The Metaphysic of Christianity and Buddhism: A Symphony

by D. M. Strong

This, Buddhistically understood, is true enough, but there is a danger of the Christian reader associating with the expression "spiritual" the idea of the existence of a spirit in man as an ego-entity. Interpreted in this sense, the expression would be wholly inapplicable to any possible phase of Buddhistic thought or doctrine. Gotama knew of no independent spirit-entity in man, so there could be no such thing as animistic vision in Buddhism.

In the New Testament it is evident from the context that Jesus, when negatively describing a spirit as that which hath not flesh and bones, was not alluding to spirit in the sense given to it by modern psychologists as "ideas," or as applied to the Sankhâras by the translator of Professor Oldenberg's book on Buddhism, but had in view those presentations of matter of human shape, without flesh and bone development, the appearance of which from time to time has been confirmed by not a few rational and reliable people.

With reference to Mr. Lillie's comments on the Jewish conception of an Almighty Ruler, it may be remarked here that executive omnipotence and omniscience convey the notion of qualities that cannot be philosophically applied to the absolute as conceived by Brahmins. This is very clearly enunciated in the philosophy of the Upanishads.

Mr. A. E. Gough, in his book on this subject, writes: "The Self (Brahma, or Reality) is said to be omniscient, but the reader must not be misled; this only means that it is self-conscious.... The omniscience of the Reality is its irradiation of all things."

It (Reality) knows but knows nothing, it sees but sees nothing, it loves but loves nothing; because "It" is knowledge, sight, love, etc. It transcends the relation of subject and object. In the New Testament we meet with the expression, "God is love"—that is, a quality with no objective application. It is the unseen and eternal in contradistinction to the seen and temporal.

"Brahma is Beatitude. But we must be cautious. Brahma is not Beatitude in the ordinary sense of the term. It is a bliss beyond the distinction of subject and object.... The Indian philosophers everywhere affirm that Brahma is knowledge, not that Brahma has knowledge."[R]

This is very like Schelling's idea as portrayed in his account of the ultimate goal of the finite ego: "The ultimate goal of the finite ego is enlargement of its sphere till the attainment of identity with the infinite ego. But the infinite ego knows no object, and possesses, therefore, no consciousness or unity of consciousness, such as we mean by personality. Consequently, the ultimate goal of all endeavour may also be represented as enlargement of the personality to infinity—that is to say, as its annihilation. The ultimate goal of the finite ego, and not only of it, but also of the non-ego—the final goal, therefore, of the world—is its annihilation as a world."[S]

Mr. Gough, in the book already referred to, remarks "that Buddhism is the philosophy of the Upanishads with Brahma left out; that in Buddhism Brahma, or the inner light, is replaced by zero, or a vacuum; that there is no light of lights beyond the darkness of the world-fiction; that the highest end and final hope of man is a return into this vacuum, or aboriginal nothingness of things. This is Nirvana, the extinction of the soul; the path to it is the path of inertion, apathy, and vacuity."

Buddhism expounded in this fashion is likely to produce a very erroneous conception of what it really proves to be.

In the first place, such expressions as "vacuum," "emptiness," "voidness," must not be interpreted solely in a negative sense; there is a positive sense also to be taken into account. The positive aspect of such expressions has been very clearly set forth by the great Chinese philosopher, Lau-toze, in the following manner: "The thirty spokes unite in the one nave, but it is on the empty space (for the axle) that the use of the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into vessels, but it is on their empty hollowness that their use depends. The door and windows are cut out (from the walls) to form an apartment, but it is on the empty space (within) that its use depends. Therefore, what has a (positive) existence serves for positive adaptation, and what has not that for (actual) usefulness."[T]