Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism

by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

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.