SPECULATIVE MAHÂYÂNISM.
CHAPTER III.
PRACTISE AND SPECULATION.
Mahâyânism perhaps can best be treated in two main divisions, as it has distinctly two principal features in its doctrinal development. I may call one the speculative phase of Mahâyânism and the other practical. The first part is essentially a sort of Buddhist metaphysics, where the mind is engaged solely in ratiocination and abstraction. Here the intellect plays a very prominent part, and some of the most abstruse problems of philosophy are freely discussed. Speculative followers of Buddhism have taken great interest in the discussion of them and have written many volumes on various subjects.[36] The second or practical phase of Mahâyânism deals with such religious beliefs that constitute the life and essence of the system. Mahâyânists might have reasoned wrongfully to explain their practical faith, but the faith itself is the outburst of the religious sentiment which is inherent in human nature. This practical part, therefore, is by far more important, and in fact it can be said that the speculative part is merely a preparatory step toward it. Inasmuch as Mahâyânism is a religion and not a philosophical system, it must be practical, that is, it must directly appeal to the inmost life of the human heart.
Relation of Feeling and Intellect in Religion.
So much has been said about the relation between philosophy and religion; and there are many scholars who so firmly believe in the identity of religion either with superstitions or with supernatural revelation, that the denial of this assertion is considered by them practically to be the disavowal of all religions. For, according to them, there is no midway in religion. A religion which is rational and yet practical is no religion. Now, Buddhism is neither a vagary of imagination nor a revelation from above, and on this account it has been declared by some to be a philosophy. The title “Speculative Mahâyânism” thus, is apt to be taken as a confirmation of such opinion. To remove all the misconceptions, therefore, which might be entertained concerning the religious nature of Mahâyânism and its attitude toward intellectualism, I have deemed it wise here to say a few words about the relation between feeling and intellect in religion.
There is no doubt that religion is essentially practical; it does not necessarily require theorisation. The latter, properly speaking, is the business of philosophy. If religion was a product of the intellect solely, it could not give satisfaction to the needs of man’s whole being. Reason constitutes but a part of the organised totality of an individual being. Abstraction however high, and speculation however deep, do not as such satisfy the inmost yearnings of the human heart. But this they can do when they enter into one’s inner life and constitution; that is, when abstraction becomes a concrete fact and speculation a living principle in one’s existence; in short, when philosophy becomes religion.
Philosophy as such, therefore, is generally distinguished from religion. But we must not suppose that religion as the deepest expression of a human being can eliminate altogether from it the intellectual element. The most predominant rôle in religion may be played by the imagination and feeling, but ratiocination must not fail to assert its legitimate right in the co-ordination of beliefs. When this right is denied, religion becomes fanaticism, superstition, fata morgana, and even a menace to the progress of humanity.
The intellect is critical, objective, and always tries to stand apart from the things that are taken up for examination. This alienation or keeping itself aloof from concrete facts on the part of the intellect, constantly tends to disregard the real significance of life, of which it is also a manifestation. Therefore, the conflict between feeling and reason, religion and science, instinct and knowledge, has been going on since the awakening of consciousness.
Seeing this fact, intellectual people are generally prone to condemn religion as barring the freedom and obstructing the progress of scientific investigations. It is true that religion went frequently to the other extreme and tried to suppress the just claim of reason; it is true that this was especially the case with Christianity, whose history abounds with regretable incidents resulting from its violent encroachments upon the domain of reason. It is also true that the feeling and the intellect are sometimes at variance, that what the feeling esteems as the most valuable treasure is at times relentlessly crushed by the reason, while the feeling looks with utmost contempt at the results that have been reached by the intellect after much lucubration. But this fatal conflict is no better than the fight which takes place between the head and the tail of a hydra when it is cut in twain; it always results in self-destruction.
We cannot live under such a miserable condition forever; when we know that it is altogether due to a myopia on the part of our understanding. The truth is that feeling and reason “cannot do without one another, and must work together inseparably in the process of human development, since reason without feeling could have nothing to act for and would be impotent to act, while feeling without reason would act tyrannically and blindly—that is to say, if either could exist and act at all without the other; for in the end it is not feeling nor reason, which acts, but it is the man who acts according as he feels and reasons”. (H. Maudsley’s Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings, p. vii). If it is thus admitted that feeling and reason must co-ordinate and co-operate in the realisation of human ideals, religion, though essentially a phenomenon of the emotional life, cannot be indifferent to the significance of the intellect. Indeed, religion, as much as philosophy, has ever been speculating on the problems that are of the most vital importance to human life. In Christianity speculation has been carried on under the name of theology, though it claims to be fundamentally a religion of faith. In India, however, as mentioned elsewhere, there was no dividing line between philosophy and religion; and every teaching, every system, and every doctrine, however abstract and speculative it might appear to the Western mind, was at bottom religious and always aimed at the deliverance of the soul. There was no philosophical system that did not have some practical purpose.
Indian thinkers could not separate religion from philosophy, practice from theory. Their philosophy flowed out of the very spring of the human heart and was not a mere display of fine intellectuation. If their thinking were not in the right direction and led to a fallacy which made life more miserable, they were ever ready to surrender themselves to a superior doctrine as soon as it was discovered. But when they thought they were in the right track, they did not hesitate to sacrifice their life for it. Their philosophy had as much fire as religion.
Buddhism and Speculation.
Owing to this fact, Buddhism as much as Hinduism is full of abstract speculations and philosophical reflections so much so that some Christian critics are inclined to deny the religiosity of Buddhism. But no student of the science of comparative religion would indorse such a view nowadays. Buddhism, in spite of its predominant intellectualism, is really a religious system. There is no doubt that it emphasises the rational element of religion more than any other religious teachings, but on that account we cannot say that it altogether disregards the importance of the part to be played by the feeling. Its speculative, philosophical phase is really a preparation for fully appreciating the subjective significance of religion, for religion is ultimately subjective, that is to say, the essence of religion is love and faith, or, to use Buddhist phraseology, it is the expression of the Bodhi which consists in prajñâ[37] (intelligence or wisdom) and karunâ (love or compassion). Mere knowledge (not prajñâ) has very little value in human life. When not guided by love and faith, it readily turns out to be the most obedient servant of egoism and sensualism. What Tennyson says in the following verses is perfectly true with Buddhism:
“Who loves not knowledge? Who shall rail
Against her beauty? May she mix
With men and prosper! Who shall fix
Her pillars? Let her work prevail.“But on her forehead sits a fire;
She sets her forward countenance
And leaps into the future chance,
Submitting all things to desire.“Half grown as yet, a child, and vain—
She cannot fight the fear of death.
What is she, cut from love and faith,
But some wild Pallas from the brain“Of demons? fiery-hot to burst
All barriers in her onward race
For power. Let her know her place;
She is the second, not the first.“A higher hand must make her mild,
If all be not in vain, and guide
Her footsteps, moving side by side
With Wisdom, like the younger child.”
But it must be remembered that Buddhism never ignores the part which is played by the intellect in the purification of faith. For it is by the judicious exercise of the intellect, that all religious superstitions and prejudices are finally destroyed.
The intellect is so far of great consequence, and we must respect it as the thunderbolt of Vajrapani, which crushes everything that is mere sham and false. But at the same time we must also remember that the quintessence of religion like the house built on the solid rock never suffers on account of this destruction. Its foundation lies too deeply buried in human heart to be damaged by knowledge or science. So long as there is a human heart warm with blood and burning with the fire of life, the intellect however powerful will never be able to trample it under foot. Indeed, the more severely the religious sentiment is tested in the crucible of the intellect, the more glorious and illuminating becomes its intrinsic virtue. The true religion is, therefore, never reluctant to appear before the tribunal of scientific investigation. In fact by ignoring the ultimate significance of the religious consciousness, science is digging its own grave. For what purpose has science other than the unravelling of the mysteries of nature and reading into the meaning of existence? And is this not what constitutes the foundation of religion? Science cannot be final, it must find its reason in religion; as a mere intellectual exercise it is not worthy of our serious consideration.
Religion and Metaphysics.
The French sociologist, M. Guyau, says in his Irreligion of the Future (English translation p. 10):
“Every positive and historical religion presents three distinctive and essential elements: (1) An attempt at a mythical and non-scientific explanation of natural phenomena (divine intervention, miracles, efficacious prayers, etc.), or of historical facts (incarnation of Jesus Christ or of Buddha, revelation, and so forth); (2) A system of dogmas, that is to say, of symbolic ideas, of imaginative beliefs, forcibly imposed upon one’s faith as absolute verities, even though they are susceptible of no scientific demonstration or philosophical justification; (3) A cult and a system of rites, that is to say, of more or less immutable practices regarded as possessing a marvelous efficacy upon the course of things, a propitiatory virtue. A religion without myth, without dogma, without cult, without rite, is no more than that somewhat bastard product, ‘natural religion,’ which is resolvable to a system of metaphysical hypotheses.”
M. Guyau seems to think that what will be left in religion, when severed from its superstitions and imaginary beliefs and mysterious rites, is a system of metaphysical speculations, and that, therefore, it is not a religion. But in my opinion the French sociologist shares the error that is very prevalent among the scientific men of to-day. He is perfectly right in trying to strip religion of all its ephemeral elements and external integuments, but he is entirely wrong when he does this at the expense of its very essence, which consists of the inmost yearnings of the human heart. And this essence has no affinity with the superstitions which grow round it like excrescences as the results of insufficient or abnormal nourishment. Nor does it concern itself with mere philosophising and constructing hypotheses about metaphysical problems. Far from it. Religion is a cry from the abysmal depths of the human heart, that can never be silenced, until it finds that something and identifies itself with it, which reveals the teleological significance of life and the universe. But this something has a subjective value only, as Goethe makes Faust exclaim, “Feeling is all in all, name for it I have none.” Why? Because it cannot objectively or intellectually be demonstrated, as in the case with those laws which govern phenomenal existences,—the proper objects of the discursive human understanding. And this subjectivity of religion is what makes “all righteousnesses as filthy garments.” If religion deprived of its dogmas and cults is to be considered, as M. Guyau thinks, nothing but a system of metaphysics, we utterly lose sight of its subjective significance or its emotional element, which indeed constitutes its raison d’être.
* * *
Having this in view we proceed to see first on what metaphysical hypothesis speculative Mahâyâna Buddhism is built up; but the reader must remember that this phase of Mahâyânism is merely a preliminary to its more essential part, which we expound later under the heading of “Practical Mahâyânism,” in contradistinction to “Speculative Mahâyânism.”
CHAPTER IV.
CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE.
Three Forms of Knowledge.
Mahâyânism generally distinguishes two or three forms of knowledge. This classification is a sort of epistemology, inasmuch as it proposes to ascertain the extent and nature of human knowledge, from a religious point of view. Its object is to see what kind of human knowledge is most reliable and valuable for the annihilation of ignorance and the attainment of enlightenment. The Mahâyâna school which has given most attention to this division of Buddhist philosophy is the Yogâcâra of Asanga and Vasubandhu. The Lankâvatarâ and the Sandhinirmocana and some other Sûtras, on which the school claims to have its doctrinal foundation, teach three forms of knowledge. The sûtra literature, however, as a rule does not enter into any detailed exposition of the subject; it merely classifies knowledge and points out what form of knowledge is most desirable by the Buddhists. To obtain a fuller and more discursive elucidation, we must come to the Abhidharma Pitaka of that school. Of the text books most generally studied of the Yogâcâra, we may mention Vasubandhu’s Vijñânamâtra with its commentaries and Asanga’s Comprehensive Treatise on Mahâyânism. The following statements are abstracted mainly from these documents.
The three forms of knowledge as classified by the Yogâcâra are: (1) Illusion (parikalpita), (2) Relative Knowledge (paratantra), and (3) Absolute Knowledge (pariniṣpanna).
Illusion.
Illusion (parikalpita), to use Kantian phraseology, is a sense-perception not co-ordinated by the categories of the understanding; that is to say, it is a purely subjective elaboration, not verified by objective reality and critical judgment. So long as we make no practical application of it, it will harbor no danger; there is no evil in it, at least religiously. Perceptual illusion is a psychical fact, and as such it is justified. A straight rod in water appears crooked on account of the refraction of light; a sensation is often felt in the limb after it has been amputated, for the nervous system has not yet adjusted itself to the new condition. They are all illusions, however. They are doubtless the correct interpretation of the sense-impressions in question, but they are not confirmed by other sense-impressions whose coördination is necessary to establish an objective reality. The moral involved in this is: all sound inferences and correct behavior must be based on critical knowledge and not on illusory premises.
Reasoning in this wise, the Mahâyânists declare that the egoism fostered by vulgar minds belongs to this class of knowledge, though of a different order, and that those who tenaciously cling to egoism as their final stronghold are believers in an intellectual fata morgana, and are like the thirsty deer that madly after the visionary water in the desert, or like the crafty monkey that tries to catch the lunar reflection in the water. Because the belief in the existence of a metaphysical agent behind our mental phenomena is not confirmed by experience and sound judgment, it being merely a product of unenlightened subjectivity.
Besides this ethical and philosophical egoism, all forms of world-conception which is founded on the sandy basis of subjective illusion, such as fetichism, idolatry, anthropomorphism, anthropopsychism, and the like, must be classed under the parikalpita-lakṣana as doctrines having illusionary premises.
Relative Knowledge.
Next comes the paratantra-lakṣana, a welt-anschauung based upon relative knowledge, or better, upon the knowledge of the law of relativity. According to this view, everything in the world has a relative and conditional existence, and nothing can claim an absolute reality free from all limitations. This closely corresponds to the theory advanced by most of modern scientists, whose agnosticism denies our intellectual capability of transcending the law of relativity.
The paratantra-lakṣana, therefore, consists in the knowledge derived from our daily intercourse with the outward world. It deals with the highest abstractions we can make out of our sensuous experiences. It is positivistic in its strictest sense. It says: The universe has only a relative existence, and our knowledge is necessarily limited. Even the highest generalisation cannot go beyond the law of relativity. It is impossible for us to know the first cause and the ultimate end of existence; nor have we any need to go thus beyond the sphere of existence, which would inevitably involve us in the maze of mystic imagination.
The paratantra-lakṣana, therefore, is a positivism, agnosticism, or empiricism in its spirit. Though the Yogâcâra Buddhists do not use all these modern philosophical terms, the interpretation here given is really what they intended to mean by the second form of knowledge. A world-conception based on this view, it is declared by the Mahâyânists, is sound as far as our perceptual knowledge is concerned; but it does not exhaust the entire field of human experience, for it does not take into account our spiritual life and our inmost consciousness. There is something in the human heart that refuses to be satisfied with merely systematising under the so-called laws of nature those multitudinous impressions which we receive from the outside world. There is a singular feeling, or sentiment, or yearning, whatever we may call it, in our inmost heart, which defies any plainer description than a mere suggestion or an indirect statement. This somewhat mystic consciousness seems despite its obscureness to contain the meaning of our existence as well as that of the universe. The intellect may try to persuade us with all its subtle reasonings to subdue this disquieting feeling and to remain contented with the systematising of natural laws, so called. But it is deceiving itself by so doing; because the intellect is but a servant to the heart, and so far as it is not forced to self-contradiction, it must accommodate itself to the needs of the heart. That is to say, we must transcend the narrow limits of conditionality and see what indispensable postulates are underlying our life and experiences. The recognition of these indispensable postulates of life constitutes the Yogâcâra’s third form of knowledge called pariniṣpanna-lakṣana.
Absolute Knowledge.
Pariniṣpanna-lakṣana literally means the world-view founded on the most perfect knowledge. According to this view, the universe is a monistico-pantheistic system. While phenomenal existences are regulated by natural laws characterised by conditionality and individuation, they by no means exhaust all our experiences which are stored in our inmost consciousness. There must be something,—this is the absolute demand of humanity, the ultimate postulate of experience,—be it Will, or Intelligence, which, underlying and animating all existences, forms the basis of cosmic, ethical, and religious life. This highest Will, or Intelligence, or both may be termed God, but the Mahâyânists call it religiously Dharmakâya, ontologically Bhûtatathâtâ, and psychologically Bodhi or Sambodhi. And they think it must be immanent in the universe manifesting itself in all places and times; it must be the cause of perpetual creation; it must be the principle of morality. This being so, how do we come to the recognition of its presence? The Buddhists say that when our minds are clear of illusions, prejudices, and egotistic assumptions, they become transparent and reflect the truth like a dust-free mirror. The illumination thus gained in our consciousness constitutes the so-called pariniṣpanna, the most perfect knowledge, that leads to Nirvâna, final salvation, and eternal bliss.
World-views Founded on the Three
Forms of Knowledge.
The reason will be obvious to the reader why the Yogâcâra school distinguishes three classes of world-conception founded on the three kinds of knowledge. The parikalpita-lakṣana is most primitive and most puerile. However, in these days of enlightenment, what is believed by the masses is naught else than a parikalpita conception of the world. The material existence as it appears to our senses is to them all in all. They seem to be unable to shake off the yoke of egoistic illusion and naïve realism. Their God must be transcendent and anthropopathic, and always willing to meddle with worldly affairs as his whim pleases. How different the world is, in which the multitudes of unreflecting minds are living, from that which is conceived by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas! Hartmann, a German thinker, is right, when he says that the masses are at least a century behind in their intellectual culture. But the most strange thing in the world is that, in spite of all their ignorance and superstitious beliefs, the waves of universal transformation are ever carrying them onward to a destination, of which, perhaps, they have not the slightest suspicion.
The paratantra-lakṣana advances a step further, but the fundamental error involved in it is its persistent self-contradictory disregard for what our inmost consciousness is constantly revealing to us. The intellect alone can by no means unravel the mystery of our entire existence. In order to reach the highest truth, we must boldly plunge with our whole being into a region where absolute darkness defying the light of intellect is supposed to prevail. This region which is no more nor less than the field of religious consciousness is shunned by most of the intellectual people on the plea that the intellect by its very nature is unable to fathom it. But the only way that leads us to the final pacification of the heart-yearnings is to go beyond the horizons of limiting reason and to resort to the faith that has been planted in the heart as the sine qua non of its own existence and vitality. And by faith I mean Prajñâ (wisdom), transcendental knowledge, that comes direct from the intelligence-essence of the Dharmakâya. A mind, so tired in vainly searching after truth and bliss in the verbiage of philosophy and the nonsense of ritualism, finds itself here completely rested bathing in the rays of divine effulgence,—whence this is, it does not question, being so filled with supramundane blessings which alone are felt. Buddhism calls this exalted spiritual state Nirvâna or Mokṣa; and pariniṣpanna-lakṣana is a world-conception which naturally follows from this subjective, ideal enlightenment.[38]
Two Forms of Knowledge.
