively.

[Footnote 90: Literally, "a dance of the Province of Tosa."]

There is a certain powerful shell-fish, called the Sazayé, with a very strong operculum. Now this creature, if it hears that there is any danger astir, shuts up its shell from within, with a loud noise, and thinks itself perfectly safe. One day a Tai and another fish, lost in envy at this, said--

"What a strong castle this is of yours, Mr. Sazayé! When you shut up your lid from within, nobody can so much as point a finger at you. A capital figure you make, sir."

When he heard this, the Sazayé, stroking his beard, replied--

"Well, gentlemen, although you are so good as to say so, it's nothing to boast of in the way of safety; yet I must admit that, when I shut myself up thus, I do not feel much anxiety."

And as he was speaking thus, with the pride that apes humility, there came the noise of a great splash; and the shell-fish, shutting up his lid as quickly as possible, kept quite still, and thought to himself, what in the world the noise could be. Could it be a net? Could it be a fish-hook? What a bore it was, always having to keep such a sharp look-out! Were the Tai and the other fish caught, he wondered; and he felt quite anxious about them: however, at any rate, he was safe. And so the time passed; and when he thought all was safe, he stealthily opened his shell, and slipped out his head and looked all round him, and there seemed to be something wrong--something with which he was not familiar. As he looked a little more carefully, lo and behold there he was in a fishmonger's shop, and with a card marked "sixteen cash" on his back.

Isn't that a funny story? And so, at one fell swoop, all your boasted wealth of houses and warehouses, and cleverness and talent, and rank and power, are taken away. Poor shell-fish! I think there are some people not unlike them to be found in China and India. How little self is to be depended upon! There is a moral poem which says, "It is easier to ascend to the cloudy heaven without a ladder than to depend entirely on oneself." This is what is meant by the text, "If a man casts his heart from him, he knows not where to seek for it." Think twice upon everything that you do. To take no care for the examination of that which relates to yourself, but to look only at that which concerns others, is to cast your heart from you. Casting your heart from you does not mean that your heart actually leaves you: what is meant is, that you do not examine your own conscience. Nor must you think that what I have said upon this point of self-confidences applies only to wealth and riches. To rely on your talents, to rely on the services you have rendered, to rely on your cleverness, to rely on your judgment, to rely on your strength, to rely on your rank, and to think yourself secure in the possession of these, is to place yourselves in the same category with the shell-fish in the story. In all things examine your own consciences: the examination of your own hearts is above all things essential.

(The preacher leaves his place.)

[The end]
Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford's short story: Sermons Of Kiu-O, Vol. I Sermon I

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN