- Chapter One: Prologue
- Chapter Two: Doctrine
- Chapter Three: Practice
- Chapter Four: The Way of Humanity
- Chapter Five: Cause and Effect
- Chapter Six: Doubts Clarified
- Chapter Seven: The Principle of the Nature
- Chapter Eight: Buddhahood
- Chapter Nine: Sending on Spirits in Transition
- Chapter Ten: Belief and Dedication
- Chapter Eleven: Maxims
- Chapter Twelve: Exemplary Acts
- Chapter Thirteen: On the Order
- Chapter Fourteen: Prospects
- Chapter Fifteen: Entrusting
Dictionary
The Scripture of the Founding Master
Chapter Eight: Buddhahood
19
A disciple asked, “A grand exhibition has just opened in Seoul. Wouldn’t you like to go see it?” The Founding Master said, “Grand exhibitions are held in order to provide information on the state of progress in the various walks of life, such as scholarship, farming, artisanry, and trade, by comparing the present with the past, and to help enhance peoples’ intelligence by such exchanges of information. If one attends an exhibition with the right intent, there can certainly be many benefits. Today, however, I will tell you about a truly grand exhibition, so listen carefully! Generally speaking, the exhibition that I am going to tell you about is wide and vast without limits; the four cardinal directions of east, west, south, and north, as well as the zenith and the nadir, are all the exhibition venue. The myriads of things in heaven and earth, without exception, are being exhibited. And the exhibition period is eternal, as it has been for several billions of years. Compared to this grand exhibition, the exhibition in Seoul that you mentioned would be less than the tip of a single hair. Even if all objects were displayed and presented at the Seoul exhibition, Pae Mountain and Hwangdŭng Lake, which we are viewing here now, could not be transported there for display and the world-famous Diamond Mountains could not be put on exhibition. Again, it is said that various antiques have been sought out to be put on display in the museum, but the museum could not put on display the mountains, rivers, and the earth, which are the most ancient objects of all. It is said that they have displayed several species of fish in the aquarium and several varieties of rice in the rice granary section, but those fish are not even a single fraction of the millions of species of fish that exist in the five great oceans, those rice grains that have been selected will be like a single grain of sand on Tai Mountain when compared with the enormous varieties of rice in the six continents, and all other exhibits will display a similar proportion. How can a person with great knowledge and wide perspective not feel that all the objects in human-built exhibitions are small and artificial? Therefore, a person who discovers this grand exhibition, and who always views from this broad perspective the site of that limitless exhibition, will always obtain immense benefits, gaining from whatever is seen and heard. Therefore, from ancient times up till now, all the buddhas and sages, by observing this eternal exhibition, have established right and wrong, benefit and harm in human affairs, by modeling themselves on all the principles of great and small, being and nonbeing, which are on display at this exhibition site. Thus, they have never been even slightly impoverished.”
The Scripture of the Founding Master
Chapter Eight: Buddhahood
19
A disciple asked, “A grand exhibition has just opened in Seoul. Wouldn’t you like to go see it?” The Founding Master said, “Grand exhibitions are held in order to provide information on the state of progress in the various walks of life, such as scholarship, farming, artisanry, and trade, by comparing the present with the past, and to help enhance peoples’ intelligence by such exchanges of information. If one attends an exhibition with the right intent, there can certainly be many benefits. Today, however, I will tell you about a truly grand exhibition, so listen carefully! Generally speaking, the exhibition that I am going to tell you about is wide and vast without limits; the four cardinal directions of east, west, south, and north, as well as the zenith and the nadir, are all the exhibition venue. The myriads of things in heaven and earth, without exception, are being exhibited. And the exhibition period is eternal, as it has been for several billions of years. Compared to this grand exhibition, the exhibition in Seoul that you mentioned would be less than the tip of a single hair. Even if all objects were displayed and presented at the Seoul exhibition, Pae Mountain and Hwangdŭng Lake, which we are viewing here now, could not be transported there for display and the world-famous Diamond Mountains could not be put on exhibition. Again, it is said that various antiques have been sought out to be put on display in the museum, but the museum could not put on display the mountains, rivers, and the earth, which are the most ancient objects of all. It is said that they have displayed several species of fish in the aquarium and several varieties of rice in the rice granary section, but those fish are not even a single fraction of the millions of species of fish that exist in the five great oceans, those rice grains that have been selected will be like a single grain of sand on Tai Mountain when compared with the enormous varieties of rice in the six continents, and all other exhibits will display a similar proportion. How can a person with great knowledge and wide perspective not feel that all the objects in human-built exhibitions are small and artificial? Therefore, a person who discovers this grand exhibition, and who always views from this broad perspective the site of that limitless exhibition, will always obtain immense benefits, gaining from whatever is seen and heard. Therefore, from ancient times up till now, all the buddhas and sages, by observing this eternal exhibition, have established right and wrong, benefit and harm in human affairs, by modeling themselves on all the principles of great and small, being and nonbeing, which are on display at this exhibition site. Thus, they have never been even slightly impoverished.”