The other Hindu Mahâyânism, the Mâdhyamika school of Nâgârjuna, distinguishes two, instead of three, orders of knowledge, but practically the Yogâcâra and the Mâdhyamika come to the same conclusion.[39]
The two kinds of knowledge or truth distinguished by the Mâdhyamika philosophy are Samvṛtti-satya and Paramârtha-satya, that is, conditional truth and transcendental truth. We read in Nâgârjuna’s Mâdhyamika Çâstra (Buddhist Text Society edition, pp. 180, 181):
“On two truths is founded
The holy doctrine of Buddhas:
Truth conditional,
And truth transcendental.“Those who verily know not
The distinction of the two truths.
Know not the essence
Of Buddhism which is meaningful.”[40]
The conditional truth includes illusion and relative knowledge of the Yogâcâra school, while the transcendental truth corresponds to the absolute knowledge.
In explaining these two truths, the Mâdhyamika philosophers have made a constant use of the terms, çûnya and açûnya, void and not-void, which unfortunately became a cause of the misunderstanding by Christian scholars of Nâgârjuna’s transcendental philosophy. Absolute truth is void in its ultimate nature, for it contains nothing concrete or real or individual that makes it an object of particularisation. But this must not be understood, as is done by some superficial critics, in the sense of absolute nothingness. The Mâdhyamika philosophers make the satya (transcendental truth) empty when contrasted with the realness of phenomenal existences. Because it is not real in the sense a particular being is real; but it is empty since it transcends the principle of individuation. When considered absolutely, it can neither be empty nor not-empty, neither çûnya nor açûnya, neither asti nor nâsti, neither abhâva nor bhâva, neither real nor unreal. All these terms imply relation and contrast, while the Paramârtha Satya is above them, or better, it unifies all contrasts and antitheses in its absolute oneness. Therefore, even to designate it at all may lead to the misunderstanding of the true nature of the Satya, for naming is particularising. It is not, as such, an object of intellectuation or of demonstrative knowledge. It underlies everything conditional and phenomenal, and does not permit itself to be a particular object of discrimination.
Transcendental Truth and Relative
Understanding.
One may say: If transcendental truth is of such an abstract nature, beyond the reach of the understanding, how can we ever hope to attain it and enjoy its blessings? But Nâgârjuna says that it is not absolutely out of the ken of the understanding; it is, on the contrary, through the understanding that we become acquainted with the quarter towards which our spiritual efforts should be directed, only let us not cling to the means by which we grasp the final reality. A finger is needed to point at the moon, but when we have recognised the moon, let us no more trouble ourselves with the finger. The fisherman carries a basket to take the fish home, but what need has he to worry about the basket when the contents are safely on the table? Only so long as we are not yet aware of the way to enlightenment, let us not ignore the value of relative knowledge or conditional truth or lokasamvṛttisatya as Nâgârjuna terms it.
“If not by worldly knowledge,
The truth is not understood;
When the truth is not approached,
Nirvâna is not attained.”[41]
From this, it is to be inferred that Buddhism never discourages the scientific, critical investigation of religious beliefs. For it is one of the functions of science that it should purify the contents of a belief and that it should point out in which direction our final spiritual truth and consolation have to be sought. Science alone which is built on relative knowledge is not able to satisfy all our religious cravings, but it is certainly able to direct us to the path of enlightenment. When this path is at last revealed, we shall know how to avail ourselves of the discovery, as then Prajñâ (or Sambodhi, or Wisdom) becomes the guide of life. Here we enter into the region of the unknowable. The spiritual facts we experience are not demonstrable, for they are so direct and immediate that the uninitiated are altogether at a loss to get a glimpse of them.
CHAPTER V.
BHÛTATATHÂTÂ (SUCHNESS).
From the ontological point of view, Paramârtha-satya or Pariniṣpanna (transcendental truth) is called Bhûtatathâtâ, which literally means “suchness of existence.” As Buddhism does not separate being from thought nor thought from being, what is suchness in the objective world, is transcendental truth in the subjective world, and vice versa Bhûtatathâtâ, then, is the Godhead of Buddhism, and it marks the consummation of all our mental efforts to reach the highest principle, which unifies all possible contradictions and spontaneously directs the course of world-events. In short, it is the ultimate postulate of existence. Like Paramârtha-satya, as above stated, it does not belong to the domain of demonstrative knowledge or sensuous experience; it is unknowable by the ordinary processes of intellectuation, which the natural sciences use in the formulation of general laws; and it is grasped, declare the Buddhists, only by the minds that are capable of exercising what might be called religious intuition.
Açvaghoṣa argues, in his Awakening of Faith for the indefinability of this first principle. When we say it is çûnya or empty, on account of its being independent of all the thinkable qualities, which we attribute to things relative and conditional, people would take it for the nothingness of absolute void. But when we define it as a real reality, as it stands above the evanescence of phenomena, they would imagine that there is something individual and existing outside the pale of this universe, which, though as concrete as we ourselves are, lives an eternal life. It is like describing to the blind what an elephant looks like; each one of them gets but a very indistinct and imperfect conception of the huge creature, yet every one of them thinks he has a true and most comprehensive idea of it.[42] Açvaghoṣa, thus, wishes to eschew all definite statements concerning the ultimate nature of being, but as language is the only mode with which we mortals can express our ideas and communicate them to others, he thinks the best expression that can be given to it is Bhûtatathâtâ, i.e., “suchness of existence,” or simply, “suchness.”
Bhûtatathâtâ (suchness), thus absolutely viewed, does not fall under the category of being and non-being; and minds which are kept within the narrow circle of contrasts, must be said to be incapable of grasping it as it truly is. Says Nâgârjuna in his Çâstra (Ch. XV.):
“Between thisness (svabhâva) and thatness (parabhâva),
Between being and non-being,
Who discriminates,
The truth of Buddhism he perceives not.”[43]
Or,
“To think ‘it is’, is eternalism,
To think ‘it is not’, is nihilism:
Being and non-being,
The wise cling not to either.”[44]
Again,
“The dualism of ‘to be’ and ‘not to be,’
The dualism of pure and not-pure:
Such dualism having abandoned,
The wise stand not even in the middle.”[45]
To quote, again, from the Awakening of Faith (pp. 58-59): “In its metaphysical origin, Bhûtatathâtâ has nothing to do with things defiled, i.e., conditional: it is free from all signs of individualisation, such as exist in phenomenal objects: it is independent of an unreal, particularising consciousness.”
Indefinability.
Absolute Suchness from its very nature thus defies all definitions. We cannot even say that it is, for everything that is presupposes that which is not: existence and non-existence are relative terms as much as subject and object, mind and matter, this and that, one and other: one cannot be conceived without the other. “It is not so (na iti)[46],” therefore, may be the only way our imperfect human tongue can express it. So the Mahâyânists generally designate absolute Suchness as Çûnyatâ or void.
But when this most significant word, çûnyatâ, is to be more fully interpreted, we would say with Açvaghoṣa that “Suchness is neither that which is existence nor that which is non-existence; neither that which is at once existence and non-existence, nor that which is not at once existence and non-existence; it is neither that which is unity nor that which is plurality; neither that which is at once unity and plurality, nor that which is not at once unity and plurality.”[47]
Nâgârjuna’s famous doctrine of “The Middle Path of Eight No’s” breathes the same spirit, which declares:
“There is no death, no birth, no destruction, no persistence,
No oneness, no manyness, no coming, no departing,”[48]
Elsewhere, he expresses the same idea in a somewhat paradoxical manner, making the historical Buddha a real concrete manifestation of Suchness:
“After his passing, deem not thus:
‘The Buddha still is here,’
He is above all contrasts,
To be and not to be.“While living, deem not thus:
‘The Buddha is now here.’
He is above all contrasts,
To be and not to be.”[49]
This view of Suchness as no-ness abounds in the literature of the Dhyâna school of Mahâyânism. To cite one instance: When Bodhi-Dharma[50], the founder of the Dhyâna sect, saw Emperor Wu of Liang dynasty (A.D. 502-556), he was asked what the first principle of the Holy Doctrine was, he did not give any lengthy, periphrastic statement after the manner of a philosopher, but laconically replied, “Vast emptiness and nothing holy.” The Emperor was bewildered and did not know how to take the words of his holy adviser. Naturally, he did not expect such an abrupt answer, and, being greatly disappointed, ventured another question: “Who is he, then, that stands before me?” By this he meant to repudiate the doctrine of absolute Suchness. His line of argument being this: If there is nothing in the ultimate nature of things that distinguishes between holiness and sinfulness, why this world of contrasts, where some are revered as holy, for instance, Bodhi-Dharma who is at this very moment standing in front of him with the mission of propagating the holy teachings of Buddha? Bodhi-Dharma, however, was a mystic and was fully convinced of the insufficiency of the human tongue to express the highest truth which is revealed only intuitively to the religious consciousness. His conclusive answer was, “I do not know”.[51]
This “I do not know” is not to be understood in the spirit of agnosticism, but in the sense of “God when understood is no God,” for in se est et per se conceptur. This way of describing Suchness by negative terms only, excluding all differences of name and form (nâmarûpa) to reach a higher kind of affirmation, seems to be the most appropriate one, inasmuch as the human understanding is limited in so many respects; but, nevertheless, it has caused much misinterpretation even among Buddhists themselves, not to mention those Christian Buddhist scholars of to-day, who sometimes appear almost wilfully to misconstrue the significance of the çûnyatâ philosophy. It was to avoid these unfortunate misinterpretations that the Mahâyânists frequently made the paradoxical assertion that absolute Suchness is empty and not empty, çûnya and açunya, being and non-being, sat and asat, one and many, this and that.
The “Thundrous Silence.”
There yet remains another mode of explaining absolute Suchness, which though most practical and most effective for the religiously disposed minds, may prove very inadequate to a sceptical intellect. It is the “thundrous silence” of Vimalakîrti in response to an inquiry concerning the nature of Suchness or the “Dharma of Non-duality,” as it is termed in the Sûtra.[52]
Bodhisattva Vimalakîrti once asked a host of Bodhisattvas led by Mañjuçri, who came to visit him, to express their views as to how to enter into the Dharma of Non-duality. Some replied, “Birth and death are two, but the Dharma itself was never born and will never die. Those who understand this are said to enter into the Dharma of Non-duality.” Some said, “ ‘I’ and ‘mine’ are two. Because I think ‘I am’ there are things called ‘mine.’ But as there is no ‘I am’ where shall we look for things ‘mine’? By thus reflecting we enter into the Dharma of Non-duality.” Some replied, “Samsâra and Nirvâna are two. But when we understand the ultimate nature of Samsâra, Samsâra vanishes from our consciousness, and there is neither bondage nor release, neither birth nor death. By thus reflecting we enter into the Dharma of Non-duality”. Others said, “Ignorance and enlightenment are two. No ignorance, no enlightenment, and there is no dualism. Why? Because those who have entered a meditation in which there is no sense-impression, no cogitation, are free from ignorance as well as from enlightenment. This holds true with all the other dualistic categories. Those who enter thus into the thought of sameness are said to enter into the Dharma of Non-duality.” Still others answered, “To long for Nirvâna and to shun worldliness are of dualism. Long not for Nirvâna, shun not worldliness, and we are free from dualism. Why? Because bondage and release are relative terms, and when there is no bondage from the beginning, who wishes to be released? No bondage, no release, and therefore no longing, no shunning: this is called the entering into the Dharma of Non-duality.”
Many more answers of similar nature came forth from all the Bodhisattvas in the assembly except the leader Mañjuçri. Vimalakîrti now requested him to give his own view, and to this Mañjuçri responded, “What I think may be stated thus: That which is in all beings wordless, speechless, shows no signs, is not possible of cognisance, and is above all questionings and answerings,—to know this is said to enter into the Dharma of Non-duality.”
Finally, the host Vimalakîrti himself was demanded by Mañjuçri to express his idea of Non-duality, but he kept completely silent and uttered not a word. Thereupon, Mañjuçri admiringly exclaimed, “Well done, well done! The Dharma of Non-duality is truly above letters and words!”[53]
Now, of this Suchness, the Mahâyânists distinguish two aspects, as it is comprehended by our consciousness, which are conditional and non-conditional, or the phenomenal world of causality and the transcendental realm of absolute freedom. This distinction corresponds to that, in the field of knowledge, of relative truth and transcendental truth.[54]
Suchness Conditioned.
Absolute transcendental Suchness defying all means of characterisation does not, as long as it so remains, have any direct significance in the phenomenal world and human life. When it does, it must become conditional Suchness as Gesetzmässigkeit in nature and as ethical order in our practical life. Suchness as absolute is too remote, too abstract, and may have only a metaphysical value. Its existence or non-existence seems not to affect us in our daily social life, inasmuch as it is transcendental. In order to enter into our limited consciousness, to become the norm of our conscious activities, to regulate the course of the evolutionary tide in nature, Suchness must surrender its “splendid isolation,” must abandon its absoluteness.
When Suchness thus comes down from its sovereign-seat in the realm of unthinkability, we have this universe unfolded before our eyes in all its diversity and magnificence. Twinkling stars inlaid in the vaulted sky; the planet elaborately decorated with verdant meadows, towering mountains, and rolling waves; the birds cheerfully singing in the woods; the beasts wildly running through the thickets; the summer heavens ornamented with white fleecy clouds and on earth all branches and leaves growing in abundant luxury; the winter prairie destitute of all animation, only with naked trees here and there trembling in the dreary north winds; all these manifestations, not varying a hair’s breadth of deviation from their mathematical, astronomical, physical, chemical, and biological laws, are naught else than the work of conditional Suchness in nature.
When we turn to human life and history, we have the work of conditional Suchness manifested in all forms of activity as passions, aspirations, imaginations, intellectual efforts, etc. It makes us desire to eat when hungry, and to drink when thirsty; it makes the man long for the woman, and the woman for the man; it keeps children in merriment and frolic; it braces men and women bravely to carry the burden of life. When we are oppressed, it causes us to cry, “Let us have liberty or die”; when we are treated with injustice, it leads us even to murder and fire and revolution; when our noble sentiments are aroused to the highest pitch, it makes us ready to sacrifice all that is most dear to us. In brief, all the kaleidoscopic changes of this phenomenal world, subjective as well as objective, come from the playing hands of conditional Suchness It not only constitutes the goodness and blessings of life, but the sins, crimes, and misery which the flesh is heir to.[55]
Açvaghoṣa in his Awakening of Faith speaks of the Heart (hṛdaya) of Suchness and of the Heart of Birth-and-Death. By the Heart of Suchness he means the absolute and by the Heart of Birth-and-Death a manifestation of the absolute in this world of particulars. “They are not separate,” however, says he, but they are one, for the Heart of Suchness is the Heart of Birth-and-Death. It is on account of our limited senses and finite mind that we have a world of particulars, which, as it is, is no more than a fragment of the absolute Bhûtatathâtâ. And yet it is through this fragmentary manifestation that we are finally enabled to reach the fundamental nature of being in its entirety. Says Açvaghoṣa, “Depending on the Tathâgata-garbha, there evolves the Heart of Birth-and-Death. What is immortal and what is mortal are harmoniously blended, for they are not one, nor are they separate..... Herein all things are organised. Hereby all things are created.”
The above is from the ontological standpoint. When viewed psychologically, the Heart of Suchness is enlightenment, for Buddhism makes no distinction between being and thought, world and mind. The ultimate nature of the two is considered to be absolutely one. Now, speaking of the nature of enlightenment, Açvaghoṣa says: “It is like the emptiness of space and the brightness of the mirror in that it is true, and real, and great. It completes and perfects all things. It is free from the condition of destructibility. In it is reflected every phase of life and activity in the world. Nothing goes out of it, nothing enters into it, nothing is annihilated, nothing is destroyed. It is one eternal soul, no forms of defilement can defile it. It is the essence of intelligence. By reason of its numerous immaculate virtues which inhere in it, it perfumes the hearts of all beings.” Thus, the Heart of Suchness, which is enlightenment and the essence of intelligence, constantly works in and through the hearts of all human beings, that is, in and through our finite minds. In this sense, Buddhism declares that truth is not to be sought in highly abstract philosophical formulæ, but in the phenomena of our everyday life such as eating, dressing, walking, sleeping, etc. The Heart of Suchness acts and does not abstract; it synthesises and does not “dissect to murder.”
Questions Defying Solution.
Speaking of the world as a manifestation of Suchness, we are here beset with the most puzzling questions that have baffled the best minds ever since the dawn of intellect. They are: Why did Suchness ever leave its abode in the mysterious realm of transcendentality and descend on earth where every form of misery greets us on all sides? What inherent necessity was there for it to mingle in the dust of worldliness while it could enjoy the unspeakable bliss of its own absoluteness? In other words, why did absolute Suchness ever become conditional Suchness? To dispose of these questions as not concerning human interests is the creed of agnosticism and positivism; but the fact is, they are not questions whimsically framed by the human mind when it was in the mood of playing with itself. They are queries of the most vital importance ever put to us, and the significance of life entirely hangs on our interpretation of them.
Buddhism confesses that the mystery is unsolvable purely by the human mind, for it is absolutely beyond the region of finite intellect and the power of a logical demonstrability. The mystery can only be solved in a practical way when we attain the highest spiritual enlightenment of Buddhahood, in which the Bodhi with its unimpeded supernatural light directly looks into the very abyss of Suchness. The Bodhi or Intelligence which constitutes the kernel of our being, is a partial realisation in us of Suchness. When this intelligence is merged and expands in the Body of Suchness, as the water in a vessel poured into the waters of the boundless ocean, it at once perceives and realises its nature, its destiny, and its significance in life.
Buddhism is a religion and leaves many topics of metaphysics unsolved, at least logically. Though it is more intellectual and philosophical than any other religion, it does not pretend to build a complete system of speculation. As far as theorisation is concerned, Buddhism is dogmatic and assumes many propositions without revealing their dialectical processes. But they are all necessary and fundamental hypotheses of the religious consciousness; they are the ultimate demands of the human soul. Religion has no positive obligation to prove its propositions after the fashion of the natural sciences. It is enough for religion to state the facts as they are, and the intellect, though hampered by limitations inherent in it, has to try her best to put them together in a coherent system.
The solution, then, by Buddhism of those queries stated above cannot be said to be very logical and free from serious difficulties, but practically it serves all required purposes and is conducive to religious discipline. By this I mean the Buddhist theory of Nescience or Ignorance (avidyâ).
Theory of Ignorance.
The theory of nescience or ignorance (avidyâ) is an attempt by Buddhists to solve the relation between the one and the many, between absolute Suchness and conditional Suchness, between Dharmakâya and Sarvasattva, between wisdom (bodhi) and sin (kleça), between Nirvâna and Samsâra. But Buddhism does not give us any systematic exposition of the doctrine. What it says is categorical and dogmatic. “This universe is really the Dharmadhâtu;[56] it is characterised by sameness (samatâ); there is no differentiation (visama) in it; it is even emptiness itself (çûnyatâ); all things have no pudgala (self). But, because of nescience, there are four or six mahâbhûta (elements), five skandha (aggregates), six (or eight) vijñâna (senses), and twelve nidâna (chains of causation). All these names and forms (nâmarûpa) are of nescience or ignorance.” Or, according to Açvaghoṣa, “The Heart of Suchness is the vast All of one Dharmadhâtu; it is the essence of all doctrines. The ultimate nature does not perish, nor does it decay. All particular objects exist because of confused subjectivity (smṛti).[57] Independent of confused subjectivity, there is no outside world to be perceived and discriminated.” “Everything that is subject to the law of birth and death exists only because of ignorance and karma.” Such statements as these are found almost everywhere in the Buddhist literature; but as to the question how and why this negative principle of ignorance came to assert itself in the body of Suchness, we are at a loss where to find an authoritative and definite answer to it.
One thing, however, is certain, which is this: Ignorance (avidyâ) is principium individium, that creates the multitudinousness of phenomena in the absolute oneness of being, that tosses up the roaring billows of existence in the eternal ocean of Suchness, that breaks the silence of Nirvâna and starts the wheel of metempsychosis perpetually rolling, that, veiling the transpicuous mirror of Bodhi, affects the reflection of Suchness therein, that transforms the sameness (samatâ) of Suchness to the duality of thisness and thatness and leads many confused minds to egoism with all its pernicious corollaries.
Perhaps, the best way to attack the problem of ignorance is to understand that Buddhism is a thoroughly idealistic doctrine as every true religion should be, and that psychologically, and not ontologically, should Suchness be conceived, and further, that nescience is inherent in Suchness, though only hypothetically, illusively, apparently, and not really in any sense.
According to Brahmanism, there was in the beginning only one being; and this being willed to be two; which naturally resulted in the differentiation of subject and object, mind and nature. In Buddhism, however, Suchness is not explicitly stated as having had any desire to be other than itself, at least when it is purely metaphysically conceived. But as Buddhism interprets this world of particularisation as a manifestation of Suchness conditioned by the principle of ignorance, ignorance must be considered, however illusory in its ultimate nature, to have potentially or rather negatively existed in the being of Suchness; and when Suchness, by its transcendental freedom of will, affirmed itself, it did so by negating itself, that is, by permitting itself to be conditioned by the principle of ignorance or individuation. The latter, as is expressly stated everywhere in Buddhist sûtras and çâstras, is no more than an illusion and a negative quantity, it is merely the veil of Mâya. This chimerical nature of ignorance preserves the essential absoluteness of the first principle and makes the monism of the Mahâyâna doctrine thoroughly consistent. What is to be noted here, however, is this: Buddhism does not necessarily regard this world of particulars as altogether evanescent and dream-like. When ignorance alone is taken notice of and the presence of Suchness in all this multitudinousness of things is denied, this existence is positively declared to be void. But when an enlightened mind perceives Suchness even in the midst of the utter darkness of ignorance, this life assumes an entirely new aspect, and we come to realise the illusiveness of all evils.
To return to the subject, ignorance or nescience is defined by Açvaghoṣa as a spark of consciousness[58] that spontaneously flashes from the unfathomable depths of Suchness. According to this, ignorance and consciousness are interchangeable terms, though with different shades of meaning. Ignorance is, so to speak, the raison d’être of consciousness, is that which makes the appearance of the latter possible, while ignorance itself is in turn an illusive emanation of Suchness. It is then evident that the awakening of consciousness marks the first step toward the rising of this universe from the abyss of the self-identity of Suchness. For the unfolding of consciousness implies the separation of the perceiving and the perceived, the viṣayin and the viṣaya, of subject and object, mind and nature.
The eternal abyss of Suchness, so called, is the point where subjectivity and objectivity are merged in absolute oneness. It is the time, though strictly speaking chronology does not apply here, when all “the ten thousand things” of the world have not yet been differentiated and even when the God who “created the heaven and earth” has not yet made his debut. To use psychological terms, it is a state of transcendental or transmarginal consciousness, where all sense-perceptions and conceptual images vanish, and where we are in a state of absolute unconsciousness. This sounds mystical; but it is an established fact that in the field of our mental activities there is an abyss where consciousness sometimes suddenly disappears. This region beyond the threshold of awaredness, though often a trysting place for psychical abnormalities, has a great religious significance, which cannot be ignored by superficial scientific arguments. Here is the region where the consciousness of subject and object is completely annihilated, but here we do not have the silence and darkness of a grave, nor is it a state of absolute nothingness. The self is here lost in the presence of something indescribable, or better, it expands so as to embrace the world-all within itself, and is not conscious of any egoistic elation or arrogance; but it merely feels the fulness of reality and a touch of celestial joy that cannot be imparted to others by anything human. The most convincing spiritual insight into the nature of being comes from this source. Enlightenment is the name given by Buddhists to the actual gaining of this insight. Bodhi or Prajñâ or intelligence is the term for the spiritual power that brings about this enlightenment.
When the mind emerges from this state of sameness, consciousness spontaneously comes back as it vanished before, retaining the memory of the experience so unique and now confronting the world of contrasts and mutual dependence, in which our empirical ego moves. The transition from one state to the other is like a flash of lightning scintilating from behind the clouds; though the two, the subliminal and the superficial consciousness, seem to be one continuous form of activity, permitting no hiatus between them. At any rate, this awakening of subjectivity and the leaving behind of transmarginal consciousness marks the start of ignorance. Therefore, psychologically speaking, ignorance must be considered synonymous with the awakening of consciousness in a sentient being.
Here we have the most mysterious fact that baffles all our intellectual efforts to unravel, which is: How and why has ignorance, or what is tantamount, consciousness, ever been awakened from the absolute calmness (çānti) of being? How and why have the waves of mentation ever been stirred up in the ocean of eternal tranquillity? Açvaghoṣa simply says, “spontaneously.” This by no means explains anything, or at least it is not in the line with our so-called scientific interpretations, nor does it give us any reason why. Nevertheless, religiously and practically viewed, “spontaneous” is the most graphic and vigorous term there is for describing the actual state of things as they pass before our mental eye. In fact, there is always something vague and indefinite in all our psychological experiences. With whatever scientific accuracy, with whatever objective precision we may describe the phenomena that take place in the mind, there is always something that eludes our scrutiny, is too slippery, as it were, to take hold of; so that after all our strenuous intellectual efforts to be exact and perspicuous in our expositions, we are still compelled to leave much to the imagination of the reader. In case he happens to be lacking in the experience which we have endeavored to describe we shall vainly hope to awaken in him the said impression with the same degree of intensity and realness.
It is for this reason that Açvaghoṣa and other Mahâyânists declare that the rising of consciousness out of the abysmal depths of Suchness is felt by Buddhas and other enlightened minds only that have actually gone through the experience. The why of ignorance nobody can explain as much as the why of Suchness. But when we personally experience this spiritual fact, we no more feel the need of harboring any doubt about how or why. Everything becomes transparent, and the rays of supernatural enlightenment shine like a halo round our spiritual personality. We move as dictated by the behest of Suchness, i.e., by the Dharmakâya, and in which we feel infinite bliss and satisfaction. This religious experience is the most unique phenomenon in the life of a sentient being.
Dualism and Moral Evil.
As we cannot think that the essence of the external world to be other than that of our own mind, that is to say, as we cannot think subject and object to be different in their ultimate nature, our conclusion naturally is that the same principle of Ignorance which gathers the clouds of subjectivity, calls up the multitudinousness of phenomena in the world-mind of Suchness. The universe in its entirety is an infinite mind, and our limited mind with its transmarginal consciousness is a microcosm. What the finite mind feels in its inmost self, must also be what the cosmic mind feels; nay, we can go one step further, and say that when the human mind enters the region lying beyond the border of subjectivity and objectivity, it is in communion with the heart of the universe, whose secrets are revealed here without reserve. Therefore, Buddhism does not make any distinction between knowing and being, enlightenment and Suchness. When the mind is free from ignorance and no more clings to things particular, it is said to be in harmony and even one with Suchness.
We must, however, remember that ignorance as the principle of individuation and a spontaneous expression of Suchness, is no moral evil. The awakening of subjectivity or the dawn of consciousness forms part of the necessary cosmic process. The separation of subject and object, or the appearance of a phenomenal world, is nothing but a realisation of the cosmic mind (Dharmakâya). As such Ignorance performs an essential function in the evolution of the world-totality. Ignorance is inherent in Buddhas as well as in all sentient beings. Every one of us cannot help perceiving an external world (viṣaya) and forming conceptions and reasoning and feeling and willing. We do not see any moral fault here. If there is really anything morally wrong, then we cannot do anything with it, we are utterly helpless before it, for it is not our fault, but that of the cosmic soul from which and in which we have our being.
Ignorance has produced everywhere a state of relativity and reciprocal dependence. Birth is inseparably linked with death, congregation with segregation, evolution with involution, attraction with repulsion, the centripetal with the centrifugal force, the spring with the fall, the tide with the ebb, joy with sorrow, God with Satan, Adam with Eve, Buddha with Devadatta, etc., etc., ad infinitum. These are necessary conditions of existence; and if existence is an evil, they must be abolished, and with their abolition the very reason of existence is abolished, which means absolute nothingness, an impossibility as long as we exist. The work of ignorance in the world of conditional Suchness is quite innocent, and Buddhists do not recognise any fault in its existence, if not contaminated by confused subjectivity. Those who speak of the curse of existence, or those who conceive Nirvâna to be the abode of non-existence and the happiness of absolute annihilation, are considered by Buddhists to be unable to understand the significance of Ignorance.
Is there then no fault to be found with Ignorance? Not in Ignorance itself, but in our defiled attachment to it, that is, when we are ignorant of Ignorance. It is wrong to cling to the dualism of subject and object as final and act accordingly. It is wrong to take the work of ignorance as ultimate and to forget the foundation on which it stands. It is wrong, thinking that the awakening of consciousness reveals the whole world, to ignore the existence of unseen realities. In short, evils quickly follow our steps when we try to realise the conclusions of ignorance without knowing its true relation to Suchness. Egoism is the most fundamental of all errors and evils.
When we speak of ignorance as hindering the light of intelligence from penetrating to the bottom of reality, we usually understand the term ignorance not in the philosophical sense of principium individuum, but in the sense of confused subjectivity, which conceives the work of Ignorance as the final reality culminating in egoism. So, we might say that while the principle of Ignorance is philosophically justified, its unenlightened actualisation in our practical life is altogether unwarranted and brings on us a series of dire calamities.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TATHÂGATA-GARBHA AND THE
ÂLAYA-VIJÑÂNA.
Suchness (Bhûtatathâtâ), the ultimate principle of existence, is known by so many different names, as it is viewed in so many different phases of its manifestation. Suchness is the Essence of Buddhas, as it constitutes the reason of Buddhahood; it is the Dharma, when it is considered the norm of existence; it is the Bodhi when it is the source of intelligence; Nirvana, when it brings eternal peace to a heart troubled with egoism and its vile passions; Prajñâ (wisdom), when it intelligently directs the course of nature; the Dharmakâya, when it is religiously considered as the fountain-head of love and wisdom; the Bodhicitta (intelligence-heart), when it is the awakener of religious consciousness; Çûnyatâ (vacuity), when viewed as transcending all particular forms; the summum bonum (kuçalam), when its ethical phase is emphasised; the Highest Truth (paramârtha), when its epistemological feature is put forward; the Middle Path (mâdhyamârga), when it is considered above the onesidedness and limitation of individual existences; the Essence of Being (bhûtakoti), when its ontological aspect is taken into account; the Tathâgata-garbha (the Womb of Tathâgata), when it is thought of in analogy to mother earth, where all the germs of life are stored, and where all precious stones and metals are concealed under the cover of filth. And it is of this last aspect of Suchness that I here propose to consider at some length.
The Tathâgata-Garbha and Ignorance.
Tathâgata-Garbha literally means Tathâgata’s womb[59] or treasure or store, in which the essence of Tathâgatahood remains concealed under the veil of Ignorance. It may rightly be called the womb of universe, from which issues forth the multitudinousness of things, mental as well as physical.
The Tathâgata-Garbha, therefore, may be explained ontologically as a state of Suchness quickened by Ignorance and ready to be realised in the world of particulars, that is, when it is about to transform itself to the duality of subject and object, though there is yet no perceptible manifestation of motility in any form. Psychologically, it is the transcendental soul of man just coming under the bondage of the law of karmaic causation. Though pure and free in its nature as the expression of Suchness in man, the transcendental soul or pure intelligence is now influenced by the principle of birth-and-death and subjects itself to organic determinations. As it is, it is yet devoid of differentiation and limitation, save that there is a bare possibility of them. It will, however, as soon as it is actualised in a special form, unfold all its particularities subject to their own laws; it will hunger, desire, strive, and even be annoyed by its material bonds, and then, beginning to long for liberation, will struggle inwardly. Here is then no more of the absolute freedom of Suchness, as long as its phenomenal phase alone is considered, since the Garbha works under the constraint of particularisation. The essence of Tathâgatahood, however, is here preserved intact, and, whenever it is possible, our finite minds are able to feel its presence and power. Hypothetically, therefore, the Garbha is always in association with passions and desires that are of Ignorance.
We read in the Çrimâlâ-Sûtra: “With the storage of passions attached we find the Tathâgata-Garbha,” or, “The Dharmakâya of the Tathâgata not detached from the storage of passions is called Tathâgata-Garbha.” In Buddhism, passion or desire or sin (kleça) is generally used in contrast to intelligence or Bodhi or Nirvâna. As the latter, religiously considered, represents a particular manifestation in the human mind of the Dharmakâya or Bhûtatathâtâ, so the former is a reflection of universal Ignorance in the microcosm. Therefore, the human soul in which, according to Buddhism, intelligence and desire are merged, should be regarded as an individuation of the Tathâgata-Garbha. And it is in this capacity that the Garbha is called Âlayavijñâna.
The Âlayavijñâna and its Evolution.
As we have seen, the Âlayavijñâna or All-Conserving Soul is a particularised expression in the human mind of the Tathâgata-Garbha. It is an individual, ideal reflex of the cosmic Garbha. It is this “psychic germ,” as the Âlaya is often designated, that stores all the mental possibilities, which are set in motion by the impetus of an external world, which works on the Âlaya through the six senses (vijñâna).
Mahâyânism is essentially idealistic and does not make a radical, qualitative distinction between subject and object, thought and being, mind and nature, consciousness and energy. Therefore, the being and activity of the Âlaya are essentially those of the Garbha; and again, as the Garbha is the joint creation of universal Ignorance and Suchness, so is the Âlaya the product of desire (kleça) and wisdom (bodhi). The Garbha and the Âlaya, however, are each in itself innocent and absolutely irresponsible for the existing state of affairs. And let it be remarked here that Buddhism does not condemn this life and universe for their wickedness as was done by some religious teachers and philosophers. The so-called wickedness is not radical in nature and life. It is merely superficial. It is the work of ignorance and desire, and when they are converted to do service for the Bodhi, they cease to be wicked or sinful or evil. Buddhists, therefore, strongly insist on the innate and intrinsic goodness of the Âlaya and the Garbha.
Says Açvaghoṣa in his Awakening of Faith (p. 75): “In the All-Conserving Soul (Âlaya) Ignorance obtains, and from non-enlightenment [thus produced] starts that which sees, that which represents, that which apprehends an objective world, and that which constantly particularises.” Here we have the evolution of the Garbha in its psychological manifestation; in other words, we have here the evolution of the Âlayavijñâna. When the Garbha or Âlaya comes under the influence of birth-and-death (samsâra), it no longer retains its primeval indifference or sameness (samatâ); but there come to exist that which sees (viṣayin) and that which is seen (viṣaya), a mind and an objective world. From the interaction of these two forms of existence, we have now before our eyes the entire panorama of the universe swiftly and noiselessly moving with its never-tiring steps. A most favorite simile with Buddhists to illustrate these incessant activities of the phenomenal world, is to compare them to the waves that are seen forever rolling in a boundless ocean, while the body of waters which make up the ocean is compared to Suchness, and the wind that stirs up the waves to the principle of birth-and-death or ignorance which is the same thing. So we read in the Lankâvatâra Sûtra:
“Like unto the ocean-waves,
Which by a raging storm maddened
Against the rugged precipice strike
Without interruption;
Even so in the Alaya-sea
Stirred by the objectivity-wind
All kinds of mentation-waves
Arise a-dancing, a-rolling.”[60]
But all the psychical activities thus brought into full view, should not be conceived as different from the Mind (citta) itself. It is merely in the nature of our understanding that we think of attributes apart from their substance, the latter being imagined to be in possession and control of the former. There is, however, in fact no substance per se, independent of its attributes, and no attributes detached from that which unites them. And this is one of the fundamental conceptions of Buddhism, that there is no soul-in-itself considered apart from its various manifestations such as imagination, sensation, intellectuation, etc. The innumerable ripples and waves and billows of mentation that are stirred in the depths of the Tathâgata-Garbha, are not things foreign or external to it, but they are all particular expressions of the same essence, they are working out its immanent destiny. So continues the Lankâvatâra Sûtra:
“The saline crystal and its red-bluishness,
The milky sap and its sweetness,
Various flowers and their fruits,
The sun and the moon and their luminosity:
These are neither separable nor inseparable.
As waves are stirred in the water,
Even so the seven modes of mentation
Are awakened in the Mind and united with it.
When the waters are troubled in the ocean,
We have waves that roll each in its own way:
So with the Mind All-Conserving.
When stirred, therein diverse mentations arise:
Citta, Manas, and Manovijñâna.
These we distinguish as attributes,
In substance they differ not from each other;
For they are neither attributing nor attributed.
The sea-water and the waves,
One varies not from the other:
It is even so with the Mind and its activities;
Between them difference nowhere obtains.
Citta is karma-accumulating,
Manas reflects an objective world,
Manovijñâna is the faculty of judgment,
The five Vijñânas are the differentiating senses.”[61]
The Manas.
The Âlayavijñâna which is sometimes, as in the preceding quotations, simply called citta (mind), is, as such, no more than a state of Suchness, allowing itself to be influenced by the principle of birth-and-death, i.e., by Ignorance; and there has in it taken place as yet no “awakening” or “stirring up” (vṛtti), from which results a consciousness. When the Manas is evolved, however, we have a sign of mentality thereby set in motion, for the Manas, according to the Mahâyânists, marks the dawn of consciousness in the universe.
The Manas, deriving its reason of consciousness from the Citta or Âlaya, reflects on it as well as on an external world, and becomes conscious of the distinction between me and not-me. But since this not-I or external world is nothing but an unfoldment of the Âlaya itself, the Manas must be said really to be self-reflecting, when it discriminates between subject and object. If the Âlaya is not yet conscious of itself, the Manas is, as the latter comes to realise the state of self-awareness. The Âlaya is perhaps to be compared in a sense to the Kantian “ego of transcendental apperception”; while the Manas is the actual center of self-consciousness. But the Manas and the Âlaya (or Citta) are not two different things in the sense that one emanates from the other or that one is created by the other. It is better to understand the Manas as a state or condition of the Citta in its evolution.
Now, the Manas is not only contemplative, but capable of volition. It awakens the desire to cling to the state of individuation, it harbors egoism, passion, and prejudice; it wills and creates: for Ignorance, the principle of birth-and-death, is there in its full force, and the absolute identity of Suchness is here forever departed. Therefore, the Manas really marks the beginning of concrete, particularising consciousness-waves in the eternal ocean of the All-Conserving Mind. The mind which was hitherto indifferent and neutral here acquires a full consciousness; discriminates between ego and non-ego; feels pain and pleasure; clings to that which is agreeable and shrinks from that which is disagreeable; urges activities according to judgments, false or truthful; memorises what has been experienced, and stores it all:—in short, all the modes of mentation come into play with the awakening of the Manas.
According to Açvaghoṣa, with the evolution of the Manas there arise five important psychical activities which characterise the human mind. They are: (1) motility, that is the capability of creating karma; (2) the power to perceive; (3) the power to respond; (4) the power to discriminate; and (5) individuality. Through the exercise of these five functions, the Manas is able to create according to its will, to be a perceiving subject, to respond to the stimuli of an external world, to deliver judgments over what it likes and what it dislikes, and finally to retain all its own “karma-seeds” in the past and to mature them for the future, according to circumstances.
With the advent of the Manas, the evolution of the Citta is complete. Practically, it is the consummation of mentality, for self-consciousness is ripe now. The will can affirm its ego-centric, dualistic activities, and the intellect can exercise its discriminating, reasoning, and image-retaining faculties. The Manas now becomes the center of psychic coördination. It receives messages from the six senses and pronounces over the impressions whatever judgments, intellectual or volitional, which are needed at the time for its own conservation. It also reflects on its own sanctum, and, perceiving there the presence of the Âlaya, wrongfully jumps to the conclusion that herein lies the real, ultimate ego-soul, from which it derives the notions of authority, unity, and permanency.
As is evident, the Manas is a double-edged sword. It may destroy itself by clinging to the error of ego-conception, or it may, by a judicious exercise of its reasoning faculty, destroy all the misconceptions that arise from a wrong interpretation of the principle of Ignorance. The Manas destroys itself by being overwhelmed by the dualism of ego and alter, by taking them for final, irreducible realities, and by thus fostering absolute ego-centric thoughts and desires, and by making itself a willing prey of an indomitable egoism, religiously and morally. On the other hand, when it sees an error in the conception of the absolute reality of individuals, when it perceives a play of Ignorance in the dualism of me and not-me, when it recognises the raison d’être of existence in the essence of Tathâgatahood, i.e., in Suchness, when it realises that the Âlaya which is mistaken for the ego is no more than an innocent and irreproachable reflection of the cosmic Garbha, it at once transcends the sphere of particularity and becomes the very harbinger of eternal enlightenment.
Buddhists, therefore, do not see any error or evil in the evolution of the Mind (âlaya). There is nothing faulty in the awakening of consciousness, in the dualism of subject and object, in the individualising operation of birth-and-death (samsâra), only so long as our Manas keeps aloof from the contamination of false egoism. The gravest error, however, permeates every fiber of our mind with all its wickedness and irrationality, as soon as the nature of the evolution of the Âlaya is wrongfully interpreted by the abuse of the functions of the Manas.[62]
Though Mahâyânism most emphatically denies the existence of a personal ego which is imagined to be lodging within the body and to be the spiritual master of it, it does not necessarily follow that it denies the unity of consciousness or personality or individuality. In fact, the assumption of Manovijñâna by Buddhists most conclusively proves that they have an ego in a sense, the denial of whose empirical existence is tantamount to the denial of the most concrete facts of our daily experiences. What is most persistently negated by them is not the existence of ego, but its final, ultimate reality. But to discuss this subject more fully we have a special chapter below devoted to “Âtman.”
The Sâmkhya Philosophy and Mahâyânism.
If we draw a comparison between the Sâmkhya philosophy and Mahâyânism, the Âlayavijñâna may be considered an unification of Soul (puruṣa) and Nature (prakṛtî), and the Manovijñâna a combination of Buddhi (intellect) or Mahat (great element) with Ahankâra (ego). According to the Sâmkhyakârika (11), the essential nature of Prakṛtî is the power of creation, or, to use Buddhist phraseology, it is blind activity; while that of Puruṣa is witnessing (sakṣitvâ) and perceiving (drastṛtvâ). (The Kârika, 19.) A modern philosopher would say, Puruṣa is intelligence and Prakṛtî the will; and when they are combined and blended in one, they make Hartmann’s Unbewusste Geist (unconscious spirit). The All-Conserving Mind (Âlaya) in a certain sense resembles the Unconscious, as it is the manifestation of Suchness, the principle of enlightenment, in its evolutionary aspect as conditioned by Ignorance; and Ignorance apparently corresponds to the will as the principle of blind activity. The Sâmkhya philosophy is an avowed dualism and permits the existence of two principles independent of each other. Mahâyânism is fundamentally monistic and makes Ignorance merely a condition necessary to the unfolding of Suchness.[63] Therefore, what the Sâmkhya splits into two, Mahâyânism puts together in one.
So is the parallelism between the Manovijñâna, and Buddhi and Ahankâra. Buddhi, intellect, is defined as adhyavasâya (Kârika, 23), while Ahankâra is interpreted as abhimanas (Kârika, 24), which is evidently self-consciousness. As to the exact meaning of adhyavasâya, there is a divergence of opinion: “ascertainment,” “judgment,” “determination,” “apprehension” are some of the English equivalents chosen for it. But the inner signification of Buddhi is clear enough; it indicates the awakening of knowledge, the dawn of rationality, the first shedding of light on the dark recesses of unconsciousness; so the commentators give as the synonyms mati (understanding), khyâti (cognition), jñânam, prajñâ, etc., the last two of these, which mean knowledge or intelligence, being also technical terms of Mahâyânism. And, as we have seen above, these senses are what the Buddhists give to their Manovijñâna, save that the latter in addition has the faculty of discriminating between teum and meum, while in the Sâmkhya this is reserved for Ahankâra. Thus, here, too, in place of the Sâmkhya dualism, we have the Buddhist unity.
Another point we have to take notice here in comparing the two great Hindu religio-philosophical systems, is that the Sâmkhya philosophy pluralises the Soul (puruṣa, Kârika, 18), while Buddhism postulates one universal Citta or Âlaya. According to the followers of Kapila, therefore, there must be as many souls as there are individuals, and at every departure or advent of an individual there must be assumed a corresponding soul passing away or coming into existence, though we do not know its whence and whither. Buddhism, on the other hand, denies the existence of any individual mind apart from the All-Conserving Mind (Âlaya) which is universal. Individuality first appears at the awakening of the Manovijñâna. The quintessence of the Mind is Suchness and is not subject to the limitations of time and space as well as the law of causation. But as soon as it asserts itself in the world of particularisation, it negates itself thereby, and, becoming specialised, gives rise to individual souls.[64]
CHAPTER VII.
THE THEORY OF NON-ATMAN OR NON-EGO.
If I am requested to formulate the ground-principles of the philosophy of Mahâyâna Buddhism, and, indeed, of all the schools of Buddhism, I would suggest the following:
(1) All is momentary (sarvam kṣanikam).
(2) All is empty (sarvam çûnyam).
(3) All is without self (sarvam anâtmam).
(4) All is such as it is (sarvam tathâtvam).
These four tenets, as it were, are so closely interrelated that, stand or fall, they all inevitably share one and the same fate together. Whatever different views the various schools of Buddhism may hold on points of minor importance, they all concur at least on these four principal propositions.
Of these four propositions, the first, the second, and the fourth have been elucidated above, more or less explicitly. If the existence of a relative world is the work of ignorance and as such has no final reality, it must be considered illusory and empty; though it does not necessarily follow that on this account our life is not worth living. We must not confuse the moral value of existence with the ontological problem of its phenomenality. It all depends on our subjective attitude whether or not our world and life become full of significance. When the illusiveness or phenomenality of individual existences is granted and we use the world accordingly, that is, “as not abusing it,” we escape the error and curse of egoism and take things as they are presented to us, as reflecting the Dharma of Suchness. We no more cling to forms of particularity as something ultimate and absolutely real and as that in which lies the essence of our life. We take them for such as they are, and recognise their reality only in so far as they are considered a partial realisation of Suchness, and do not go any further. Suchness, indeed, lies not hidden behind them, but exists immanently in them. Things are empty and illusory so long as they are particular things and are not thought of in reference to the All that is Suchness and Reality.
From this, it logically follows that in this world of relativity all is momentary, that nothing is permanent, so far as isolated, particular existences are concerned. Even independently of the statement made above, the doctrine of universal impermanency is an almost self-evident truth experienced everywhere, and does not require any special demonstration to prove its validity. The desire for immortality which is so conspicuous and persistent in all the stages of development of the religious consciousness that the very desire has been thought to be the essence of all religious systems, is the most conclusive proof that things on this earth are in a constant flux of becoming, and that there is nothing permanent or stationary in our individual existences; if otherwise, people would never have sought for immortality.
If this be granted as a fact of our everyday experience, we naturally ask: “Why are things so changeable? Why is life so fleeting? What is it that makes things so mutable and transitory?” To this, the Buddhist’s answer is: Because the universe is a resultant product of many efficient forces that are acting according to different karmas;—the destiny of those forces being that no one force or no one set of forces can constantly be predominant over all the others, but that when one has exhausted its potential karma, it is replaced by another that has been steadily coming forward in the meantime. Hence the universal cadence of birth and death, of the spring and the fall, of the tide and the ebb, of integration and disintegration. Where there is attraction, there is repulsion; where there is the centripetal force, there is the centrifugal force. Because it is the law of karma that at the very moment of birth the arms of death are around the neck of life. The universe is nothing but a grand rhythmic manifestation of certain forces working in conformity to their predetermined laws; or, to use Buddhist terminology, this lokadhâtu (material world) consists in a concatenation of hetus (causes) and pratyayas (conditions) regulated by their karma. If this were not so, there would be either a certain fixed state of things in which perfect equilibrium would be maintained, or an inexpressible confusion of things of which no knowledge or experience would be possible. In the former case, we should have universal stagnation and eternal death; in the latter case, there would be no universe, no life, nothing but absolute chaos. Therefore, so long as we have the world before us, in which all the possible varieties of particularisation are manifested it cannot be otherwise than in a state of constant vicissitudes and therefore of universal transitoriness.
Now, the Buddhist argument for the theory of non-ego is this: If individual existences are due to relations obtaining between diverse forces, which act sometimes in unison with and sometimes in opposition to one another as predetermined by their karma, they cannot be said to have any transcendental agency behind them, which is a permanent unity and absolute dictator. In other words, there is no âtman or ego-soul behind our mental activities, and no thing-in-itself (svabhâva), so to speak, behind each particular form of existence. This is called the Buddhist theory of non-âtman or non-ego.
Âtman.
Buddhists use the term “âtman” in two senses: first, in the sense of personal ego,[65] and secondly, in that of thing-in-itself, perhaps, with a slight modification of its commonly accepted meaning. Let us use the term “âtman” here in its first sense as equivalent to bhûtâtman, for we are going first to treat of the doctrine of non-ego, and later of that of no-thing-in-itself.
Âtman is usually translated “life,” “ego,” or “soul,”[66] and is a technical term used both by Vedanta philosophers and Buddhists. But we have to note at the beginning that they do not use the term in the same sense. When the Vedanta philosophy, especially the later one, speaks of âtman as our inmost self which is identical with the universal Brahma, it is used in its most abstract metaphysical sense and does not mean the soul whatever, as the latter is commonly understood by vulgar minds. On the other hand, Buddhists understand by âtman this vulgar, materialistic conception of the soul (bhûtâtman) and positively denies its existence as such. If we, for convenience’ sake, distinguish between phenomenal and noumenal in our notion of ego or soul, the âtman of Buddhism is the phenomenal ego, namely, a concrete agent that is supposed to do the acting, thinking, and feeling; while the âtman of Vedantists is the noumenal ego as the raison d’être of our psychical life. The one is in fact material, however ethereal it might be conceived. The other is a highly metaphysical conception transcending the reach of human discursive knowledge. The latter may be identified with Paramâtman and the former with Jîvâtman. Paramâtman is a universal soul from which, according to Vedantism, emanates this world of phenomena, and in a certain sense it may be said to correspond to the Tathâgata-garbha of Buddhism. Jîvâtman is the ego-soul as it is conceived by ignorant people as an independent entity directing all the mental activities. It is this latter âtman that was found to be void by Buddha when he arose from his long meditation, declaring:
“Many a life to transmigrate,
Long quest, no rest, hath been my fate,
Tent-designer[67] inquisitive for:
Painful birth from state to state.
“Tent-designer! I know thee now;
Never again to build art thou:
Quite out are all thy joyful fires,
Rafter broken and roof-tree gone,
Gain eternity—dead desires.”[68]
Buddha’s First Line of Inquiry.
Buddhism finds the source of all evils and sufferings in the vulgar material conception of the ego-soul, and concentrates its entire ethical force upon the destruction of the ego-centric notions and desires. The Buddha seems, since the beginning of his wandering life, to have conceived the idea that the way of salvation must lie somehow in the removal of this egoistic prejudice, for so long as we are not liberated from its curse we are liable to become the prey of the three venomous passions: covetousness, infatuation, and anger, and to suffer the misery of birth and death and disease and old age. Thus, when he received his first instructions from the Sâmkhya philosopher, Arada, he was not satisfied, because he did not teach how to abandon this ego-soul itself. The Buddha argued: “I consider that the embodied ego-soul, though freed from the evolvent-evolutes,[69] is still subject to the condition of birth and has the condition of a seed. The seed may remain dormant so long as it is deprived of the opportunity of coming into contact with the requisite conditions of quickening and being quickened, but since its germinating power has not been destroyed, it will surely develop all its potentialities as soon as it is brought into that necessary contact. Even though the ego-soul free from entanglement [i.e. from the bondage of Prakṛti] is declared to be liberated, yet, so long as the ego-soul remains, there can be no absolute abandonment of it, there can be no real abandonment of egoism.”[70]
The Buddha then proceeds to indicate the path through which he reached his final conclusion and declares: “There is no real separation of the qualities and their subject; for fire cannot be conceived apart from its heat and form.” When this argument is logically carried out, it leads nowhere but to the Buddhist doctrine of non-âtman, that says: The existence of an ego-soul cannot be conceived apart from sensation, perception, imagination, intelligence, volition, etc., and, therefore, it is absurd to think that there is an independent individual soul-agent which makes our consciousness its workshop.
To imagine that an object can be abstracted from its qualities, not only logically but in reality, that there is some unknown quantity that is in possession of such and such characteristic marks (lakṣana) whereby it makes itself perceivable by our senses, says Buddhism, is wrong and unwarranted by reason. Fire cannot be conceived apart from its form and heat; waves cannot be conceived apart from the water and its commotion; the wheel cannot exist outside of its rim, spokes, axle, etc. All things, thus, are made of hetus and pratyayas, of causes and conditions, of qualities and attributes; and it is impossible for our pudgala or âtman or ego or soul to be any exception to this universal condition of things.
Let me in this connection state an interesting incident in the history of Chinese Buddhism. Hui-K’e, the second patriarch of the Dhyâna sect in China, was troubled with this ego-problem before his conversion. He was at first a faithful Confucian, but Confucianism did not satisfy all his spiritual wants. His soul was wavering between agnosticism and scepticism, and consequently he felt an unspeakable anguish in his inmost heart. When he learned of the arrival of Bodhidharma in his country, he hastened to his monastery and implored him to give him some spiritual advice. But Bodhidharma did not utter a word, being seemingly absorbed in his deep meditation. Hui-K’e, however, was determined to obtain from him some religious instructions at all hazards. So it is reported that he was standing at the same spot seven days and nights, when he at last cut off his left arm with the sword he was carrying (being a military officer) and placed it before Dharma, saying: “This arm is a token of my sincere desire to be instructed in the Holy Doctrine. My soul is troubled and annoyed; pray let your grace show me the way to pacify it.” Dharma quietly arose from his meditation and said: “Where is your soul? Bring it here and I will have it pacified.” Hui-K’e replied: “I have been searching for it all these years, but I have never succeeded in laying a hand on it.” Dharma then exclaimed: “There, I have your soul pacified!” At this, it is said, a flash of spiritual enlightenment went across the mind of Hui-K’e, and his “soul” was pacified once for all.
The Skandhas.
