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.
Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.
Greater in battle_x000D_ than the man who would conquer_x000D_ a thousand-thousand men,_x000D_ is he who would conquer_x000D_ just one —_x000D_ himself._x000D_ Better to conquer yourself_x000D_ than others._x000D_ When you've trained yourself,_x000D_ living in constant self-control,_x000D_ neither a deva nor gandhabba,_x000D_ nor a Mara banded with Brahmas,_x000D_ could turn that triumph_x000D_ back into defeat.
Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.
The art of living rightly is like all arts; it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.
If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
Prediction is difficult- particularly when it involves the future.
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