Excerpts from The Two Acolytes by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.

Part

3 of 5.

It is hard to convey the gentleness and beauty of women, either in words or pictures.

...

The truth is, the outside world is not a dream, not an illusion. It’s a sheer delight—in fact a paradise, the Western Pure Land here on earth. I have no use any more for the doctrine of “Three Thousand Phenomena in a Single Thought” or for the meditation on “The Perfect Interpenetration of the Three Truths.” Believe me, the joy of being just a common layman involved with the passions is infinitely preferable to being an ascetic practicing the “Perfect and Sudden Way” to enlightenment. I urge you to change your way of thinking and come down from the mountain at once.

...

The Pure Land of Perfect Bliss, believed to be billions of worlds away, lies just below your mountain.