When the five skandhas are combined according to their previous karma and present a temporal existence in the form of a sentient being, vulgar minds imagine that they have here an individual entity sustained by an immortal ego-substratum. In fact, the material body (rûpakâya) alone is not what makes the ego-soul, nor the sensation (vedanâ), nor the deeds (sanskâra), nor the consciousness (vijñâna), nor the conception (samjñâ); but only when they are all combined in a certain form they make a sentient being. Yet this combination is not the work of a certain independent entity, which, according to its own will, combines the five skandhas in one form and then hides itself in it. The combination of the constituent elements, Buddhism declares, is achieved by themselves after their karma. When a certain number of atoms of hydrogen and of oxygen are brought together, they attract each other on their own accord or owing to their own karma, and the result is water. The ego of water, so to speak, did not will to bring the two elements and make itself out of them. Even so is it with the existence of a sentient being, and there is no need of hypostasising a fabulous ego-monster behind the combination of the five skandhas.
Skandha (khanda in Pâli) literally means “aggregate” or “agglomeration”, and, according to the Chinese exegetists, it is called so, because our personal existence is an aggregate of the five constituent elements of being, because it comes to take a definite individual form when the skandhas are brought together according to their previous karma. The first of the five aggregates is matter (rûpa), whose essential quality is thought to consist in resistance. The material part of our existence in the five sense-organs called indryas: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and the body. The second skandha is called sensation or sense-impression (vedanâ), which results from the contact of the six vijñânas (senses) with the viṣaya (external world). The third is called samjñâ which corresponds to our conception. It is the psychic power by which we are enabled to form the abstract images of particular objects. The fourth is sanskâra which may be rendered action or deed. Our intelligent consciousness, responding to impressions received which are either agreeable or disagreeable or indifferent, acts accordingly; and these acts bear fruit in the coming generations.
Sanskâra, the fourth constituent of being, comprises two categories, mental (caitta) and non-mental (cittaviprayukta). And the mental is subdivided into six: fundamental (mahâbhûmi), good (kuçala), tormenting (kleça), evil (akuçala), tormenting minor (upakleça), and indefinite (aniyata). It may be interesting to enumerate what all these sankâras are, as they shed light on the practical ethics of Buddhism.
There are ten fundamental sanskâras belonging to the category of mental or psychic activities: 1. cetanâ (mentation), 2. sparça (contact), 3. chanda (desire), 4. mati (understanding), 5. smṛti (recollection), 6. manaskara (concentration), 7. adhimokṣa (unfettered intelligence), 8. samâdhi (meditation). The ten good sanskâras are: 1. çraddhâ (faith), 2. vîrya (energy), 3. upekṣa (complacency), 4. hrî (modesty), 5. apatrapâ (shame), 6 alobha (non-covetousness), 7. adveṣa (freedom from hatred), 8. ahimsa (gentleness of heart), 9. praçradbhi (mental repose), 10. apramâda (attentiveness).
The six tormenting sanskâras are as follows: 1. moha (folly), 2. pramâda (wantonness), 3. kâusidya (indolence), 4. açrâddhya (scepticism), 5. styāna (slothfulness), 6. âuddhatpa (unsteadiness).
The two minor evil sanskâras are: 1. ahrîkatâ, state of not being modest, or arrogance, or self-assertiveness, and 2. anapatrapa, being lost to shame, or to be without conscience.
The ten minor tormenting sanskâras are: 1. krodha (anger), 2. mrakṣa (secretiveness), 3. mâtsarya (niggardliness), 4. îrṣya (envy). 5. pradâça (uneasiness), 6. vihimsâ (noxiousness), 7. upanâha (malignity), 8. mâyâ (trickiness), 9. çâthya (dishonesty), 10. mada (arrogance).
The eight indefinite sanskâras are: 1. kâukṛtya (repentance), 2. middha (sleep), 3. vitarka (inquiry), 4. vicâra (investigation), 5. râga (excitement), 6. pratigha (wrath), 7. mâna (self-reliance), 8. vicikitsâ (doubting).
The second grand category of sanskâra which is not included under “mental” or “psychic,” comprises fourteen items as follows: 1. prâpti (attainment), 2. aprâpti (non-attainment), 3. sabhâgatâ (grouping), 4 asanjñika (unconsciousness), 5. asanjñisamâpatti (unconscious absorption in religious meditation), 6. nirodhasamâpatti (annihilation-trance of a heretic), 7. jîvita (vitality), 8. jâti (birth), 9. sthiti (existing), 10. jarâ (decadence), 11. anityatâ (transitoriness), 12. nâmakâya (name), 13. padakâya (phrase), 14. vyañjanakâya (sentence).
Now, to return to the main problem. The fifth skandha is called vijñâna, commonly rendered consciousness, which, however, is not quite correct. The vijñâna is intelligence or mentality, it is the psychic power of discrimination, and in many cases it can be translated by sense. There are, according to Hînayânists, six vijñânas or senses: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactual, and cogitative; according to Mahâyânism there are eight vijñânas: the manovijñâna and the âlayavijñâna, being added to the above six. This psychological phase of Mahâyâna philosophy is principally worked out by the Yogâcâra school, whose leading thinkers are Asanga and Vasubandhu.
King Milinda and Nâgasena.
Buddhist literature, Northern as well as Southern, abounds with expositions of the doctrine of non-ego, as it is one of the most important foundation-stones on which the magnificent temple of Buddhism is built. The dialogue[71] between King Milinda and Nâgasena, among many others, is very interesting for various reasons and full of suggestive thoughts, and we have the following discussion of theirs concerning the problem of ego abstracted from the Dialogue.
At their first meeting the King asks Nâgasena, “How is your Reverence known, and what is your name?”
To this the monk-philosopher replies: “I am known as Nâgasena, and it is by that name that my brethren in the faith address me. But although parents give such a name as Nâgasena, or Sûrasena, Vîrasena, or Sîhasena, yet this Nâgasena and so on—is only a generally understood term, a designation in common use. For there is no permanent self involved in the matter.”
Being greatly surprised by this answer, the King volleys upon Nâgasena a series of questions as follows:
“If there be no permanent self involved in the matter, who is it, pray, who gives to you members of the Order your robes and food and lodging and necessaries for the sick? Who is it who enjoys such things when given? Who is it who lives a life of righteousness? Who is it who devotes himself to meditation? Who is it who attains to the goal of the Excellent Way, to the Nirvâna of Arhatship? And who is it who destroys living creatures? who is it who takes what is not his own? who is it who lives an evil life of worldly lusts, who speaks lies, who drinks strong drink, who in a word commits any one of the five sins which work out their bitter fruit even in this life? If that be so, there is neither merit nor demerit; there is neither doer nor cause of good or evil deeds; there is neither fruit nor result of good or evil karma. If we are to think that were a man to kill you there would be no murder,[72] then it follows that there are no real masters or teachers in your Order, that your ordinations are void. You tell me that your brethren in the Order are in the habit of addressing you as Nâgasena. Now, what is that Nâgasena? Do you mean to say that the hair is Nâgasena?”
This last query being denied by the Buddhist sage, the King asks: “Or is it the nails, the skin, the flesh, the nerves, the bones, the marrow, the kidneys, the heart, the liver, the abdomen, the spleen, the lungs, the larger intestines, the smaller intestines, the faeces, the bile, the phlegm, the pus, the blood, the sweat, the fat, the tears, the serum, the saliva, the mucus, the oil that lubricates the joints, the urine, or the brain or any or all of these, that is Nâgasena?
“Is it the material form that is Nâgasena, or the sensations, or the ideas, or the confections (deeds), or the consciousness, that is Nâgasena?”
To all these questions, the King, having received a uniform denial, exclaims in excitement: “Then, thus, ask as I may, I can discover no Nâgasena. Nâgasena is a mere empty sound. Who then is the Nâgasena that we see before us?[73] It is a falsehood that your Reverence has spoken, an untruth?”
Nâgasena does not give any direct answer, but quietly proposes some counter-questions to the King. Ascertaining that he came in a carriage to the Buddhist philosopher, he asks: “Is it the wheel, or the framework, or the ropes, or the spokes of the wheels, or the goad, that are the chariot?”
To this, the king says, “No,” and continues: “It is on account of its having all these things that it comes under the generally understood term, the designation in common use, of ‘chariot.’ ”
“Very good,” says Nâgasena, “Your Majesty has rightly grasped the meaning of ‘chariot.’ And just even so it is on account of all these things you questioned me about the thirty-two kinds of organic matter in a human body, and the five skandhas (constituent elements of being) that I come under the generally-understood term, the designation in common use, of ‘Nâgasena.’ ”
Then, the sage quotes in way of confirmation a passage from the Samyutta Nikâya: “Just as it is by the condition precedent of the co-existence of its various parts that the word ‘chariot’ is used, just so it is that when the skandhas are there we talk of a ‘being.’ ”
* * *
To further illustrate the theory of non-âtman from earlier Buddhist literature, let me quote the following from the Jâtaka Tales (No. 244):
The Bodhisattva said to a pilgrim. “Will you have a drink of Ganges-water fragrant with the scent of the forest?”
The pilgrim tried to catch him in his words: “What is the Ganges? Is the sand the Ganges? Is the water the Ganges? Is the hither bank the Ganges? Is the further bank the Ganges?”
But the Bodhisattva retorted, “If you except the water, the sand, the hither bank, and the further bank, where can you find any Ganges?”
Following this argument we might say, “Where is the ego-soul, except imagination, volition, intellection, desire, aspiration, etc.?”
Ananda’s Attempts to Locate the Soul.
In the Surangama Sutra[74], Buddha exposes the absurdity of the hypothesis of an individual concrete soul-substance by subverting Ândanda’s seven successive attempts to determine its whereabouts. Most people who firmly believe in personal immortality, will see how vague and chimerical and logically untenable is their notion of the soul, when it is critically examined as in the following case. Ânanda’s conception of the soul is somewhat puerile, but I doubt whether even in our enlightened age the belief entertained by the multitude is any better than his.
When questioned by the Buddha as to the locality of the soul, Ânanda asserts that it resides within the body. Thereupon, the Buddha says: “If your intelligent soul resides within your corporeal body, how is it that it does not see your inside first? To illustrate, what we see first in this lecture hall is the interior and it is only when the windows are thrown open that we are able to see the outside garden and woods. It is impossible for us who are sitting in the hall to see the outside only and not to see the inside. Reasoning in a similar way, why does not the soul that is considered to be within the body see the internal organs first such as the stomach, heart, veins etc.? If however it does not see the inside, surely it cannot be said to reside within the body.”
Ânanda now proposes to solve the problem by locating the soul outside the body. He says that the soul is like a candle-light placed without this hall. Where the light shines everything is visible, but within the room there are no candles burning, and therefore here prevails nothing but darkness. This explains the incapacity of the soul to see the inside of the body. But the Buddha argues that “it is impossible for the soul to be outside. If so, what the soul feels may not be felt by the body, and what the body feels may not be felt by the soul, as there is no relationship between the two. The fact, however, is that when you, Ânanda, see my hand thus stretched, you are conscious that you have the perception of it. As far as there is a correspondence between the soul and the body, the soul cannot be said to be residing outside the body.”
The third hypothesis assumed by Ânanda is that the soul hides itself just behind the sense-organs. Suppose a man put a pair of lenses over his eyes. Cannot he see the outside world through them? The reason why it cannot see the inside is that it resides within the sense-organs.
But says the Buddha: “When we have a lens over an eye, we perceive this lens as well as the outside world. If the soul is hidden behind the sense-organ, why does it not see the sense-organ itself? As it does not in fact, it cannot be residing in the place you mention.”
Ananda proposes another theory. “Within, we have the stomach, liver, heart, etc.: without, we have so many orifices. Where the internal organs are, there is darkness; but where we have openings, there is light. Close the eyes and the soul sees the darkness inside. Open the eyes and it sees the brightness outside. What do you say to this theory?”
The Buddha says: “If you take the darkness you see when the eyes are closed for your inside, do you consider this darkness as something confronting your soul, or not? In the first case, wherever there prevails a darkness, that must be thought to be your interior organs. In the latter case, seeing is impossible, for seeing presupposes the existence of subject and object. Besides this, there is another difficulty. Granting your supposition that the eye could turn itself inward or outward and see the darkness of the interior or the brightness of the external world, it could also see your own face when the eye is opened. If it could not do so, it must be said to be incapable of turning the sight inward.”
The fifth assumption as made by Ânanda is that the soul is the essence of understanding or intelligence, which is not within, nor without, nor in the middle, but which comes into actual existence as soon as it confronts the objective world, for it is taught by the Buddha that the world exists on account of the mind and the mind on account of the world.
To this the Buddha replies: “According to your argument, the soul must be said to exist before it comes in contact with the world; otherwise, the contact cannot have any sense. The soul, then, exists as an individual presence, not after nor at the time of a contact with the external world, but assuredly before the contact. Granting this, we come back again to the old difficulties: Does the soul come out of your inside, or does it come in from the outside? In case of the first alternative, the soul must be able to see its own face.”
Ânanda interrupts: “Seeing is done by the eyes, and the soul has nothing to do with it.”
The Buddha objects: “If so, a dead man has eyes just as perfect as a living man.[75] He must be able to see things, but if he sees at all, he cannot be dead. Well, if your intelligent soul has a concrete existence, should it be thought simple or compound? Should it be thought of as filling the body or being present only in a particular spot? If it is a simple unit, when one of your limbs is touched, all the four will at once be conscious of the touch, which really means no touch. If the soul is a compound body, how can it distinguish itself from another soul? If it is filling the body all over, there will be no localisation of sensation, as must be the case according to the first supposition of a simple soul-unit. Finally, if it occupies only a particular part of the body, you may experience certain feelings on that spot only, and all the other parts will remain perfectly anesthetic. All these hypotheses are against the actual facts of our experience and cannot be logically maintained.”
For the sixth time, Ânanda ventures to untie the Gordian knot of the soul-problem. “As the soul cannot be located neither within nor without, it must be somewhere in the middle.” But the Buddha again refutes this, saying: “This ‘middle’ is extremely indefinite. Should it be located as a point in space or somewhere on the body? If it is on the surface of the body, it is not the middle; if it is in the body, it is then within. If it is said to occupy a point in space, how should that point be indicated? Without an indication, a point is no point; and if an indication is needed, it can be fixed anywhere arbitrarily, and then there will be no end of confusion.”
Ânanda interposes and says that he does not mean this kind of “middle.” The eye and the color conditioning each other, there comes to exist visual perception. The eye has the faculty to discriminate, and the color-world has no sensibility; but the perception takes place in their “middle,” that is, in their interaction; and then it is said that there exists a soul.
Says the Buddha: “If the soul, as you say, exists in the relation between the sense-organs (indṛya) and their respective sense-objects (viṣaya), should we consider the soul as uniting and partaking the natures of these two incongruous things, viṣaya and indṛya? If the soul partakes something of each, it has no characteristics of its own. If it unites the two natures, the distinction between subject and object exists no more. ‘In the middle’ is an empty word; that is to say, to conceive the soul as the relation between the indryas and the viṣayas is to make it an airy nothing.”
The seventh and final hypothesis offered by Ânanda is that the soul is the state of non-attachment, and that, therefore, it has no particular locality in which it abides. But this is also mercilessly attacked by the Buddha who declares: “Attachment presupposes the existence of beings to which a mind-may be attached. Now, should we consider these things (dharmas) such as the world, space, land, water, birds, beasts, etc. as existing or not existing? If the external world does not exist, we cannot speak about non-attachment, as there is nothing to attach from the first. If the external world really is, how can we manage not to come in contact with it? When we say that things are devoid of all characteristic marks, it amounts to the declaration that they are non-existent. But they are not non-existent, they must have certain characteristics that distinguish themselves. Now, the external world has certainly some marks (lakṣana) and it must by all means be considered as existing. There then is no room for your theory of non-attachment.”
At this, Ânanda surrenders and the Buddha discloses his theory of Dharmakâya, which we shall expound at some length in the chapter specially devoted to it.
* * *
By way of a summary of the above, let me remark that the Buddhists do not deny the existence of the so-called empirical ego in contradistinction to the noumenal ego, which latter can be considered to correspond to the Buddhist âtman. Vasubandhu in his treatise on the Yogâcâra’s idealistic philosophy declares that the existence of âtman and dharma is only hypothetical, provisional, apparent, and not in any sense real and ultimate. To express this in modern terms, the soul and the world, or subject and object, have only relative existence, and no absolute reality can be ascribed to them. Psychologically speaking, every one of us has an ego or soul which means the unity of consciousness; and physically, this world of phenomena is real either as a manifestation of one energy or as a composite of atoms or electrons, as is considered by physicists.
To confine ourselves to the psychological question, what Buddhism most emphatically insists on is the non-existence of a concrete, individual, irreducible soul-substance, whose immortality is so much coveted by most unenlightened people. Individuation is only relative and not absolute. Buddhism knows how far the principle could safely and consistently be carried out, and its followers will not forget where to stop and destroy the wall, almost adamantine to some religionists, of individualism. Absolute individualism, as the Buddhists understand it, incapacitates us to follow the natural flow of sympathy; to bathe in the eternal sunshine of divinity which not only surrounds but penetrates us; to escape the curse of individual immortality which is strangely so much sought after by some people; to trace this mundane life to its fountainhead of which it drinks so freely, yet quite unknowingly; to rise rejuvenated from the consuming fire of Kâla (Chronos). To think that there is a mysterious something behind the empirical ego and that this something comes out triumphantly after the fashion of the immortal phœnix from the funeral pyre of corporeality, is not Buddhistic.
What I would remark here in connection with this problem of the soul, is its relation to that of Âlayavijñâna, of which it is said that the Buddha was very reluctant to talk, on account of its being easily confounded with the notion of the ego. The Âlaya, as was explained, is a sort of universal soul from which our individual empirical souls are considered to have evolved. The Manas which is the first offspring of the Âlaya is endowed with the faculty of discrimination, and from the wrongful use of this faculty there arises in the Manas the conception of the Âlaya as the ego,—the real concrete soul-substratum.
The Âlaya, however, is not a particular phenomenon, for it is a state of Suchness in its evolutionary disposition and has nothing in it yet to suggest its concrete individuality. When the Manas finds out its error and lifts the veil of Ignorance from the body of the Âlaya, it soon becomes convinced of the ultimate nature of the soul, so called. For the soul is not individual, but supra-individual.
Âtman and the “Old Man.”
When the Buddhists exclaim: “Put away your egoism, for the ego is an empty notion, a mere word without reality,” some of our Christian readers may think that if there is no ego, what will become of our personality or individuality? Though this point will become clearer as we proceed, let us remark here that what Buddhism understands by ego or âtman may be considered to correspond in many respects to the Christian notion of “flesh” or the “old man,” which is the source of all our sinful acts. Says Paul: “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I live now in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. ii, 20.) When this passage is interpreted by the Buddhists, the “I” that was annihilated through crucifixion, is our false notion of an ego-soul (âtman); and the “I” that is living through the grace of God is the Bodhi, a reflex in us of the Dharmakâya.
When Christians put the spirit and the flesh in contrast and advise us to “walk in the spirit” and not to “fulfil the lust of the flesh,” it must be said that they understand by the flesh our concrete, material existence whose characteristic is predominantly individual, and by the spirit, that which transcends particularity and egoism; for “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, faith, meekness, temperance,” and suchlike virtues are possible only when our egocentric, âtman-made desires are utterly abnegated. Buddhism is more intellectual than Christianity or Judaism and prefers philosophical terms which are better understood than popular language which leads often to confusion. Compared with the Buddhists’ conception of âtman, the “flesh” lacks in perspicuity and exactitude, not to speak of its dualistic tendency which is extremely offensive to the Buddhists.
The Vedantic Conception.
Though the doctrine of non-âtman is pre-eminently Buddhistic, other Hindu philosophers did not neglect to acknowledge its importance in our religious life. Having grown in the same soil under similar circumstances, the following passage which is taken from the Yogavâsistha (which is supposed to be a Vedantic work, Upaçama P., ch. LII, 31, 44) sounds almost like Buddhistic:
“I am absolute, I am the light of intelligence, I am free from the defilement of egoism. O thou that art unreal! I am not bound by thee, the seed of egoism.”[76]
The author then argues: Where shall we consider the ego-soul, so called, to be residing in this body of flesh and bones? and what does it look like? We move our limbs, but the movement is due to the vital airs (vâta). We think, but consciousness is a manifestation of the great mind (mahâcitta). We cease to exist, but extinction belongs to the body (kâya). Now, take apart what we imagine to constitute our personal existence. The flesh is one thing, the blood is another, and so on with mentation (bodha) and vitality (spanda). The ear hears, the tongue tastes, the eye sees, the mind thinks, but what and where is that which we call “ego”?
Then comes the conclusion: “In reality, there is no such thing as the ego-soul, nor is there any mine and thine, nor imagination. All this is nothing but the manifestation of the universal soul which is the light of pure intelligence.”[77]
Nâgârjuna on the Soul.
In conclusion, let me quote some passage bearing on the subject from Nâgârjuna’s Discourse on the Middle Path (chapter 9):[78] “Some say that there are seeing, hearing, feeling, etc., because there is something which exists even prior to those [manifestations]. For how could seeing, etc. come from that which does not exist? Therefore, it must be admitted that that being [i.e. soul] existed prior to those [manifestations].
“But [this hypothesis of the prior (pûrva) or independent existence of the soul is wrong, because] how could that being be known if it existed prior to seeing, feeling, etc.? If that being could exist without seeing, etc., the latter too could surely exist without that being. But how could a thing which could not be known by any sign exist before it is known? How could this exist without that, and how could that exist without this? [Are not all things relative and conditioning one another?]
“If that being called soul could not exist prior to all manifestations such as seeing, etc., how could it exist prior to each of them taken individually?
“If it is the same soul that sees, hears, feels, etc., it must be assumed that the soul exists prior to each of these manifestations. This, however, is not warranted by facts. [Because in that case one must be able to hear with the eyes, see with the ears, as one soul is considered to direct all these diverse faculties at its will.]
“If, on the other hand, the hearer is one, and the seer is another, the feeler must be still another. Then, there will be hearing, seeing, etc. simultaneously,—which leads to the assumption of a plurality of souls.[79] [This too is against experience.]
“Further, the soul does not exist in the element (bhûta) on which seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. depend. [To use modern expression, the soul does not exist in the nerves which respond to the external stimuli.]
“If seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. have no soul that exists prior to them, they too have no existence as such. For how could that exist without this, and this without that? Subject and object are mutually conditioned. The soul as it is has no independent, individual reality whatever. Therefore, the hypothesis that contends for the existence of an ego-soul prior to simultaneous with, or posterior to, seeing, etc., is to be abandoned as fruitless, for the ego-soul existeth not.”
Non-âtman-ness of Things.
The word “âtman” is used by the Buddhists not only psychologically in the sense of soul, self, or ego, but also ontologically in the sense of substance or thing-in-itself or thinginess; and its existence in this capacity is also strongly denied by them. For the same reason that the existence of an individual ego-soul is untenable, they reject the hypothesis of the permanent existence of an individual object as such. As there is no transcendent agent in our soul-life, so there is no real, eternal existence of individuals as individuals, but a system of different attributes, which, when the force of karma is exhausted, ceases to subsist. Individual existences cannot be real by their inherent nature, but they are illusory, and will never remain permanent as such; for they are constantly becoming, and have no selfhood though they may so appear to our particularising senses on account of our subjective ignorance. They are in reality cûnya and anâtman, they are empty and void of âtman.
Svabhâva.
The term “svabhâva” (self-essence or noumenon) is sometimes used by the Mahâyânists in place of âtman, and they would say that all dharmas have no self-essence, sarvam dharmam niḥsvabhâvam, which is to say, that all things in their phenomenal aspect are devoid of individual selves, that it is only due to our ignorance that we believe in the thinginess of things, whereas there is no such thing as svabhâva or âtman or noumenon which resides in them. Svabhâva and âtman are thus habitually used by Buddhists as quite synonymous.
What do they exactly understand by “svabhâva” whose existence is denied in a particular object as perceived by our senses? This has never been explicitly defined by the Mahâyânists, but they seem to understand by svabhâva something concrete, individual, yet independent, unconditional, and not subject to the law of causation (pratyayasamutpâda). It, therefore, stands in opposition to çûnyatâ, emptiness, as well as to conditionality. Inasmuch as all beings are transient and empty in their inherent being, they cannot logically be said to be in possession of self-essence which defies the law of causation. All things are mutually conditioning and limiting, and apart from their relativity they are non-existent and cannot be known by us. Therefore, says Nâgârjuna, “If substance be different from attribute, it is then beyond comprehension.”[80] For “a jag is not to be known independent of matter et cetera, and matter in turn is not to be known independent of ether et cetera.”[81] As there is no subject without object, so there is no substance without attribute; for one is the condition for the other. Does self-essence then exist in causation? No, “whatever is subject to conditionality, is by its very nature tranquil and empty.” (Pratîtya yad yad bhavati, tat tac çântam svabhâvataḥ.) Whatever owes its existence to a combination of causes and conditions is without self-essence, and therefore it is tranquil (çânta), it is empty, it is unreal (asat), and the ultimate nature of this universal emptiness is not within the sphere of intellectual demonstrability, for the human understanding is not capable of transcending its inherent limitations.
Says Pingalaka, a commentator of Nâgârjuna: “The cloth exists on account of the thread; the matting is possible on account of the rattan. If the thread had its own fixed, unchangeable self-essence, it could not be made out of the flax. If the cloth had its own fixed, unchangeable self-essence, it could not be made from the thread. But as in point of fact the cloth comes from the thread and the thread from the flax, it must be said that the thread as well as the cloth had no fixed, unchangeable self-essence. It is just like the relation that obtains between the burning and the burned. They are brought together under certain conditions, and thus there takes place a phenomenon called burning. The burning and the burned, each has no reality of its own. For when one is absent the other is put out of existence. It is so with all things in this world, they are all empty, without self, without absolute existence, they are like the will-o’-the-wisp.”[82]
The Real Significance of Emptiness.
From these statements it will be apparent that the emptiness of things (çûnyatâ) does not mean nothingness, as is sometimes interpreted by some critics, but it simply means conditionality or transitoriness of all phenomenal existences, it is a synonym for aniyata or pratîtya. Therefore, emptiness, according to the Buddhists, signifies, negatively, the absence of particularity, the non-existence of individuals as such, and positively, the ever-changing state of the phenomenal world, a constant flux of becoming, an eternal series of causes and effects. It must never be understood in the sense of annihilation or absolute nothingness, for nihilism is as much condemned by Buddhism as naïve realism. “The Buddha proclaimed emptiness as a remedy for all doctrinal controversies, but those who in turn cling to emptiness are beyond treatment.” A medicine is indispensable as long as there is a disease to heal, but it turns poisonous when applied after the restoration of perfect health. To make this point completely clear, let me quote the following from Nâgârjuna’s Mâdhyamika Çâstra (Chap. XXIV). “[Some one may object to the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness, declaring:] If all is void (çûnya) and there is neither creation nor destruction, then it must be concluded that even the Fourfold Noble Truth does not exist. If the Fourfold Noble Truth does not exist, the recognition of Suffering, the stoppage of Accumulation, the attainment of Cessation, and the advancement of Discipline,—all must be said to be unrealisable. If they are altogether unrealisable, there cannot be any of the four states of saintliness; and without these states there cannot be anybody who will aspire for them. If there are no wise men, the Sangha is then impossible. Further, as there is no Fourfold Noble Truth, there is no Good Law (saddharma); and as there is neither Good Law nor Sangha, the existence of Buddha himself must be an impossibility. Those who talk of emptiness, therefore, must be said to negate the Triple Treasure (triratna) altogether. Emptiness not only destroys the law of causation and the general principle of retribution (phalasadbhâvam), but utterly annihilates the possibility of a phenomenal world.”
“[To this it is to be remarked that]
“Only he is annoyed over such scepticism who understands not the true significance and interpretation of emptiness (çûnyatâ).
“The Buddha’s teaching rests on the discrimination of two kinds of truth (satya): absolute and relative. Those who do not have any adequate knowledge of them are unable to grasp the deep and subtle meaning of Buddhism. [The essence of being, dharmata, is beyond verbal definition or intellectual comprehension, for there is neither birth nor death in it, and it is even like unto Nirvâna. The nature of Suchness, tattva, is fundamentally free from conditionality, it is tranquil, it distances all phenomenal frivolities, it discriminates not, nor is it particularised].[83]
“But if not for relative truth, absolute truth is unattainable, and when absolute truth is not attained, Nirvâna is not to be gained.
“The dull-headed who do not perceive the truth rightfully go to self-destruction, for they are like an awkward magician whose trick entangles himself, or like an unskilled snake-catcher who gets himself hurt. The World-honored One knew well the abstruseness of the Doctrine which is beyond the mental capacity of the multitudes and was inclined not to disclose it before them.
“The objection that Buddhism onesidedly adheres to emptiness and thereby exposes itself to grave errors, entirely misses the mark; for there are no errors in emptiness. Why? Because it is on account of emptiness that all things are at all possible, and without emptiness all things will come to naught. Those who deny emptiness and find fault with it, are like a horseman who forgets that he is on horseback.
“If they think that things exist because of their self-essence (svabhâva), [and not because of their emptiness,] they thereby make things come out of causelessness (ahetupratyaya), they destroy those relations that exist between the acting and the act and the acted; and they also destroy the conditions that make up the law of birth and death.
“All is declared empty because there is nothing that is not a product of universal causation (pratyayasamutpâda). This law of causation, however, is merely provisional, though herein lies the middle path.
“As thus there is not an object (dharma) which is not conditioned (pratîtya), so there is nothing that is not empty.
“If all is not empty, then there is no death nor birth, and withal disappears the Fourfold Noble Truth.
“How could there be Suffering, if not for the law of causation? Impermanence is suffering. But with self-essence there will be no impermanence. [So long as impermanence is the condition of life, self-essence which is a causeless existence, is out of question.] Suppose Suffering is self-existent, then it could not come from Accumulation, which in turn becomes impossible when emptiness is not admitted. Again, when Suffering is self-existent, then there could be no Cessation, for with the hypothesis of self-essence Cessation becomes a meaningless term. Again, when Suffering is self-existent, then there will be no Path. But as we can actually walk on the Path, the hypothesis of self-essence is to be abandoned.
“If there is neither Suffering nor Cessation, it must be said that the Path leading to the Cessation of Suffering is also non-existent.
“If there is really self-essence, Suffering could not be recognised now, as it had not been recognised, for self-essence as such must remain forever the same. [That is to say, enlightened minds, through the teaching of Buddha, now recognise the existence of Suffering, though they did not recognise it when they were still uninitiated. If things were all in a fixed, self-determining state on account of their self-essence, it would be impossible for those enlightened men to discover what they had never observed before. The recognition of the Fourfold Noble Truth is only possible when this phenomenal world is in a state of constant becoming, that is, when it is empty as it really is.]
“As it is with the recognition of Suffering, so it is with the stoppage of Accumulation, the attainment of Cessation, the realisation of Path as well as with the four states of saintliness.
“If, on account of self-essence, the four states of saintliness were unattainable before, how could they be realised now, still upholding the hypothesis of self-essence? [But we can attain to saintliness as a matter of fact, for there are many holy men who through their spiritual discipline have emerged from their former life of ignorance and darkness. If everything had its own self-essence which makes it impossible to transform from one state to another, how could a person desire to ascend, if he ever so desire, higher and higher on the scale of existence?]
“If there were no four states of saintliness (catvâri phalâni), then there would be no aspirants for it. And if there were no eight wise men (puruṣapuñgala), there could exist no Sangha.
“Again, when there could not be the Fourfold Noble Truth, the Law would be impossible, and without the Sangha and the Law how could the Buddha exist? You might say: ‘A Buddha does not exist on account of wisdom (Bodhi), nor does wisdom exist on account of the Buddha.’ But if a man did not have Buddha-essence [that is, Bodhi] he could not hope to attain to Buddhahood, however strenuously he might exert himself in the ways of Bodhisattva.
“Further, if all is not empty but has self-essence, [i.e. if all is in a fixed, unchangeable state of sameness], how could there be any doing? How could there be good and evil? If you maintain that there is an effect (phala) which does not come from a cause good or evil, [which is the practical conclusion of the hypothesis of self-essence], then it means that retribution is independent of our deed, good or evil. [But is this justified by our experience?]
“If it must then be admitted that our deed good or evil becomes the cause of retribution, retribution must be said to come from our deed, good or evil; then how could we say there is no emptiness?
“When you negate the doctrine of emptiness, the law of universal causation, you negate the possibility of this phenomenal world. When the doctrine of emptiness is negated, there remains nothing that ought to be done; and a thing is called done which is not yet accomplished; and he is said to be a doer who has not done anything whatever. If there were such a thing as self-essence, the multitudinousness of things must be regarded as uncreated and imperishable and eternally existing which is tantamount to eternal nothingness.
“If there were no emptiness there would be no attainment of what has not yet been attained, nor would there be the annihilation of pain, nor the extinction of all the passions (sarvakleça).
“Therefore, it is taught by the Buddha that those who recognise the law of universal causation, recognise the Buddha as well as Suffering, Accumulation, Cessation, and the Path.”
* * *
The Mahâyânistic doctrines thus formulated and transmitted down to the present days are: There is no such thing as the ego; mentation is produced by the co-ordination of various vijñânas or senses.
Individual existences have no selfhood or self-essence or reality, for they are but an aggregate of certain qualities sustained by efficient karma. The world of particulars is the work of Ignorance as declared by Buddha in his Formula of Dependence (Twelve Nidânas). When this veil of Mâya is uplifted, the universal light of Dharmakâya shines in all its magnificence. Individual existences then as such lose their significance and become sublimated and ennobled in the oneness of Dharmakâya. Egoistic prejudices are forever vanquished, and the aim of our lives is no more the gratification of selfish cravings, but the glorification of Dharma as it works its own way through the multitudinousness of things. The self does not stand any more in a state of isolation (which is an illusion), it is absorbed in the universal body of Dharma, it recognises itself in other selves animate as well as inanimate, and all things are in Nirvâna. When we reach this state of ideal enlightenment, we are said to have realised the Buddhist life.
CHAPTER VIII.
KARMA.
Definition.
Karma, or Sanskâra which is sometimes used as its synonym,—though the latter gives a slightly different shade of meaning,—comes from the Sanskrit root kṛ, “to do,” “to make,” “to perform,” “to effect,” “to produce,” etc. Both terms mean activity in its concrete as well as in its abstract sense, and form an antithesis to intelligence, contemplation, or ideation in general. When karma is used in its most abstract sense, it becomes an equivalent to “beginningless ignorance,” which is universally inherent in nature, and corresponds to the Will or blind activity of Schopenhauer; for ignorance as we have seen above is a negative manifestation of Suchness (Bhûtatathâtâ) and marks the beginning or unfolding of a phenomenal world, whose existence is characterised by incessant activities actuated by the principle of karma. When Goethe says in Faust, “In Anfang war die That,” he uses the term “That” in the sense of karma as it is here understood.
When karma is used in its concrete sense, it is the principle of activity in the world of particulars or nâmarûpas: it becomes in the physical world the principle of conservation of energy, in the biological realm that of evolution and heredity etc., and in the moral world that of immortality of deeds. Sanskara, when used as an equivalent of karma, corresponds to this concrete signification of it, as it is the case in the Twelve Chains of Dependence (Nidânas, or Pratyâyasamutpâda).[84] Here it follows ignorance (avidyâ) and precedes consciousness (vijñâna). Ignorance in this case means simply privation of enlightenment, and does not imply any sense of activity which is expressed in Sanskâra. It is only when it is coupled with the latter that it becomes the principle of activity, and creates as its first offspring consciousness or mentality. In fact, ignorance and blind activity are one, their logical difference being this: the former emphasises the epistemological phase and the latter the ethical; or, we might say, one is statical and the other dynamical. If we are to draw a comparison between the first four of the Twelve Nidânas and the several processes of evolution that takes place in the Tathâgata-garbha as described above, we can take Ignorance and the principle of blind activity, sanskâra, in the Twelve Chains as corresponding to the All-conserving Soul (âlayavijñâna), and the Vijñâna, consciousness of the Twelve Chains, to the Manovijñâna, and the Nâmârûpa to this visible world, viṣaya, in which the principle of karma works in its concrete form.
As we have a special chapter devoted to “Ignorance” as an equivalent of karma in its abstract sense, let us here treat of the Buddhist conception of karma in the realm of names and forms, i.e. of karma in its concrete sense. But we shall restrict ourselves to the activity of karmaic causation in the moral world, as we are not concerned with physics or biology.
The Working of Karma.
