Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism

by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

Some may like to call this kind of immortality unsatisfactory, and impetuously demand that the ego-soul, instead of mysterious force of karma, should be made immortal, as it is more tangible and better appreciated by the masses. The Buddhist response to such a demand would be; “If their intellectual and moral insight is not developed enough to see truth in the theory of karma, why, we shall let them adhere as long as they please to their crude, primitive faith and rest contented with it.” Even the Buddha could not make children find pleasure in abstract metaphysical problems, whatever truth and genuine spiritual consolation there might be in them. What their hearts are after are toys and fairy-tales and parables. Therefore, a motto of Buddhism is: “Minister to the patients according to their wants and conditions.” We cannot make a plant grow even an inch higher by artificially pulling its roots; we have but to wait till it is ready for development. Unless a child becomes a man, we must not expect of him to put away childish things.

The conclusion that could be drawn from the above is obvious. If we desire immortality, let there be the maturing of good karma and the cleansing of the heart from the contamination of evils. In good karma we are made to live eternally, but in evil one we are doomed, not only ourselves but every one that follows our steps on the path of evils. Karma is always generative; therefore, good karma is infinite bliss, and evil one is eternal curse. It was for this reason that at the appearance of the Buddha in the Jambudvîpa heaven and earth resounded with the joyous acclamation of gods and men. It was a signal triumph for the cause of goodness. The ideal of moral perfection found a concrete example in the person of Çâkyamuni. It showed how the stock of good karma accumulated and matured from the beginning of consciousness on earth could be crystalised in one person and brought to an actuality even in this world of woes. The Buddha, therefore, was the culmination of all the good karma previously stored up by his spiritual ancestors. And he was at the same time the starting point for the fermentation of new karma, because his moral “seeds of activity” which were generated during his lifetime have been scattered liberally wherever his virtues and teachings could be promulgated. That is, his karma-seeds have been sown in the souls of all sentient beings. Every one of these seeds which are infinite in number will become a new centre of moral activity. In proportion how strong it grows and begins to bear fruit, it destroys the seeds of evil doers. Good karma is a combined shield and sword, while it protects itself it destroys all that is against it. Therefore, good karma is not only statically immortal, but it is dynamically so; that is to say, its immortality is not a mere absence of birth and death, but a constant positive increase in its moral efficiency.

Pious Buddhists believe that every time Buddha’s name is invoked with a heart free from evil thoughts, he enters right into the soul and becomes integral part of his being. This does not mean, however, that Buddha’s ego-substratum which might have been enjoying its immortal spiritual bliss in the presence of an anthropomorphic God descends on earth at the invocation of his name and renders in that capacity whatever help the supplicant needs. It means, on the other hand, that the Buddhist awakens in his personal karma that which constituted Buddhahood in the Buddha and nourishes it to maturity. That which constitutes Buddhahood is not the personal ego of the Buddha, but his karma. Every chemical element, whenever occasioned to befree itself from a combination, never fails to generate heat which it absorbed at the time of combination with other elements; and this takes place no matter how remote the time of combination was. It is even so with the karma-seed of Buddha. It might have been in the barren soil of a sinful heart, and, being deeply buried there for many a year, might have been forgotten altogether by the owner. But, sooner or later, it will never fail to grow under favorable conditions and generate what it gained from the Buddha in the beginning of the world. And this regeneration will not be merely chemical, but predominantly biological; for it is the law which conditions the immortality of karma.

PRACTICAL BUDDHISM.

CHAPTER IX.
THE DHARMAKÂYA.

We have considered the doctrine of Suchness (Bhûtatathâtâ) under “Speculative Buddhism,” where it appeared altogether too abstract to be of any practical use to our earthly life. The theory as such did not seem to have any immediate bearings on our religious consciousness. The fact is, it must pass through some practical modification before it fully satisfies our spiritual needs. As there is no concrete figure in this world that is a perfect type of mathematical exactitude,—since everything here must be perceived through our more or less distorted physical organs; even so with pure reason: however perfect in itself, it must appear to us more or less modified while passing through our affective-intellectual objectives. This modification of pure reason, however, is necessary from the human point of view; because mere abstraction is contentless, lifeless, and has no value for our practical life, and again, because our religious cravings will not be satisfied with empty concepts lacking vitality.

We may sometimes ignore the claims of reason and rest satisfied, though usually unconsciously, with assertions which are conflicting when critically examined, but we cannot disregard by any means those of the religious sentiment, which finds satisfaction only in the very fact of things. If it ever harbored some flagrant contradictions in the name of faith, it was because its ever-pressing demands had to be met with even at the expense of reason. The truth is: the religious consciousness first of all demands fact, and when it attains that, it is not of much consequence to it whether or not its intellectual interpretation is logically tenable. If on the other hand logic be all-important and demand the first consideration and the sentiment had to follow its trail without a murmuring, our life would surely lose its savory aspect, turn tasteless, our existence would become void, the world would be a mere succession of meaningless events, and what remains would be nothing else than devastation, barrenness, and universal misery. The truth is, in this life the will predominates and the intellect subserves; which explains the fact that while all existing religions on the one hand display some logical inaccuracy and on the other hand a mechanical explanation of the world is gaining ground more and more, religion is still playing an important part everywhere in our practical life. Abstraction is good for the exercises of the intellect, but when it is the question of life and death we must have something more substantial and of more vitality than theorisation. It may not be a mathematically exact and certain proposition, but it must be a working, living, real theory, that is, it must be a faith born of the inmost consciousness of our being.

What practical transformations then has the doctrine of Suchness, in order to meet the religious demands, to suffer?

God.

Buddhism does not use the word God. The word is rather offensive to most of its followers, especially when it is intimately associated in vulgar minds with the idea of a creator who produced the world out of nothing, caused the downfall of mankind, and, touched by the pang of remorse, sent down his only son to save the depraved. But, on account of this, Buddhism must not be judged as an atheism which endorses an agnostic, materialistic interpretation of the universe. Far from it. Buddhism outspokenly acknowledges the presence in the world of a reality which transcends the limitations of phenomenality, but which is nevertheless immanent everywhere and manifests itself in its full glory, and in which we live and move and have our being.