Life in the concrete, which we are living, greatly differs from life in the abstract, which exists only in the class-room.  It is not eternal; it is fleeting; it is full of anxieties, pains, struggles, brutalities, disappointments, and calamities.  We love life, however, -not only for its smoothness, but for its roughness; not only for its pleasure, but for its pain; not only for its hope, but for its fear; not only for its flowers, but for its frost and snow.  As Issai[FN#224] (Sato) has aptly put it:  “Prosperity is like spring, in which we have green leaves and flowers wherever we go; while adversity is like winter, in which we have snow and ice.  Spring, of course, pleases us; winter, too, displeases us not.”  Adversity is salt to our lives, as it keeps them from corruption, no matter how bitter to taste it way be.  It is the best stimulus to body and mind, since it brings forth latent energy that may remain dormant but for it.  Most people hunt after pleasure, look for good luck, hunger after success, and complain of pain, ill-luck, and failure.  It does not occur to them that ’they who make good luck a god are all unlucky men,’ as George Eliot has wisely observed.  Pleasure ceases to be pleasure when we attain to it; another sort of pleasure displays itself to tempt us.  It is a mirage, it beckons to us to lead us astray.  When an overwhelming misfortune looks us in the face, our latent power is sure to be aroused to grapple with it.  Even delicate girls exert the power of giants at the time of emergency; even robbers or murderers are found to be kind and generous when we are thrown into a common disaster.  Troubles and difficulties call forth our divine force, which lies deeper than the ordinary faculties, and which we never before dreamed we possessed.

[FN#224] A noted scholar (1772-1859) and author, who belonged to the Wang School of Confucianism.  See Gen-shi-roku.

12.  Difficulties are no Match for the Optimist.

How can we suppose that we, the children of Buddha, are put at the mercy of petty troubles, or intended to be crushed by obstacles?  Are we not endowed with inner force to fight successfully against obstacles and difficulties, and to wrest trophies of glory from hardships?  Are we to be slaves to the vicissitudes of fortune?  Are we doomed to be victims for the jaws of the environment?  It is not external obstacles themselves, but our inner fear and doubt that prove to be the stumbling-blocks in the path to success; not material loss, but timidity and hesitation that ruin us for ever.

Difficulties are no match for the optimist, who does not fly from them, but welcomes them.  He has a mental prism which can separate the insipid white light of existence into bright hues.  He has a mental alchemy by which he can produce golden instruction out of the dross of failure.  He has a spiritual magic which makes the nectar of joy out of the tears of sorrow.  He has a clairvoyant eye that can