Inter- Faiths Dialogue

The Saints > Goals and Emotions

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T o the addict, nothing is like his dope;
to the fish, nothing is like water:
But those immersed in the love of God feel love for all things.

quote 4208 | The Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji
Wadhans, M.1, p. 557

M ahamati, when the bodhisattvas face and perceive the happiness of the Samadhi of perfect tranquilization, they are moved with the feeling of love and sympathy owing to their original vows [made for the salvation of all beings, saying, "So long as they do not attain Nirvana, I will not attain it myself"] and they become aware of the part they are to perform as regards the inexhaustible vows. Thus, they do not enter Nirvana. But the fact is that they are already in Nirvana, because in them there is no rising of discrimination. With them the discrimination of grasped and grasping no more takes place; as they recognize that there is nothing in the world but what is seen of the Mind itself, they have done away with the thought of discrimination concerning all things. They have abandoned adhering to and discriminating based upon the faculties of cognition (citta), analysis (manas), and judgment (manovijnana), and external objects, and self-nature. However, they have not given up the things promoting the cause of Buddhism. Because of their attachment to the inner insight which belongs to the stage of Tathagatahood, whatever they do all issues from this transcendental knowledge.

quote 4202 | The Lankavatara Sutra
Lankavatara Sutra 80

W hoever in his self the Supreme Being has lodged,
His name is truly the servant of God:
On his vision has flashed the Lord that is also within the self.
This by utter humility has he obtained.
The servant who ever realizes the Lord to be near,
At the divine Portal finds acceptance.
By divine grace falling on His servant,
Comes to him full realization.
To be with all, yet in his self unattached--
Such a way, says Nanak, to God's servant is known.

One that the Lord's command in mind cherishes,
Is truly to be called Jivan-mukta (liberated while living).
To such a one are joy and sorrow alike;
Ever in joy, never feels he sorrow.
Gold and a clod of earth to him are alike,
As also nectar and foul-tasting poison.
To him are honor and dishonor alike;
Alike also pauper and prince.
One that such a way practices,
Says Nanak, a Jivan-mukta may be called.

quote 4201 | The Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji
Gauri Sukhmani 9, M.5, p. 275

T his proves that in their enthusiasm [i.e., their state of inspiration] they are not aware of what they are doing and are not living a human or bodily existence as far as sensation and volition are concerned, but live instead another and diviner kind, which fills them and takes complete possession of them.

quote 3966 | Iamblichus
On the Mysteries, III, 4-6, Translation and introduction by Frederick C. Grant, in his Hellenistic Religions (New York, 1953), PP. 173-5

A Bodhisattva resolves: I take upon myself the burden of all suffering. I am resolved to do so, I will endure it. I do not turn or run away, do not tremble, am not terrified, nor afraid, do not turn back or despond. And why? At all costs I must bear the burdens of all beings. In that I do not follow my own inclinations. I have made the vow to save all beings. All beings I must set free. The whole world of living beings I must rescue, from the terrors of birth, of old age, of sickness, of death and rebirth, of all kinds of moral offence, of all states of woe, of the whole cycle of birth-and-death, of the jungle of false views, of the loss of wholesome dharmas, of the concomitants of ignorance, from all these terrors I must rescue all beings. . . . I walk so that the kingdom of unsurpassed cognition is built up for all beings. My endeavours do not merely aim at my own deliverance. For with the help of the boat of the thought of all-knowledge, I must rescue all these beings from the stream of Samsara, which is so difficult to cross, I must pull them back from the great precipice, I must free them from all calamities, I must ferry them across the stream of Samsara. I myself must grapple with the whole mass of suffering of all beings. To the limit of my endurance I will experience in all the states of woe, found in any world system, all the abodes of suffering. And I must not cheat all beings out of my store of merit, I am resolved to abide in each single state of woe for numberless aeons; and so I will help all beings to freedom, in all the states of woe that may be found in any world system whatsoever.

And why? Because it is surely better that I alone should be in pain than that all these beings should fall into the states of woe. There I must give myself away as a pawn through which the whole world is redeemed from the terrors of the hells, of animal birth, of the world of Yama, and with this my own body I must experience, for the sake of all beings, the whole mass of all painful feelings. And on behalf of all beings I give surety for all beings, and in doing so I speak truthfully, am trustworthy, and do not go back on my word. I must not abandon all beings.

