Gleanings in Buddha-Fields

faith absurd. No! In spite of Western hesitations—in spite of whatever you may think it practical to say or not to say at a later time about the experience—you may very likely find yourself for a moment forced into an attitude of respect toward these possibilities. Mere cold reasoning will not help you much in the opposite direction. The evidence of the senses counts for little: you know there are so many realities which can neither be seen nor heard nor felt, but which exist as forces—tremendous forces. Then again, you cannot mock the conviction of forty million people while that conviction thrills all around you like the air—while you are conscious that it is pressing upon your psychic being just as the atmosphere presses upon your physical being. As for myself, whenever I am alone in the presence of a Shintō shrine, I have the sensation of being haunted; and I cannot help thinking about the possible perceptions of the haunter. And this tempts me to imagine how I should feel if I myself were a god—dwelling in some old Izumo shrine on the summit of a hill, guarded by stone lions and shadowed by a holy grove.