The Buddhist conception of karma briefly stated is this: Any act, good or evil, once committed and conceived, never vanishes like a bubble in water, but lives, potentially or actively as the case may be, in the world of minds and deeds. This mysterious moral energy, so to speak, is embodied in and emanates from every act and thought, for it does not matter whether it is actually performed, or merely conceived in the mind. When the time comes, it is sure to germinate and grow with all its vitality. Says Buddha:
“Karma even after the lapse of a hundred kalpas,
Will not be lost nor destroyed;
As soon as all the necessary conditions are ready,
Its fruit is sure to ripe.”[85]
Again,
“Whatever a man does, the same he in himself will find,
The good man, good: and evil he that evil has designed;
And so our deeds are all like seeds, and bring forth fruit in kind.”[86]
A grain of wheat, it is said, which was accidentally preserved in good condition in a tomb more than a thousand years old, did not lose its germinating energy, and, when planted with proper care, it actually started to sprout. So with karma, it is endowed with an enormous vitality, nay, it is even immortal. However remote the time of their commission might have been, the karma of our deeds never dies; it must work out its own destiny at whatever cost, if not overcome by some counteracting force. The law of karma is irrefragable.
The irrefragability of karma means that the law of causation is supreme in our moral sphere just as much as in the physical, that life consists in a concatenation of causes and effects regulated by the principle of karma, that nothing in the life of an individual or a nation or a race happens without due cause and sufficient reason, that is, without previous karma. The Buddhists, therefore, do not believe in any special act of grace or revelation in our religious realm and moral life. The idea of deus ex machina is banned in Buddhism. Whatever is suffered or enjoyed morally in our present life is due to the karma, accumulated since the beginning of life on earth. Nothing sown, nothing reaped.
Whatever has been done leaves an ineffable mark in the individual’s life and even in that of the universe; and this mark will never be erased save by sheer exhaustion of the karma or by the interruption of an overwhelming counter-karma. In case the karma of an act is not actualised during one’s own life-time, it will in that of one’s successors, who may be physical or spiritual. Not only “the evil that men do lives after them,” but also the good, for it will not be “interred with their bones,” as vulgar minds imagine. We read in the Samyukta Nikâya, III, 1-4:
“Assailed by death, in life’s last throes,
At quitting of this human state,
What is it one can call his own?
What with him take as he goes hence?
What is it follows after him,
And like a shadow ne’er departs?“His good deeds and his wickedness,
Whate’er a mortal does while here;
’Tis this that he can call his own,
This with him take as he goes hence.
This is what follows after him,
And like a shadow ne’er departs.“Let all, then, noble deeds perform,
A treasure-store for future weal;
For merit gained this life within,
Will yield a blessing in the next.”[87]
In accordance with this karmaic preservation, Buddhists do not expect to have their sins expatiated by other innocent people so long as their own hearts remain unsoftened as ever. But when the all-embracing love of Buddhas for all sentient beings kindles even the smallest spark of repentance and enlightenment in the heart of a sinner, and when this ever-vacillating light grows to its full magnitude under propitious conditions, the sinner gets fully awakened from the evil karma of eons, and enters, free from all curses, into the eternity of Nirvâna.
Karma and Social Injustice.
The doctrine of karma is very frequently utilised by some Buddhists to explain a state of things which must be considered cases of social injustice.
There are some people who are born rich and noble and destined to enjoy all forms of earthly happiness and all the advantages of social life, though they have done nothing that justifies them in luxuriating in such a fashion any more than their poor neighbors. These people, however, are declared by some pseudo-Buddhists to be merely harvesting the crops of good karma they had prepared in their former lives. On the other hand, the poor, needy, and low that are struggling to eke out a mere existence in spite of their moral rectitude and honest industry, are considered to be suffering the evil karma which had been accumulated during their previous lives. The law of moral retribution is never suspended, as they reason, on account of the changes which may take place in a mortal being. An act, good or evil, once performed, will not be lost in the eternal succession and interaction of incidents, but will certainly find the sufferer of its due consequence, and it does not matter whether the actor has gone through the vicissitudes of birth and death. For the Buddhist conception of individual identity is not that of personal continuity, but of karmaic conservation. Whatever deeds we may commit, they invariably bear their legitimate fruit and follow us even after death. Therefore, if the rich and noble neglect to do their duties or abandon themselves to the enjoyment of sensual pleasures, then they are sure in their future births, if not in their present life, to gather the crops they have thus unwittingly prepared for themselves. The poor, however hard their lot in this life, can claim their rightful rewards, if they do not get despaired of their present sufferings and give themselves up to temptations, but dutifully continue to do things good and meritorious. Because as their present fate is the result of their former deeds, so will be their future fortune the fruit of their present deeds.
This view as held by some pseudo-Buddhists gives us a wrong impression about the practical working of the principle of karma in this world of nâmarûpas, for it tries to explain by karmaic theory the phenomena which lie outside of the sphere of its applicability. As I understand, what the theory of karma proposes to explain is not cases of social injustice and economic inequality, but facts of moral causation.
The overbearing attitude of the rich and the noble, the unnecessary sufferings of the poor, the over-production of criminals, and suchlike social phenomena arise from the imperfection of our present social organisation, which is based upon the doctrine of absolute private ownership. People are allowed to amass wealth unlimitedly for their own use and to bequeath it to the successors who do not deserve it in any way. And they do not pay regard to the injuries this system may incur upon the general welfare of the community to which they belong, and upon other members individually. The rich might have slaughtered economically and consequently politically and morally millions of their brethren before they could reach places of social eminence they now occupy and enjoy to its full extent. They might have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of victims on the altar of Mammon in order to carry out their vast scheme of self-aggrandisement. And, what is worse, the wealth thus accumulated by an individual is allowed by the law to be handed down to his descendants, who are in a sense the parasitic members of the community. They are privileged to live upon the sweat and blood of others, who know not where to lay their heads, and who are daily succumbing to the heavy burden, not of their free choice, but forced upon them by society.
Let us here closely see into the facts. There is one portion of society that does almost nothing toward the promotion of the general welfare, and there is another portion that, besides carrying the burden not of its own, is heroically struggling for bare existence. These sad phenomena which, owing to the imperfection of social organisation, we daily witness about us,—should we attribute them to diversity of individual karma and make individuals responsible for what is really due to the faulty organisation of the community to which they belong? No, the doctrine of karma certainly must not be understood to explain the cause of our social and economical imperfection.
The region where the law of karma is made to work supreme is our moral world, and cannot be made to extend also over our economic field. Poverty is not necessarily the consequence of evil deeds, nor is plenitude that of good acts. Whether a person is affluent or needy is mostly determined by the principle of economy as far as our present social system is concerned. Morality and economy are two different realms of human activity. Honesty and moral rectitude do not necessarily guarantee well-being. Dishonesty and the violation of the moral law, on the contrary, are very frequently utilised as handmaids of material prosperity. Do we not thus see many good, conscientious people around us who are wretchedly poverty-stricken? Shall we take them as suffering the curse of evil karma in their previous lives, when we can understand the fact perfectly well as a case of social injustice? It is not necessary by any means, nay, it is even productive of evil, to establish a relation between the two things that in the nature of their being have no causal dependence. Karma ought not to be made accountable for economic inequality.
A virtuous man is contented with his cleanliness of conscience and purity of heart. Obscure as is his present social position, and miserable as are his present pecuniary conditions, he has no mind to look backward and find the cause of his social insignificance there, nor is he anxious about his future earthly fortune which might be awaiting him when his karmaic energy appears in a new garment. His heart is altogether free from such vanities and anxieties. He is sufficient unto himself as he is here and now. And, as to his altruistic aspect of his moral deeds, he is well conscious that their karma would spiritually benefit everybody that gets inspired by it, and also that it would largely contribute to the realisation of goodness on this earth. Why, then, must we contrive such a poor theory of karma as is maintained by some, in order that they might give him a spiritual solace for his material misfortune?
Vulgar people are too eager to see everything and every act they perform working for the accumulation of earthly wealth and the promotion of material welfare. They would want to turn even moral deeds which have no relation to the economic condition of life into the opportunities to attain things mundane. They would desire to have the law of karmaic causation applied to a realm, where prevails an entirely different set of laws. In point of fact, what proceeds from meritorious deeds is spiritual bliss only,—contentment, tranquillity of mind, meekness of heart, and immovability of faith,—all the heavenly treasures which could not be corrupted by moth or rust. And what more can the karma of good deeds bring to us? And what more would a man of pious heart desire to gain from his being good? “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body more than raiment?” Let us then do away with the worldly interpretation of karma, which is so contrary to the spirit of Buddhism.
As long as we live under the present state of things, it is impossible to escape the curse of social injustice and economic inequality. Some people must be born rich and noble and enjoying a superabundance of material wealth, while others must be groaning under the unbearable burden imposed upon them by cruel society. Unless we make a radical change in our present social organisation, we cannot expect every one of us to enjoy equal opportunity and fair chance. Unless we have a certain form of socialism installed which is liberal and rational and systematic, there must be some who are economically more favored than others. But this state of affairs is a phenomenon of worldly institution and is doomed to die away sooner or later. The law of karma, on the contrary, is an eternal ordinance of the will of the Dharmakâya as manifested in this world of particulars. We must not confuse a transient accident of human society with an absolute decree issued from the world-authority.
An Individualistic View of Karma.
There is another popular misconception concerning the doctrine of karma, which seriously mars the true interpretation of Buddhism. I mean by this an individualistic view of the doctrine. This view asserts that deeds, good or evil, committed by a person determine only his own fate, no other’s being affected thereby in any possible way, and that the reason why we should refrain from doing wrong is: for we, and not others, have to suffer its evil consequences. This conception of karma which I call individualistic, presupposes the absolute reality of an individual soul and its continuance as such in a new corporeal existence which is made possible by its previous karma. Because an individual soul is here understood as an independent unit, which stands in no relation to others, and which therefore neither does influence nor is influenced by them in any wise. All that is done by oneself is suffered by oneself only and no other people have anything to do with it, nor do they suffer a whit thereby.
Buddhism, however, does not advocate this individualistic interpretation of karmaic law, for it is not in accord with the theory of non-âtman, nor with that of Dharmakâya.
According to the orthodox theory, karma simply means the conservation or immortality of the inner force of deeds regardless of their author’s physical identity. Deeds once committed, good or evil, leave permanent effects on the general system of sentient beings, of which the actor is merely a component part; and it is not the actor himself only, but everybody constituting a grand psychic community called “Dharmadhâtu” (spiritual universe), that suffers or enjoys the outcome of a moral deed.
Because the universe is not a theatre for one particular soul only; on the contrary, it belongs to all sentient beings, each forming a psychic unit; and these units are so intimately knitted together in blood and soul that the effects of even apparently trifling deeds committed by an individual are felt by others just as much and just as surely as the doer himself. Throw an insignificant piece of stone into a vast expanse of water, and it will certainly create an almost endless series of ripples, however imperceptible, that never stop till they reach the furthest shore. The tremulation thus caused is felt by the sinking stone as much as the water disturbed. The universe that may seem to crude observers merely as a system of crass physical forces is in reality a great spiritual community, and every one of sentient beings forms its component part. This most complicated, most subtle, most sensitive, and best organised mass of spiritual atoms transmits its current of moral electricity from one particle to another with utmost rapidity and surety. Because this community is at bottom an expression of one Dharmakâya. However diversified and dissimilar it may appear in its material individual aspect, it is after all no more than an evolution of one pervading essence, in which the multitudinousness of things finds its unity and identity. Therefore, it is for the interests of the community at large, and not for their own welfare only, that sincere Buddhists refrain from transgressing moral laws and are encouraged to promote goodness. Those whose spiritual insight thus penetrates deep into the inner unity and interaction of all human souls are called Bodhisattvas.
It is with this spirit, let me repeat, that pious Buddhists do not wish to keep for themselves any merits created by their acts of love and benevolence, but wish to turn them over (parivarta) to the deliverance of all sentient creatures from the darkness of ignorance. The most typical way of concluding any religious treatise by Buddhists, therefore, runs generally in the following manner:
“The deep significance of the three karmas as taught by Buddha,
I have thus completed elucidating in accord with the Dharma and logic:
By dint of this merit I pray to deliver all sentient beings
And to make them soon attain to perfect enlightenment.”[88]
Or,
“All the merits arising from this my exposition
May abide and be universally distributed among all beings;
And may they ascend in the scale of existence and increase in bliss and wisdom,
And soon attain to an enlightenment supreme, perfect, great, and far-reaching.”[89]
The reason why a moral deed performed by one person would contribute to the attainment by others of supreme enlightenment, is that souls which are ordinarily supposed to be individual and independent of others are not so in fact, but are very closely intermingled with one another, so that a stir produced in one is sooner or later transmitted to another influencing it rightfully or wrongfully. The karmaic effect of my own deed determines not only my own future, but to a not little extent that of others; hence those invocations just quoted by pious Buddhists who desire to dedicate all the merits they can attain to the general welfare of the masses.
The ever-increasing tendency of humanity to widen and facilitate communication in every possible way is a phenomenon illustrative of the intrinsic oneness of human souls. Isolation kills, for it is another name for death. Every soul that lives and grows desires to embrace others, to be in communion with them, to be supplemented by them, and to expand infinitely so that all individual souls are brought together and united in the one soul. Under this condition only a man’s karma is enabled to influence other people, and his merits can be utilised for the promotion of general enlightenment.
Karma and Determinism.
If the irrefragability of karma means the predetermination of our moral life, some would reason, the doctrine is fatalism pure and simple. It is quite true that our present life is the result of the karma accumulated in our previous existences, and that as long as the karma preserves its vitality there is no chance whatever to escape its consequences, good or evil. It is also true that as the meanest sparrow shall not fall on the ground without the knowledge of God, and as the very hairs of our heads are all numbered by him, so even a single blade of grass does not quiver before the evening breeze without the force of karma. It is also true that if our intellect were not near-sighted as it is, we could reduce a possible complexity of the conditions under which our life exists into its simplest terms, and thus predict with mathematical precision the course of a life through which it is destined to pass. If we could record all our previous karma from time immemorial and all its consequences both on ourselves and on those who come in contact with us, there would be no difficulty in determining our future life with utmost certainty. The human intellect, however, as it happens, is incapable of undertaking a work of such an enormous magnitude, we cannot perceive the full significance of determinism; but, from the divine point of view, determinism seems to be perfectly justified, for there cannot be any short-sightedness on the part of a world-soul as to the destiny of the universe, which is nothing but its own expression. It is only from the human point of view that we feel uncertain about our final disposition and endeavor to explain existence now from a mechanical, now from a teleological standpoint, and yet, strange enough, at the bottom of our soul we feel that there is something mysterious here which makes us cry, either in despair or in trustful resignation, “Let thy will be done.” While this very confidence in “thy will” proves that we have in our inmost consciousness and outside the pale of intellectual analysis a belief in the supreme order, which is absolutely preordained and which at least is not controllable by our finite, limited, fragmentary mind, yet the doctrine of karma must not be understood in the strictest sense of fatalism.
As far as a general theory of determinism is concerned, Buddhism has no objection to it. Grant that there is a law of causation, that every deed, actualised or thought of, leaves something behind, and that this something becomes a determining factor for our future life; then how could we escape the conclusion that “each of us is inevitable” as Whitman sings? Religious confidence in a divine will that is supposed to give us always the best of things, is in fact no more than a determinism. But if, in applying the doctrine to our practical life, we forget to endeavor to unfold all the possibilities that might lie in us, but could be awakened only after strenuous efforts, there will be no moral characters, no personal responsibility, no noble aspirations; the mind will be nothing but a reflex nervous system and life a sheer machinery.
In fact karma is not a machine which is not incapable of regeneration and self-multiplication. Karma is a wonderful organic power; it grows, it expands, and even gives birth to a new karma. It is like unto a grain of mustard, the least of all seeds, but, being full of vitality, it grows as soon as it comes in contact with the nourishing soil and becometh a tree so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Its mystery is like that of sympathetic waves that pass through all the hearts which feel the great deeds of a hero or listen to the story of a self-sacrificing mother. Karma, good or evil, is contagious and sympathetic in its work. Even a most insignificant act of goodness reaps an unexpectedly rich crop. Even to the vilest rogue comes a chance for repentance by dint of a single good karma ever effected in his life, which has extended through many a kalpa. And the most wonderful thing in our spiritual world is that the karma thus bringing repentance and Nirvâna to the heart of the meanest awakens and rekindles a similar karma potentially slumbering in other hearts and leads them to the final abode of enlightenment.
Inasmuch as we confine ourselves to general, superficial view of the theory of karma, it leads to a form of determinism, but in our practical life which is a product of extremely complicated factors, the doctrine of karma allows in us all kinds of possibilities and all chances of development. We thus escape the mechanical conception of life, we are saved from the despair of predetermination, though this is true to a great extent; and we are assured of the actualisation of hopes, however remote it may be. Though the curse of evil karma may sometimes hang upon us very heavily, there is no reason to bury our aspirations altogether in the grave; on the contrary, let us bear it bravely and perform all the acts of goodness to destroy the last remnant of evil and to mature the stock of good karma.
The Maturing of Good Stock (kuçalamûla) and the
Accumulation of merits (punyaskandha).
One of the most significant facts, which we cannot well afford to ignore while treating of the doctrine of karma, is the Buddhist belief that Çâkyamuni reached his supreme Buddhahood only after a long practise of the six virtues of perfection (pâramitâs) through many a rebirth. This belief constitutes the very foundation of the ethics of Buddhism and has all-important bearings on the doctrine of karma.
The doctrine of karma ethically considered is this: Sentient beings can attain to perfection not by an intervention from on high, but through long, steady, unflinching personal efforts towards the actualisation of ideals, or, in other words, towards the maturing of good stock (kuçalamûla) and the accumulation of merits (punyaskandha). This can be accomplished only through the karma of good deeds untiringly practised throughout many a generation. Each single act of goodness we perform to-day is recorded with strict accuracy in the annals of human evolution and is so much the gain for the cause of righteousness. On the contrary, every deed of ill-will, every thought of self-aggrandisement, every word of impurity, every assertion of egoism, is a drawback to the perfection of humanity. To speak concretely, the Buddha represents the crystalisation in the historical person of Çâkyamuni of all the good karma that was accumulated in innumerable kalpas previous to his birth. And if Devadatta, as legend has him, was really the enemy of the Buddha, he symbolises in him the evil karma that was being stored up with the good deeds of all Buddhas. Later Buddhism has thus elaborated to represent in these two historical figures the concrete results of good and evil karma, and tries to show in what direction its followers should exercise their spiritual energy.
