t possible;
but the cosmic process seems nevertheless to affirm the worth of every
human system of ethics fundamentally opposed to human egoism.

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Notes

THE STORY OF MIMI-NASHI-HOICHI

[1] See my Kotto, for a description of these curious crabs.

[2] Or, Shimonoseki. The town is also known by the name of Bakkan.

[3] The biwa, a kind of four-stringed lute, is chiefly used in musical
recitative. Formerly the professional minstrels who recited the
Heike-Monogatari, and other tragical histories, were called biwa-hoshi,
or "lute-priests." The origin of this appellation is not clear; but it
is possible that it may have been suggested by the fact that
"lute-priests" as well as blind shampooers, had their heads shaven,
like Buddhist priests. The biwa is played with a kind of plectrum,
called bachi, usually made of horn.

(1) A response to show that one has heard and is listening attentively.

[4] A respectful term, signifying the opening of a gate. It was used
by samurai when calling to the guards on duty at a lord's gate for
admission.

[5] Or the phrase might be rendered, "for the pity of that part is the
deepest." The Japanese word for pity in the original text is "aware."

[6] "Traveling incognito" is at least the meaning of the original
phrase,--"making a disguised august-journey" (shinobi no go-ryoko).

[7] The Smaller Pragna-Paramita-Hridaya-Sutra is thus called in
Japanese. Both the smaller and larger sutras called Pragna-Paramita
("Transcendent Wisdom") have been translated by the late Professor Max
Muller, and can be found in volume xlix. of the Sacred Books of the
East ("Buddhist Mahayana Sutras").--Apropos of the magical use of the
text, as described in this story, it is worth remarking that the
subject of the sutra is the Doctrine of the Emptiness of Forms,--that
is to say, of the unreal character of all phenomena or noumena... "Form
is emptiness; and emptiness is form. Emptiness is not different from
form; form is not different from emptiness. What is form--that is
emptiness. What is emptiness--that is form... Perception, name,
concept, and knowledge, are also emptiness... There is no eye, ear,
nose, tongue, body, and mind... But when the envelopment of
consciousness has been annihilated, then he [the seeker] becomes free
from all fear, and beyond the reach of change, enjoying final Nirvana."

OSHIDORI

[1] From ancient time, i