Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

Sermon II (The Sermons Of Kiu-Ô, Vol. I)
"If a man loses a fowl or a dog, he knows how to reclaim it. If he loses his
soul, he knows not how to reclaim it. The true path of learning has no
other function than to teach us how to reclaim lost souls." This parable
has been declared to us by Môshi. If a dog, or a chicken, or a pet cat does
not come home at the proper time, its master makes a great fuss about
hunting for it, and wonders can it have been killed by a dog or by a
snake, or can some man have stolen it; and ransacking the three houses
opposite, and his two next-door neighbours' houses, as if he were seeking
for a lost child, cries, "Pray, sir, has my tortoiseshell cat been with
you? Has my pet chicken been here?" That is the way in which men run
about under such circumstances. It's a matter of the utmost importance.
And yet to lose a dog or a tame chicken is no such terrible loss after all.
But the soul, which is called the lord of the body, is the master of our
whole selves. If men part with this soul for the sake of other things, then
they become deaf to the admonitions of their parents, and the instructions
of their superiors are to them as the winds of heaven. Teaching is to
them like pouring water over a frog's face; they blink their eyes, and that
is all; they say, "Yes, yes!" with their mouths, but their hearts are gone,
and, seeing, they are blind, hearing, they are deaf. Born whole and
sound, by their own doing they enter the fraternity of cripples. Such are
all those who lose their souls. Nor do they think of inquiring or looking
for their lost soul. "It is my parents' fault; it is my master's fault; it is my
husband's fault; it is my elder brother's fault; it is Hachibei who is a
rogue; it is 0 Matsu who is a bad woman." They content themselves with
looking at the faults of others, and do not examine their own consciences,
nor search their own hearts. Is not this a cruel state of things?
They set up a hue and cry for a lost dog or a pet chicken, but for this allimportant
soul of theirs they make no search. What mistaken people! For
this reason the sages, mourning over such a state of things, have taught
us what is the right path of man; and it is the receiving of this teaching
that is called learning. The main object of learning is the examination and
searching of our own hearts; therefore the text says, "The true path of
learning has no other function than to teach us how to reclaim lost
souls." This is an exhaustive exposition of the functions of learning. That
learning has no other object, we have this gracious pledge and guarantee
from the sage. As for the mere study of the antiquities and annals of China
and Japan, and investigation into literature, these cannot be called
learning, which is above all things an affair of the soul. All the
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