According to this idea, generally accepted by common sense, human actions may be classified under four different heads:  (1) Purely good actions; (2) partly good and partly bad actions; (3) neither good nor bad actions; (4) purely bad actions.  First, purely good actions are those actions which subserve and never hinder human interests either material or spiritual, such as humanity and love of all beings.  Secondly, partly good and partly bad actions are those actions which are both for and against human interests, such as narrow patriotism and prejudiced love.  Thirdly, neither good nor bad actions are such actions as are neither for nor against human interests—­for example, an unconscious act of a dreamer.  Lastly, purely bad actions, which are absolutely against human interests, cannot be possible for man except suicide, because every action promotes more or less the interests, material or spiritual, of the individual agent or of someone else.  Even such horrible crimes as homicide and parricide are intended to promote some interests, and carry out in some measure their aim when performed.  It follows that man cannot be said to be good or bad in the strict sense of the terms as above defined, for there is no human being who does the first class of actions and nothing else, nor is there any mortal who does the fourth class of actions and nothing else.  Man may be called good and bad, and at the same time be neither good nor bad, in that he always performs the second and the third class of actions.  All this, nevertheless, is a more play of words.  Thus we are driven to conclude that the common-sense view of human nature fails to grasp the real state of actual life.

8.  Man is not Good-natured nor Bad-natured, but Buddha-natured.

We have had already occasion to observe that Zen teaches Buddha-nature, which all sentient beings are endowed with.  The term ’Buddha-nature,’[FN#165] as accepted generally by Buddhists, means a latent and undeveloped nature, which enables its owner to become Enlightened when it is developed and brought to actuality.[FN#166] Therefore man, according to Zen, is not good-natured nor bad-natured in the relative sense, as accepted generally by common sense, of these terms, but Buddha-natured in the sense of non-duality.  A good person (of common sense) differs from a bad person (of common sense), not in his inborn Buddha-nature, but in the extent of his expressing it in deeds.  Even if men are equally endowed with that nature, yet their different states of development do not allow them to express it to an equal extent in conduct.  Buddha-nature may be compared with the sun, and individual mind with the sky.  Then an Enlightened mind is like the sky in fair weather, when nothing prevents the beams of the sun; while an ignorant mind is like the sky in cloudy weather, when the sun sheds faint light; and an evil mind is like the sky in stormy weather, when the sun seems to be out of existence.  It comes under our daily observation that even a robber or a murderer may prove to be a good father and a loving husband to his wife and children.  He is an honest fellow when he remains at home.  The sun of Buddha-nature gives light within the wall of his house, but without the house the darkness of foul crimes shrouds him.