Cheon Seong Gyeong 862
What will happen to a dark-skinned person in the spirit world? Will a black man’s skin be dark? What do you think? If a black person wishes to appear as a white person, he can choose to do so whenever he wants, and vice versa. In that case, what effect would that have in the spirit world? A light must be bright. What kind of light? The light of love. In order to magnify the light of love, you must be ablaze internally and externally. You should be on fire from the impetus to love. You have to unleash this energy in large quantities to the east and west. Love is able to do such a thing. When we come to understand this, all events in this world just become passing visits. (194-56, 1989.10.15)
Cheong Seong Gyeong 1264
Who are true parents? If Adam and Eve had not fallen, God would have bestowed His vertical love on them, and Adam and Eve would have become the body of God. They would have represented the body of God. God would have been like the bones, and Adam and Eve like the flesh. God can have a mind and body through Adam and Eve. He would have become the internal parent in the internal position, and Adam and Eve would have become the external parents in the external position. The internal and external parents must become one through love; at that place, we come to have external parents and attend the internal parents in heart. With the union of love between God and Adam and Eve, then true parents – the perfected man and woman – would emerge. There can be no perfected human beings if there is no union through love. (184-71, 1988.11.13)
Reversal and Restoration
2. Restoration by Going in the Opposite Direction
Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it.
Luke 17.33
To yield is to be preserved whole.
To be bent is to become straight
To be empty is to be full.
To be worn out is to be renewed.
To have little is to possess.
To have plenty is to be perplexed.
Therefore the sage embraces the One
And becomes the model of the world.
Tao Te Ching 22 (Taoism)
I will teach you Dhamma: If this is, that comes to be; from the arising of this, that arises; if this is not, that does not come to be; from the stop-ping of this, that is stopped.
Majjhima Nikaya 2.32 (Buddhism)
The world, O Kaccana, is for the most part bound up in a seeking, attachment, and proclivity, but a monk does not sympathize with this seeking and attachment, nor with the mental affirmation, proclivity, and prejudice which affirms an Ego. He does not doubt or question that it is only evil that springs into existence, and only evil that ceases from existence, and his conviction of this fact is dependent on no one besides himself. This, O Kaccana, is what con-stitutes Right Belief.
That things have being, O Kaccana, constitutes one extreme of doctrine; that things have no being is the other extreme. These extremes have been avoided by the Tathagata, and it is a Middle doctrine he teaches:
On ignorance depends karma;
On karma depends consciousness;
On consciousness depends name and form;
On name and form depend the six organs of sense;
On the six organs of sense depends contact;
On contact depends sensation;
On sensation depends desire;
On desire depends attachment;
On attachment depends existence;
On existence depends birth;
On birth depend old age and death, sorrow,lamentation, misery, grief, and despair. Thus does this entire aggregation of misery arise.
But on the complete fading out and cessation of ignorance ceases karma;
On the cessation of karma ceases consciousness;
On the cessation of consciousness ceases name and form;
On the cessation of name and form cease the six organs of sense;
On the cessation of the six organs of sense
ceases contact;
On the cessation of contact ceases sensation;
On the cessation of sensation ceases desire;
On the cessation of desire ceases attachment;
On the cessation of attachment ceases existence;
On the cessation of existence ceases birth;
On the cessation of birth cease old age and
death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and
despair. Thus does this entire aggregation of
misery cease. 35
Samyutta Nikaya 22.90 (Buddhism)
The sage awakes to light in the night of all crea-tures. That which the world calls day is the night of ignorance to the wise.
Bhagavad-Gita 2.69 (Hinduism)
The Way out into the light often looks dark,
The way that goes ahead often looks as if it went back.
The way that is least hilly often looks as if it went up and down,
The virtue that is really loftiest looks like an abyss,
What is sheerest white looks sullied.
Tao Te Ching 41 (Taoism)
Sights, sounds, tastes, odors, things touched and objects of mind are, without exception, pleasing, delightful, and charming—so long as one can say, “They are.”
These are considered a source of happiness by the world with its gods, and when they cease, this is by them considered suffering.
The cessation of phenomenal existence is seen as a source of happiness by us Aryans—this insight of those who can see is the reverse of that of the whole world:
What others say is a source of happiness—that, we say, is suffering; what others say is suffering—that, we know, as a source of happiness. Behold this doctrine, hard to understand, wherein the ignorant are bewildered.
Samyutta Nikaya 4.127-28 (Buddhism)