And why? There has arisen in me the will to win all-knowledge, with all beings for its object, that is to say, for the purpose of setting free the entire world of beings. And I have not set out for the supreme enlightenment from a desire for delights, not because I hope to experience the delights of the five-sense qualities, or because I wish to indulge in the pleasures of the senses. And I do not pursue the course of a Bodhisattva in order to achieve the array of delights that can be found in the various worlds of sense-desire.

And why? Truly no delights are all these delights of the world. All this indulging in the pleasures of the senses belongs to the sphere of Mara.

quote 3916 | The Vajradhvaha Sutra
'Shikshasamuccaya,' 280-2, Translation by Edward Conze, in Conze, et al., Buddhist Texts through the Ages (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1954)

B ecause of love, and in it, the soul first grows tender, then it pines and grows weak, and afterward finds strength… Thus the soul in the beginning seeks divine consolations, but if these are withdrawn, it grows tender, and even cries out against God and complains to him: "You are hurting me! Why are you doing this?" and so forth. Assurance of God's presence engenders tenderness in the soul. In this state it is satisfied with consolations and other similar gifts. But in the absence of these, love grows and begins to seek the loved one. If it does not find him, the soul pines. It is then no longer satisfied with consolations, for it seeks only the Beloved. The more the soul receives consolations and feels God, the more its love grows, but the more, likewise, it pines in the absence of the Beloved.

But once the soul is perfectly united to God, it is placed in the seat of truth, for truth is the seat of the soul… It possesses God to the fullness of its capacity. And God even expands the soul so that it may hold all that he wishes to place in it… In this light it sees so well that God does everything with order and appropriateness that even in his absence, it does not pine. Likewise it becomes so conformed to God's will that even in his absence it is content with everything he does and entrusts itself totally to him.

quote 3448 | Angela of Foligno
Complete Works. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1993, p. 223

O ne of perfect prayer is he who, withdrawing from all mankind, is united with all mankind.
One of perfect prayer is he who regards himself as existing with all people and sees himself in every person.

quote 3079 | The Philokalia
Kadloubovsky, E., and Palmer G. E. H., trans. Early Fathers from the Philokalia. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1954, pp. 109,157-158, 161, 166,170

T he sage, on the other hand, in his non-distinction of good and evil, merely makes no special effort whatsoever to like or dislike and is not perturbed in his vital force. As he pursues the kingly path and sees the perfect excellence, (1) he of course completely follows the Principle of Nature and it becomes possible for him to assist in and complete the universal process of production and reproduction and apply it for the benefit of the people. (2)

quote 2440 | Wang Yangming
Wang Wen-ch'eng Kung ch'uan-shu, or Complete Works of Wang Yang-ming, Instruction for a Practical Living, 1: 47b-49b, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 35

(1) Quoting History, "Great Norm." Cf. Legge, Shoo King, p. 331. (2) Quoting Changes, commentary on hexagram no. 11, t'ai (successful). Cf Legge, Yi King, p. 281.

T he man of humanity regards Heaven and Earth and all things as one body. (1)

quote 2438 | Wang Yangming
Wang Wen-ch'eng Kung ch'uan-shu, or Complete Works of Wang Yang-ming, Instruction for a Practical Living, 1:41b, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 35

(1) I-shu, 2A:2.

M aster Wang said: The great man regards Heaven and Earth and the myriad things as one body. He regards the world as one family and the country as one person. As to those who make a cleavage between objects and distinguish between the self and others, they are small men. That the great man can regard Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things as one body is not because he deliberately wants to do so, but because it is natural to the humane nature of his mind that he do so. Forming one body with Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things is not only true of the great man. Even the mind of the small man is no different. Only he himself makes it small. […]. This means that even the mind of the small man necessarily has the humanity that forms one body with all. Such a mind is rooted in his Heaven-endowed nature, and is naturally intelligent, clear, and not beclouded. For this reason it is called the "clear character."

quote 2418 | Wang Yangming
Wang Wen-ch'eng Kung ch'uan-shu, or Complete Works of Wang Yang-ming, Inquiry on the Great Learning, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 35

T his is to make clear that the sage, in his attitude toward the myriad things, leaves the vacuous nature of things as it is and does not need to disintegrate it before he can penetrate it.

quote 2296 | Seng-Chao
Seng Chao, Treatises, The emptiness of the Unreal, Ch.2, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 21.

