According to the vulgar view, particular existences are real, they have permanent substantial entities, remaining forever as such. They think, therefore, that organic matter remains forever organic just as much as inorganic matter remains inorganic; that, as they are essentially different, there is no mutual transformation between them. The human soul is different from that of the lower animals and sentient beings from non-sentient beings; the difference being well-defined and permanent, there is no bridge over which one can cross to the other. We may call this view naturalistic egoism.
Mahâyânism, against this egoistic conception of the world, extends its theory of non-âtman to the realm lying outside us. It maintains that there is no irreducible reality in particular existences, so long as they are combinations of several causes and conditions brought together by the principle of karma. Things are here because they are sustained by karma. As soon as its force is exhausted, the conditions that made their existence possible lose efficience and dissolve, and in their places will follow other conditions and existences. Therefore, what is organic to-day, may be inorganic to-morrow, and vice versa. Carbon, for instance, which is stored within the earth appears in the form of coal or graphite or diamond; but that which exists on its surface is found sometimes combined with other elements in the form of an animal or a vegetable, sometimes in its free elementary state. It is the same carbon everywhere; it becomes inorganic or organic, according to its karma, it has no âtman in itself which directs its transformation by its own self-determining will. Mutual transformation is everywhere observable; there is a constant shifting of forces, an eternal transmigration of the elements,—all of which tend to show the transitoriness and non-âtman-ness of individual existences. The universe is moving like a whirl-wind, nothing in it proving to be stationary, nothing in it rigidly adhering to its own form of existence.
Suppose, on the other hand, there were an âtman behind every particular being; suppose, too, it were absolute and permanent and self-acting; and this phenomenal world would then come to a standstill, and life be forever gone. For is not changeability the most essential feature and condition of life, and also the strongest evidence for the non-existence of individual things as realities? The physical sciences recognise this universal fact of mutual transformation in its positive aspect and call it the law of the conservation of energy and of matter. Mahâyânism, recognising its negative side, proposes the doctrine of the non-âtman-ness of things, that is to say, the impermanency of all particular existences. Therefore, it is said, “Sarvam anityam, sarvam çûnyam, sarvam anâtman.” (All is transitory, all is void, all is without ego.)
Mahâyânists condemn the vulgar view that denies the consubstantiality and reciprocal transformation of all beings, not only because it is scientifically untenable, but mainly because, ethically and religiously considered, it is fraught with extremely dangerous ideas,—ideas which finally may lead a “brother to deliver up the brother to death and the father the child,” and, again, it may constrain “the children to rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death.” Why? Because this view, born of egoism, would dry up the well of human love and sympathy, and transform us into creatures of bestial selfishness; because this view is not capable of inspiring us with the sense of mutuality and commiseration and of making us disinterestedly feel for our fellow-beings. Then, all fine religious and humane sentiments would depart from our hearts, and we should be nothing less than rigid, lifeless corpses, no pulse beating, no blood running. And how many victims are offered every day on this altar of egoism! They are not necessarily immoral by nature, but blindly led by the false conception of life and the world, they have been rendered incapable of seeing their own spiritual doubles in their neighbors. Being ever controlled by their sensual impulses, they sin against humanity, against nature, and against themselves.
We read in the Mahâyâna-abhisamaya Sûtra (Nanjo, no. 196):
“Empty and calm and devoid of ego
Is the nature of all things:
There is no individual being
That in reality exists.“Nor end nor beginning having
Nor any middle course,
All is a sham, here’s no reality whatever:
It is like unto a vision and a dream.“It is like unto clouds and lightning,
It is like unto gossamer or bubbles floating
It is like unto fiery revolving wheel,
It is like unto water-splashing.“Because of causes and conditions things are here:
In them there’s no self-nature [i.e., âtman]:
All things that move and work,
Know them as such.“Ignorance and thirsty desire,
The source of birth and death they are:
Right contemplation and discipline by heart,
Desire and ignorance obliterate.“All beings in the world,
Beyond words they are and expressions:
Their ultimate nature, pure and true,
Is like unto vacuity of space.”[10]
The Dharmakâya.
The Dharmakâya, which literally means “body or system of being,” is, according to the Mahâyânists, the ultimate reality that underlies all particular phenomena; it is that which makes the existence of individuals possible; it is the raison d’être of the universe; it is the norm of being, which regulates the course of events and thoughts. The conception of Dharmakâya is peculiarly Mahâyânistic, for the Hînayâna school did not go so far as to formulate the ultimate principle of the universe; its adherents stopped short at a positivistic interpretation of Buddhism. The Dharmakâya remained for them to be the Body of the Law, or the Buddha’s personality as embodied in the truth taught by him.
The Dharmakâya may be compared in one sense to the God of Christianity and in another sense to the Brahman or Paramâtman of Vedantism. It is different, however, from the former in that it does not stand transcendentally above the universe, which, according to the Christian view, was created by God, but which is, according to Mahâyânism, a manifestation of the Dharmakâya himself. It is also different from Brahman in that it is not absolutely impersonal, nor is it a mere being. The Dharmakâya, on the contrary, is capable of willing and reflecting, or, to use Buddhist phraseology, it is Karunâ (love) and Bodhi (intelligence), and not the mere state of being.
This pantheistic and at the same time entheistic Dharmakâya is working in every sentient being, for sentient beings are nothing but a self-manifestation of the Dharmakâya. Individuals are not isolated existences, as imagined by most people. If isolated, they are nothing, they are so many soap-bubbles which vanish one after another in the vacuity of space. All particular existences acquire their meaning only when they are thought of in their oneness in the Dharmakâya. The veil of Mâya, i.e., subjective ignorance may temporally throw an obstacle to our perceiving the universal light of Dharmakâya, in which we are all one. But when our Bodhi or intellect, which is by the way a reflection of the Dharmakâya in the human mind, is so fully enlightened, we no more build the artificial barrier of egoism before our spiritual eye; the distinction between the meum and teum is obliterated, no dualism throws the nets of entanglement over us; I recognise myself in you and you recognise yourself in me; tat tvam asi. Or,