“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.