Flint has the potential to produce fire, and gems have intrinsic value. We ordinary people can see neither our own eyelashes, which are so close, nor the heavens in the distance. Likewise, we do not see that the Buddha exists in our own hearts.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the hidden potential within ourselves that we often overlook.
In this quote, Nichiren suggests that just as flint can spark a fire and gems hold value, people have intrinsic worth and potential that may not be immediately visible. He compares the obscured view of our own eyelashes to our inability to recognize the Buddha's presence within our hearts, highlighting that we often underestimate our own capabilities and the spiritual essence that resides within us.
In practice
During a motivational speech about self-discovery, one might use this quote to illustrate the idea that everyone has hidden potential.
Worthy persons deserve to be called so because they are not carried away by the eight winds: prosperity,decline,disgrace,honor,praise,censure,suffering, and pleasure.They are neither elated by prosperity nor grieved by decline. The heavenly gods will surely protect one who is unbending before the eight winds.
If you light a lantern for another, it will also brighten your own way
Never let life's hardships disturb you. No one can avoid problems, not even saints or sages.
Suffer what there is to suffer. Enjoy what there is to enjoy. Regard both suffering and joy as facts of life.
My dad was a very quiet person, and unbelievably tough. But my grandmother gave me my first look at negative thinking to bring about positive results. When I was just a little guy, anytime I came to my grandmother and said I wish for this or that, Grandma would say, 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.'
You don't carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation.
Time is making fools of us again.
She was not too young to be wise, but she was too young to know that wisdom shouldn't be spoken aloud when you are happy.
A genius is the man in whom you are least likely to find the power of attending to anything insipid or distasteful in itself. He breaks his engagements, leaves his letters unanswered, neglects his family duties incorrigibly, because he is powerless to turn his attention down and back from those more interesting trains of imagery with which his genius constantly occupies his mind.
Humble people can do great things with uncommon perfection because they are no longer concerned about their own interests and their own reputation, and therefore they no longer need to waste their efforts in defending them.
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