Reports have not been infrequent of the cases

Publish Date:2024-04-10

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(41) Reports have not been infrequent of the cases where a practitioner got dementia that was induced by a long, intensive, and obsessive cogitation during a sitting meditation stint and also of the cases where a practitioner became overcome with hysteria in the course of a koan session. [Please refer to (29) above.] Such ignoble cases have happened not only in our time but also in past centuries. The cause leading to such anomalies is plainly that the protagonist in any of such events had not fared commendably while carrying on the religious behavioral adage which says a practitioner needs to “steer clear of all the possibilities which are to lure him into an evil practice and to strive to do anything that is beneficial to others”. To put it in another way, such a protagonist had, in the course of his self-cultivation career, created for himself <1> neither enough of Buddhism-inspired virtues nor the beatitude to be derived therefrom, and <2> little of such prowess as can sustain him to plough ahead for a long distance in the direction of the goal set for his self-cultivation. In Buddhist terminology, the sum total of both <1> and <2> is termed the “basis for creating beatitude”. Devoid of the “basis for creating beatitude”, a practitioner’s self-cultivation might become barren or short-lived. That’s why a practitioner needs to take heed of broadening and deepening his “basis for creating beatitude” which is the prerequisite for his eventual enlightenment.


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