A fter a short while of silence, Tzu Sang-hu died. Before he was buried, Confucius had heard about it and sent (his pupil) Tzu-kung to take part in the funeral. One of the friends was composing a song and the other was playing a lute and they sang in harmony, saying, "Alas' Sang-hu. Alas! Sang-hu. You have returned to the true state but we still remain here as men!"

Tzu-kung hurried in and said, "I venture to ask whether it is in accord with the rules of propriety to sing in the presence of a corpse."

The two men looked at each other, laughed, and said, "How does he know the idea of rules of propriety?" Tzu-kung returned and told Confucius, asking him, "What sort of men are those? There is nothing proper in their conduct, and they looked upon their bodies as external to themselves. They approached the corpse and sang without changing the color of countenance. I don't know what to call them. What sort of men are they?"

"They travel in the transcendental world," replied Confucius, "and I travel in the mundane world. There is nothing common between the two worlds, and I sent you there to mourn! How stupid! They are companions of the Creator, and roam in the universe of one and original creative force (ch'I). They consider life as a burden like a tumor, and death as the cutting off of an abscess. Such being their views, how do they care about life and death or their beginning and end? To them life is but a temporary existence of various elements in a common body which they borrow. They are unaware of their livers and gall (emotions) and oblivious of their ears and eyes (sensation). They come and go, and begin and end and none will know when all these will stop. Without any attachment, they stroll beyond the dusty world and wander in the original state of having no [unnatural] action (wu-wei). How can they take the trouble to observe the rules of propriety of popular society in order to impress the multitude?"

quote 2244 | Tchuang Tzu
Chuang Tzu, chapter VI, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 8.

Chuang Tzu distinguished traveling in the transcendental world, or fang-wai (literally, "outside the sphere" of human affairs),and traveling in the mundane world, or fang-nei (literally, "inside the sphere"). Later the former came to mean Buddhism and the latter Confucianism. The first distinction was made here. To consider life as a temporary existence of various elements is highly Buddhistic, for in Buddhism an entity is but a temporary grouping of five elements. But Taoism is free from the quietism of Buddhism and emphasizes non-action. As Kuo Hsiang emphatically stated, however, taking no action does not mean doing nothing but simply doing nothing unnatural.

A good traveler leaves no track or trace.
A good speech leaves no flaws.
A good reckoner uses no counters.
A well-shut door needs no bolts, and yet it cannot be opened.
A well-tied knot needs no rope and yet none can untie it.
Therefore the sage is always good in saving men and consequently no man is rejected.
He is always good in saving things and consequently nothing is rejected.
This is called following the light (of Nature) (1)
Therefore the good man is the teacher of the bad,
And the bad is the material from which the good may learn.
He who does not value the teacher,
Or greatly care for the material,
Is greatly deluded although he may be learned.
Such is the essential mystery.

quote 2191 | Lao Tzu
Laozi 27, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 7.

(1) The word hsi, here rendered as "following," is open to various interpretations: To cover, to penetrate, to practice, etc. (according to Ma Hsu-lun Lao Tzu chiao-ku, ch. 52, this hsi and the hsi meaning practice were interchangeable in ancient times), but it is most commonly understood as "following," an interpretation which is supported by the Chuang Tzu, ch. 2, where the terms "letting Nature follow its own course" (that is, following Nature) and "using the light" are repeatedly used.

M encius said, "In regard to [inferior] creatures, the superior man loves them but is not humane to them (that is, showing them the feeling due human beings). In regard to people generally, he is humane to them but not affectionate. He is affectionate to his parents and humane to all people. He is humane to all people and feels love for all creatures.

quote 2161 | Meng-tzu
Book of Mencius, 7A:45, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 3.

W ishing to establish his own character, he also establishes the character of others, and wishing to be prominent himself, he also helps others to be prominent.

quote 2137 | Confucius
Analects of Confucius, 6,28, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 2.

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