us: we must not want to resume once more the old rags which we have cast off from us. My past is my dead self: the Tathāgata takes that dead self and disposes of it as he likes. Why then should I look back on that dead self, which is now in the hands of the Tathāgata, and think of it with regret and sorrow? If you wish, brethren, to go on fretting and worrying for ever, all you have to do is to resolve in your minds to set no store by the happiness which the Hotoke gives you in the present.
7. Ah! let the Past be past, and bury it! let the Future be the Future, and think of it! Let us only rest in that great, present, Confidence which is being offered for our acceptance as a free gift, and rejoicing in the exquisite beauties of Nature which show that thought of Faith, let us go on bravely. If we see the mist hanging over the shore of Akashi, let us be intoxicated by its beauties: if we hear the plover piping near the village of Suma, let us dwell with fond contemplation on its distant home among the
