“ ‘O son of good family! Just as we cannot obtain priceless pearls unless we dive into the depths of the four great oceans, O son of good family, it is even so [with Intelligence]. If we do not dive deep into the mighty ocean of passion and sin, how could we get hold of the precious gem of Buddha-essence? Let it therefore be understood that the primordial seeds of Intelligence draw their vitality from the midst of passion and sin.’ ” In a Pauline epistle we read, “From the foulness of the soil, the beauty of new life grows.” And Emerson sings:
“Let me go where’er I will,
I hear a sky-born music still.
’Tis not in the high stars alone,
Nor in the cup of budding flowers,
Nor in the redbreast’s mellow tone,
Nor in the bow that smiles in showers,
But in the mud and scum of things.
There always, always, something sings.”
Do we not see here a most explicit statement of the Mahâyânistic sentiment?
Nirvâna and Samsâra are One.
The most remarkable feature in the Mahâyânistic conception of Nirvâna is expressed in this formula: “Yas kleças so bodhi, yas samsâras tat nirvânam.” What is sin or passion, that is Intelligence, what is birth and death (or transmigration), that is Nirvâna. This is a rather bold and revolutionising proposition in the dogmatic history of Buddhism. But it is no more than the natural development of the spirit that was breathed by its founder.
In the Viçeṣacinta-brahma-paripṛccha Sûtra,[149] it is said that (chap. II):
“Samsâra is Nirvâna, because there is, when viewed from the ultimate nature of the Dharmakâya, nothing going out of, nor coming into, existence, [samsâra being only apparent]: Nirvâna is samsâra, when it is coveted and adhered to.”
In another place (op. cit.) the idea is expressed in much plainer terms: “The essence of all things is in truth free from attachment, attributes, and desires; therefore, they are pure, and, as they are pure, we know that what is the essence of birth and death that is the essence of Nirvâna, and that what is the essence of Nirvâna that is the essence of birth and death (samsâra). In other words, Nirvâna is not to be sought outside of this world, which, though transient, is in reality no more than Nirvâna itself. Because it is contrary to our reason to imagine that there is Nirvâna and there is birth and death (samsâra), and that the one lies outside the pale of the other, and, therefore, that we can attain Nirvâna only after we have annihilated or escaped the world of birth and death. If we are not hampered by our confused subjectivity, this our worldly life is an activity of Nirvâna itself.”
Nâgârjuna repeats the same sentiment in his Mâdhyamika Çâstra, when he says:
“Samsâra is in no way to be distinguished from Nirvâna:
Nirvâna is in no way to be distinguished from Samsâra.”[150]