H. "In our schools an hour or two a week is reserved for culture, but the true spirit of culture is lacking. The Imperial Rescript on education is very good moral doctrine, but the real life's aim of many of us is to be well off, to have an automobile, to become a Baron or to extend the Empire. We do not ask ourselves, 'For what reason?'"
I. "I conduct certain classes which the clerks of my bank must attend. The teaching I give is based on Confucian, Christian and Buddhist principles. I try to make the young men more manful. I constantly urge upon them that 'you must be a man before you can be a clerk.'"
J. (a septuagenarian ex-daimyo): "Confucianism is the basis of my life, but twice a month I serve at my Shinto shrine and I conduct a Buddhist service in my house morning and evening. It is necessary to make the profession that Buddha saves us. I do not believe in paradise. It is paradise if when I die I have a peaceful mind due to a feeling that I have done my duty in life and that my sons are not bad men. Unless I am peaceful on my deathbed I cannot perish but must struggle on. Therefore my sons must be good. I myself strove to be filial and I have always said to my sons, 'Fathers may not be fathers but sons must be sons.'"
K. (the preceding speaker's son expressing his opinion on another occasion): "My father as a Confucian is kind to people negatively. We want to be kind positively because it is right to be kind. As to filial obedience, even fathers may err; we are righteous if we are right. My father is a Shintoist because it is our national custom. He wants to respect his ancestors in a wide sense and he desires that Japan, his family and his crops may be protected."
L. "I wish foreigners had a juster idea about 'idols'. There is a difference between frequenters of the temples believing the figures to be holy and believing them to be gods. Every morning my mother serves before her shrine of Buddha but she does not believe our Buddha to be God. She would not soil or irreverently handle our Buddha, but it is only holy as a symbol, as an image of a holy being. My mother has said to me, 'Buddha is our father. He looks after us always; I cannot but thank him. If there be after life Buddha will lead me to Paradise. There is no reason to beg a favour.' My mother is composed and peaceful. All through her life she has met calamities and troubles serenely. I admire her very much. She is a good example of how Buddha's influence makes one peaceful and spiritual. But such religious experience may not be grasped from the outside by foreigners."
M. "When I am in a temple or at a shrine I realise its value in concentrating attention. The daily domestic service before the shrine in the house also ensures some religious life daily. Many of my countrymen no doubt regard religion as superstition; they know little of spiritual life. For some of them patriotism or humanitarian sentiments or eagerness to seek after scientific truth takes the place of religion. Most men think that they can never comprehend the cosmos and say, 'We may believe only what we can prove. Let us follow not after preachers but after truth.' I believe with your Western philosophers who say that the cosmos is not perfect but that it is moving towards perfection. Many think that this War shows that the cosmos is not perfect. Spiritual life is living according to one's purest consciousness. But what is of first importance is our actions. It is not enough merely to strive after moral development. One must strive after economic and social development. Some religious people think only of the spiritual life and have no sympathy with economics. The labours of such religious people must be of small value."
In later Chapters the views of other thoughtful Japanese are noted down as they were communicated to me.
FOOTNOTES:
[ [169] "The strength that is given at such times arises not from ignoring loss or persuading oneself that the thing is not that is, but from the resolute setting of the face to the East and the taking of one step forwards. Anything that detaches one, that makes one turn from the past and look simply at what one has to do, brings with it new strength and new intensity of interest."— Haldane.
[ [170] Teacher, instructor, master, or a polite way of saying "You"—the usual title by which I was addressed.