The doctrine of karma is, therefore, really the theory of evolution and heredity as working in our moral field. As Walt Whitman fitly sings, in every one of us, “converging objects of the universe” are perpetually flowing, through every one of us is “afflatus surging and surging—the current and index.” And these converging objects and this afflatus are no more than our karma which is interwoven in our being and which is being matured from the very beginning of consciousness upon the earth. Each generation either retards or furthers the maturing of karma and transmits to the succeeding one its stock either impaired or augmented. Those who are blind enough not to see the significance of life, those who take their ego for the sole reality, and those who ignore the spiritual inheritance accumulated from time immemorial,—are the most worthless, most ungrateful, and most irresponsible people of the world. Buddhism calls them the children of Mâra engaged in the work of destruction.
Dr. G. R. Wilson of Scotland states a very pretty story about a royal robe in his article on “The Sense of Danger” (The Monist, 1903, April), which graphically illustrates how potential karma stored from time out of mind is saturated in every fibre of our subliminal consciousness or in the Âlayavijñâna, as Buddhists might say. The story runs as follows:
“An Oriental robe it was, whose beginning was in a prehistoric dynasty of which the hieroglyphics are undecipherable. With that pertinacity and durability so characteristic of the East, this royal garment has been handed down, not through hundreds of years, but through hundreds of generations,—generations, some of them, unconsciously long and stale and dreary; others short and quick and merry. A garment of kings, this, and of queens, a garment to which, as tradition prescribed, each monarch added something of quality,—a jewel of price, a patch of gold, a hem of rich embroidery,—and with each contribution a legend, worked into the imperishable fibre, told the story of the giver. Did something of the personality of these kings and queens linger in the work of their hands? If so, the robe was no dead thing, no mere covering to be lightly assumed or lightly laid aside, but a living power, royal influence, and the wearer, all unwitting, must have taken on something of the character of the dead. It is a princess of the royal blood, perhaps, sensitive and mystical, trembling on the apprehensive verge of monarchy, who dons the robe, and as she dons it, tingles to its message. These great rubies that blaze upon its front are the souvenirs of bloody conquerors. As she fingers them idly, she is thrilled with an emotion she does not understand, for in her blood something answers to the fighting spirit they embody. Pearls are for peace. That rope has been strung by kings and queens who favored art and learning; and as the girl’s fingers stray towards them the inspiration changes and her mind reverts to the purposes of the civilised scholar. Here is a gaudy hem, the legacy of an unfaithful queen, steeped in intrigue all her life until her murder ended it; and as the maiden lifts it to examine it more closely, she learns with shame and blushes, yet not knowing what has wrought this change in her, that, deep down in her character, are mischievous possibilities, possibilities of wickedness and disgrace that will dog the footsteps of her reign. Suchlike are the suggestions which the hidden parts of the mind bring forth, and in such subtle manner are they born.”
The doctrine of karma thus declares that an act of love and good-will you are performing here is not for your selfish interests, but it simply means the appreciation of the works of your worthy ancestors and the discharge of your duties towards all humanity and your contribution to the world-treasury of moral ideals. Mature good stock, accumulate merits, purify evil karma, remove the ego-hindrance, and cultivate love for all beings; and the heavenly gate of Nirvâna will be opened not only to you, but to the entire world.
We can sing with Walt Whitman the immortality of karma and the eternal progress of humanity, thus:
“Did you guess anything lived only its moment?
The world does not so exist—no part palpable or impalpable so exist;
No consummation exists without being from some long previous consummation—and that from some other,
Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the beginning than any.”[90]
Immortality.
We read in the Milinda-pañha:
“Your Majesty, it is as if a man were to ascend to the story of a house with a light, and eat there; and the light in burning were to set fire to the thatch; and the thatch in burning were to set fire to the house; and the house in burning were to set fire to the village; and the people of the village were to seize him, and say, ‘Why, O man, did you set fire to the village?’ and he were to say, ‘I did not set fire to the village. The fire of the lamp by whose light I ate was a different one from the one which set fire to the village’; and they, quarreling, were to come to you. Whose cause, Your Majesty, would you sustain?”
“That of the people of the village, Reverend Sir,” etc.
“And why?”
“Because, in spite of what the man might say, the latter fire sprang from the former.”
“In exactly the same way, Your Majesty, although the name and form which is born into the next existence is different from the name and form which is to end at death, nevertheless, it is sprung from it. Therefore is one not freed from one’s evil deeds.”
The above is the Buddhist notion of individual identity and its conservation, which denies the immortality of the ego-soul and upholds that of karma.
Another good way, perhaps, of illustrating this doctrine is to follow the growth and perpetuation of the seed. The seed is in fact a concrete expression of karma. When a plant reaches a certain stage of development, it blooms and bears fruit. This fruit contains in it a latent energy which under favorable conditions grows to a mature plant of its own kind. The new plant now repeats the processes which its predecessors went through, and an eternal perpetuation of the plant is attained. The life of an individual plant cannot be permanent according to its inherent nature, it is destined to be cut short some time in its course. But this is not the case with the current of an ever-lasting vitality that has been running in the plant ever since the beginning of the world. Because this current is not individual in its nature and stands above the vicissitudes which take place in the life of particular plants. It may not be manifested in its kinetic form all the time, but potentially it is ever present in the being of the seed. Changes are simply a matter of form, and do not interfere with the current of life in the plant, which is preserved in the universe as the energy of vegetation.
This energy of vegetation is that which is manifested in a mature plant, that which makes it blossom in the springtime, that which goes to seed, that which lies apparently dormant in the seeds, and that which resuscitates them to sprout among favorable surroundings. This energy of vegetation, this mysterious force, when stated in Buddhist phraseology, is nothing else than the vegetative expression of karma, which in the biological world constitutes the law of heredity, or the transmission of acquired character, or some other laws which might be discovered by the biologist. And it is when this force manifests itself in the moral realm of human affairs that karma obtains its proper significance as the law of moral causation.
Now, there are several forms of transmission, by means of which the karma of a person or a people or a nation or a race is able to perpetuate itself to eternity. A few of them are described below.
One may be called genealogical, or, perhaps, biological. Suppose here are descendants of an illustrious family, some of whose ancestors distinguished themselves by bravery, or benevolence, or intelligence, or by some other praiseworthy deeds or faculties. These people are as a rule respected by their neighbors as if their ancestral spirits were transmitted through generations and still lingering among their consanguineous successors. Some of them in the line might have even been below the normal level in their intellect and morals, but this fact does not altogether nullify the possibility and belief that others of their family might some day develop the faculties possessed by the forefathers, dormant as they appear now, through the inspiration they could get from the noble examples of the past. The respect they are enjoying and the possibility of inspiration they may have are all the work of the karma generated by the ancestors. The author or authors of the noble karma are all gone now, their bones have long returned to their elements, their ego-souls are no more, their concrete individual personalities are things of the past; but their karma is still here and as fresh as it was on the day of its generation and will so remain till the end of time. If some of them, on the other hand, left a black record behind them, the evil karma will tenaciously cling to the history of the family, and the descendants will have to suffer the curse as long as its vitality is kept up, no matter how innocent they themselves are.
Here one important thing I wish to note is the mysterious way in which evil karma works. Evil does not always generate evils only; it very frequently turns out to be a condition, if not a cause, which will induce a moral being to overcome it with his utmost spiritual efforts. His being conscious of the very fact that his family history is somehow besmirched with dark spots, would rekindle in his heart a flickering light of goodness. His stock of good karma finally being brought into maturity, his virtues would then eclipse the evils of the past and turn a new page before him, which is full of bliss and glory. Everything in this world, thus, seems to turn to be merely a means for the final realisation of Good. Buddhists ascribe this spiritual phenomenon to the virtues of the upâya (expediency) of the Dharmakâya or Amitâbha Buddha.[91]
To return to the subject. It does not need any further illustration to show that all these things which have been said about the family are also true of the race, the tribe, clan, nation, or any other form of community. History of mankind in all its manifold aspects of existence is nothing but a grand drama visualising the Buddhist doctrine of karmaic immortality. It is like an immense ocean whose boundaries nobody knows and the waves of events now swelling and surging, now ebbing, now whirling, now refluxing, in all times, day and night, illustrate how the laws of karma are at work in this actual life. One act provokes another and that a third and so on to eternity without ever losing the chain of karmaic causation.
Next, we come to a form of karma which might be called historical. By this I mean that a man’s karma can be immortalised by some historical objects, such as buildings, literary works, productions of art, implements, or instruments. In fact, almost any object, human or natural, which, however insignificant in itself, is associated with the memory of a great man, bears his karma, and transmits it to posterity.
Everybody is familiar with the facts that all literary work embodies in itself the author’s soul and spirit, and that posterity can feel his living presence in the thoughts and sentiments expressed there, and that whenever the reader draws his inspiration from the work and actualises it in action, the author and the reader, though corporeally separate and living in different times, must be said spiritually feeling the pulsation of one and the same heart. And the same thing is true of productions of art. When we enter a gallery decorated with the noble works of Græcean or Roman artists, we feel as if we were breathing right in the midst of these art-loving people and seem to reawaken in us the same impressions that were received by them. We forget, as they did, the reality of our particular existence, we are unconsciously raised above it, and our imagination is filled with things not earthly. What a mysterious power it is!—the power by which those inanimate objects carry us away to a world of ideals! What a mysterious power it is that reawakens the spirits of by-gone artists on a sheet of canvas or in a piece of marble! It was not indeed entirely without truth that primitive or ignorant people intuitively believed in the spiritual power of idols. What they failed to grasp was the distinction between the subjective presence of a spirit and its objective reality. As far as their religious feeling, and not their critical intellect, was concerned, they were perfectly justified in believing in idolatry. Taking all in all, these facts unmistakably testify the Buddhist doctrine of the immortality of karma. A chord of karma touched by mortals of bygone ages still vibrates in their works, and the vibration with its full force is transmitted to the sympathetic souls down to the present day.
Architectural creations bear out the doctrine of karma with no less force than works of art and literature. As the uppermost bricks on an Egyptian pyramid would fall on the ground with the same amount of energy that required to raise them up in the times of Pharaohs; as a burning piece of coal in the furnace that was dug out from the heart of the earth emits the same quantity of heat that it absorbed from the sun some hundred thousand years ago; even so every insignificant bit of rock or brick or cement we may find among the ruins of Babylonian palaces, Indian topes, Persian kiosks, Egyptian obelisks, or Roman pantheons, is fraught with the same spirit and soul that actuated the ancient peoples to construct those gigantic architectural wonders. The spirit is here, not in its individual form, but in its karmaic presence. When we pick these insignificant, unseemly pieces, our souls become singularly responsive to inspirations coming from those of the past, and our mental eyes vividly perceive the splendor of the gods, glory of the kings, peace of the nation, prosperity of the peoples, etc., etc. Because our souls and theirs are linked with the chain of karmaic causation through the medium of those visible remains of ancient days. Because the karma of those old peoples is still breathing its immortality in those architectural productions and sending its sympathetic waves out to the beholders. When thus we come to be convinced of the truth of the immortality of karma, we can truly exclaim with Christians, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
It is hardly necessary to give any further illustration to establish the doctrine of karma concerning its historical significance. All scientific apparatus and instruments are an undying eye-witness of the genius of the inventors. All industrial machines and agricultural implements most concretely testify the immortality of karma created by the constructors, in exact proportion as they are beneficial to the general welfare and progress of humanity. The instruments or machines or implements may be superseded by later and better ones, and possibly altogether forgotten by succeeding generations, but this does not annul the fact that the improved ones were only possible through the knowledge and experience which came from the use of the older ones, in other words, that the ideas and thoughts of the former inventors are still surviving through those of their successors, just as much as in the case of genealogical karma-transmission. Whatever garb the karma of a person may wear in its way down to posterity, it is ever there where its inspiration is felt. Even in an article of most trivial significance, even in a piece of rag, or in a slip of time-worn paper, only let there be an association with the memory of the deceased; and an unutterable feeling imperceptibly creeps into the heart of the beholder; and if the deceased were known for his saintliness or righteousness, this would be an opportunity for our inspiration and moral elevation according to how our own karma at that moment is made up.
We now come to see more closely the spiritual purport of karmaic activity. Any intelligent reader could infer from what has been said above what important bearing the Buddhist doctrine of karma has on our moral and spiritual life. The following remarks, however, will greatly help him to understand the full extent of the doctrine and to pass an impartial judgment on its merits.
Here, if not anywhere else, looms up most conspicuously the characteristic difference between Buddhism and Christianity as to their conception of soul-activity. Christianity, if I understand it rightly, conceives our soul-phenomena as the work of an individual ego-entity, which keeps itself mysteriously hidden somewhere within the body. To Christians, the soul is a metaphysical being, and its incarnation in the flesh is imprisonment. It groans after emancipation, it craves for the celestial abode, where, after bodily death, it can enjoy all the blessings due to its naked existence. It finds the nectar of immortality up in Heaven and in the presence of God the father and Christ the son, and not in the perpetuation of karma in this universe. The soul of the wicked, on the other hand, is eternally damned, if it is conceded that they have any soul. As soon as it is liberated from the bodily incarceration, it is hurled into the infernal fire, and is there consumed suffering unspeakable agony. Christianity, therefore, does not believe in the transmigration or reincarnation of a soul. A soul once departed from the flesh never returns to it; it is either living an eternal life in Heaven or suffering an instant annihilation in Hell. This is the necessary conclusion from their premises of an individual concrete ego-soul.
Buddhism, however, does not teach the metaphysical existence of the soul. All our mental and spiritual experiences, it declares, are due to the operations of karma which inherits its efficiency from its previous “seeds of activity” (karmabîja), and which has brought the five skandhas into the present state of co-ordination. The present karma, while in its force, generates in turn the “seeds of activity” which under favorable conditions grow to maturity again. Therefore, as long as the force of karma is thus successively generated, there are the five skandhas constantly coming into existence and working co-ordinately as a person. Karma-reproduction, so to speak, effected in this manner, is the Buddhist conception of the transmigration of a soul.
A Japanese national hero, General Kusunoki Masashige, who was an orthodox Buddhist, is said to have uttered the following words when he fell in the battle-field: “I will be reborn seven times yet and complete discharging my duties for the Imperial House.” And he did not utter these words to no purpose. Because even to-day, after the lapse of more than seven hundred years, his spirit is still alive among his countrymen, and indeed his bronze statue on horseback is solemnly guarding the Japanese Imperial palace. He was reborn more than seven times and will be reborn as long as the Japanese as a nation exist on earth. This constant rebirth or reincarnation means no more nor less than the immortality of karma. Says Buddha: “Ye disciples, take after my death those moral precepts and doctrines which were taught to you for my own person, for I live in them.” To live in karma, and not as an ego-entity, is the Buddhist conception of immortality. Therefore, the Buddhists will perfectly agree with the sentiment expressed by a noted modern poet in these lines:
“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not in breaths:
In feelings, not in figures on a dial,
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”
Some may like to call this kind of immortality unsatisfactory, and impetuously demand that the ego-soul, instead of mysterious force of karma, should be made immortal, as it is more tangible and better appreciated by the masses. The Buddhist response to such a demand would be; “If their intellectual and moral insight is not developed enough to see truth in the theory of karma, why, we shall let them adhere as long as they please to their crude, primitive faith and rest contented with it.” Even the Buddha could not make children find pleasure in abstract metaphysical problems, whatever truth and genuine spiritual consolation there might be in them. What their hearts are after are toys and fairy-tales and parables. Therefore, a motto of Buddhism is: “Minister to the patients according to their wants and conditions.” We cannot make a plant grow even an inch higher by artificially pulling its roots; we have but to wait till it is ready for development. Unless a child becomes a man, we must not expect of him to put away childish things.
The conclusion that could be drawn from the above is obvious. If we desire immortality, let there be the maturing of good karma and the cleansing of the heart from the contamination of evils. In good karma we are made to live eternally, but in evil one we are doomed, not only ourselves but every one that follows our steps on the path of evils. Karma is always generative; therefore, good karma is infinite bliss, and evil one is eternal curse. It was for this reason that at the appearance of the Buddha in the Jambudvîpa heaven and earth resounded with the joyous acclamation of gods and men. It was a signal triumph for the cause of goodness. The ideal of moral perfection found a concrete example in the person of Çâkyamuni. It showed how the stock of good karma accumulated and matured from the beginning of consciousness on earth could be crystalised in one person and brought to an actuality even in this world of woes. The Buddha, therefore, was the culmination of all the good karma previously stored up by his spiritual ancestors. And he was at the same time the starting point for the fermentation of new karma, because his moral “seeds of activity” which were generated during his lifetime have been scattered liberally wherever his virtues and teachings could be promulgated. That is, his karma-seeds have been sown in the souls of all sentient beings. Every one of these seeds which are infinite in number will become a new centre of moral activity. In proportion how strong it grows and begins to bear fruit, it destroys the seeds of evil doers. Good karma is a combined shield and sword, while it protects itself it destroys all that is against it. Therefore, good karma is not only statically immortal, but it is dynamically so; that is to say, its immortality is not a mere absence of birth and death, but a constant positive increase in its moral efficiency.
Pious Buddhists believe that every time Buddha’s name is invoked with a heart free from evil thoughts, he enters right into the soul and becomes integral part of his being. This does not mean, however, that Buddha’s ego-substratum which might have been enjoying its immortal spiritual bliss in the presence of an anthropomorphic God descends on earth at the invocation of his name and renders in that capacity whatever help the supplicant needs. It means, on the other hand, that the Buddhist awakens in his personal karma that which constituted Buddhahood in the Buddha and nourishes it to maturity. That which constitutes Buddhahood is not the personal ego of the Buddha, but his karma. Every chemical element, whenever occasioned to befree itself from a combination, never fails to generate heat which it absorbed at the time of combination with other elements; and this takes place no matter how remote the time of combination was. It is even so with the karma-seed of Buddha. It might have been in the barren soil of a sinful heart, and, being deeply buried there for many a year, might have been forgotten altogether by the owner. But, sooner or later, it will never fail to grow under favorable conditions and generate what it gained from the Buddha in the beginning of the world. And this regeneration will not be merely chemical, but predominantly biological; for it is the law which conditions the immortality of karma.