Oya no iken dé
Akirameta no we
Mata mo rin-yé dé
Omoi-dasu.
The Buddhist word Rin-yé, or Rinten, has the meaning of "turning the Wheel,"—another expression for passing from birth to birth. The Wheel here is the great Circle of Illusion,—the whirl of Karma.
This is a hauta:—
Numberless insects there are that call from dawn to evening,
Crying, "I love! I love!"—but the Firefly's silent passion,
Making its body burn, is deeper than all their longing.
Even such is my love ... yet I cannot think through what ingwa
I opened my heart—alas!—to a being not sincere![11]
Kaäi, kaäi to
Naku mushi yori mo
Nakanu hotaru ga
Mi we kogasu.
Nanno ingwa dé
Jitsu naki hito ni
Shin we akashité,—
Aa kuyashi!
Lit.: "'I-love-I-love'-saying-cry-insects than, better never-cry-firefly, body scorch! What Karma because-of, sincerity-not-is-man to, inmost-mind opened?—ah! regret!" ... It was formerly believed that the firefly's light really burned its own body.
If the foregoing seem productions possible only to our psychological antipodes, it is quite otherwise with a group of folk-songs reflecting the doctrine of Impermanency. Concerning the instability of all material things, and the hollowness of all earthly pleasures, Christian and Buddhist thought are very much in accord. The great difference between them appears only when we compare their teaching as to things ghostly,—and especially as to the nature of the Ego. But the Oriental doctrine that the Ego itself is an impermanent compound, and that the Self is not the true Consciousness, rarely finds expression in these popular songs. For the common people the Self exists: it is a real (though multiple) personality that passes from birth to birth. Only the educated Buddhist comprehends the deeper teaching that what we imagine to be Self is wholly illusion,—a darkening veil woven by Karma; and that there is no Self but the Infinite Self, the eternal Absolute. In the following dodoitsu will be found mostly thoughts or emotions according with universal experience:—
Gathering clouds to the moon;—storm and rain to the flowers:
Somehow this world of woe never is just as we like.[12]