Lot us avail ourselves of another figure to explain more clearly the point at issue.  Universal Spirit may fitly be likened to the universal water, or water circulating through the whole earth.  This universal water exists everywhere.  It exists in the tree.  It exists in the grass.  It exists in the mountain.  It exists in the river.  It exists in the sea.  It exists in the air.  It exists in the cloud.  Thus man is not only surrounded by water on all sides, but it penetrates his very body.  But be can never appease his thirst without drinking water.  In like manner Universal Spirit exists everywhere.  It exists in the tree.  It exists in the grass.  It exists in the ground.  It exists in the mountain.  It exists in the river.  It exists in the sea.  It exists in the bird.  It exists in the beast.  Thus man is not merely surrounded by Spirit on all sides, but it permeates through his whole existence.  But he can never be Enlightened unless he awakens it within him by means of Meditation.  To drink water is to drink the universal water; to awaken Buddha-nature is to be conscious of Universal Spirit.

Therefore, to get Enlightened we have to believe that all beings are Buddha-natured—­that is, absolutely good-natured in the sense that transcends the duality of good and bad.  “One day,” to cite an example, “Pan Shan (Ban-zan) happened to pass by a meat-shop.  He heard a customer saying:  ‘Give me a pound of fresh meat.’  To which the shopkeeper, putting down his knife, replied:  Certainly, sir.  Could there be any meat that is not fresh in my shop?’ Pan Shan, hearing these remarks, was Enlightened at once.”

16.  Shakya Muni and the Prodigal Son.

A great trouble with us is that we do not believe in half the good that we are born with.  We are just like the only son of a well-to-do, as the author of Saddharma-pundarika-sutra[FN#172] tells us, who, being forgetful of his rich inheritance, leaves his home and leads a life of hand-to-mouth as a coolie.  How miserable it is to see one, having no faith in his noble endowment, burying the precious gem of Buddha-nature into the foul rubbish of vices and crimes, wasting his excellent genius in the exertion that is sure to disgrace his name, falling a prey to bitter remorse and doubt, and casting himself away into the jaw of perdition.  Shakya Muni, full of fatherly love towards all beings, looked with compassion on us, his prodigal son, and used every means to restore the half-starved man to his home.  It was for this that he left the palace and the beloved wife and son, practised his self-mortification and prolonged Meditation, attained to Enlightenment, and preached Dharma for forty-nine years; in other words, all his strength and effort were focussed on that single aim, which was to bring the prodigal son to his rich mansion of Buddha-nature.  He taught not only by words, but by his own actual example, that man has Buddha-nature, by the unfoldment of which he can save himself from the miseries of life and death, and bring himself to a higher realm than gods.  When we are Enlightened, or when Universal Spirit awakens within us, we open the inexhaustible store of virtues and excellencies, and can freely make use of them at our will.