Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism

by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

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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.”