The Four Philosophies (1) Philosophies of Pain, Accumulation, Self-Regulation, and Morals

I have explained before that Gautama Buddha's Teachings are fundamentally based on the Realism that the Truth of the Universe is the fusion between our real act at the present moment and the real existence of the Universe at the present moment. This is the fundamental basis of Gautama Buddha's Teachings, but at the same time Gautama Buddha taught us four very important Buddhist Principles. They are (1) The Four Philosophies, (2) The Rule of Cause and Effect, (3) The Instataneousness of the Universe, and (4) The Real Existence of Morals.
Among the various Teachings of Gautama Buddha, one of the most important is the Principle of the Four Philosophies. The Four Philosophies are (1) the Philosophy of Pain (duhkha satya), (2) the Philosophy of Accumulation (samdaya satya), (3) the Philosophy of Self-Regulation (niroda satya), and (4) the Philosophy of Morals (margha satya). The Teaching of Gautama Buddha were not put in writing for at least 100 years afer his death. Thus, concerning the Four Philosophies there came to be vulgar interpretations in the Age of Hinayana Buddhism. Such vulgar interpretations have been written in the Hinayana Buddhist Sutras (the Agama Sutra being one example).These sutras present the Four Philosophies of Gautama Buddha as (1) the philosophy of pain, suggesting that the world is painful without exception, (2) The cause of pain is simply desire, (3)
if we stop desiring, (4) A happy life will come. Upon reading such interpretations, I found that I could never accept such rough explanations. First of all, I wondered whether this world is always painful or not. I thought that the world is sometimes painful, but sometimes the world is not so unhappy. Since life and the world are not always painful, the second theme could not be always true. As for the third theme, I doubted whether it is possible for us to stop desire and with the fourth theme, I wondered Four Philosophy, after about a hundred year later than Gautama Buddha's death, there was a valgar interpretations in the Age of Hinayana Buddhism, and such a valgar interpretations have been written in the Hynayana Buddhist Sutras. And they say that (1) the philosophy of pain suggests that the world is painful without exception. (2) The cause of pain is just desire. (3) If we stop desire, (4) A happy life will come. But reading those interpretations, I could never accept such a ruff explanations. First of all I wondered whether this world was always so painful, or not. I thought that the world is sometimes painfl, but some times the world is not so unhappy. And so the second theme was not always true. And the (3) theem made me doubtfull whether it is possible for us to stop desire, and so in the (4) I wonder whether it was so easy for us to establish morals. Because of these situations I could never comfirm the interpretations, which was used in the Age of Hinatana Buddhism. But when I have begun reading the Shobogenzo, an excellent collection of Buddhist Books written in the 12th century by a Japanese Buddhist monk named Master Eihei Dogen, I found a very excellent Chapter titled, "Genjo Ko-an." In the 75 voluems edition, "Genjo Ko-an" it was placed at the beginning of all the Chapters. In the 95 volumes edition, it was placed as the 3rd of all the Chapters. Such placement of "Genjo Ko-an" in both editions of the Shobogenzo suggests this Chapter's great importance as a introductory chapter among the rest of the Chapters. I would like to explain the meanjng of the Chapter "Genjo Ko-an" in the next blog.