Is not this teaching the very reverse of that of all other peoples and religions? Can you imagine the religious teachers of any other religion being warned to keep themselves free from visions? Are not visions and trances, dreams and imaginations, the very proof of holiness? But here it is not so. These are vain things, foolish imaginations, and he who would lead the pure life must put behind him all such things as mere dram-drinking of the soul.
This is a most wonderful thing, a religion that condemns all mysticisms. It stands alone here amongst all religions, pure from the tinsel of miracle, either past, or present, or to come. And yet this people is, like all young nations, given to superstition: its young men dream dreams, its girls see visions. There are interpreters of dreams, many of them, soothsayers of all kinds, people who will give you charms, and foretell events for you. Just as it was with us not long ago, the mystery, what is beyond the world, exercises a curious fascination over them. Everywhere you will meet with traces of it, and I have in another chapter told some of the principal phases of these. But the religion has kept itself pure. No hysteric visions, no madman's dreams, no clever conjurer's tricks, have ever shed a tawdry glory on the monkhood of the Buddha. Amid all the superstition round about them they have remained pure, as they have from passion and desire. Here in the far East, the very home, we think, of the unnatural and superhuman, the very cradle of the mysterious and the wonderful, is a religion which condemns it all, and a monkhood who follow their religion. Does not this out-miracle any miracle?
With other faiths it is different: they hold out to those who follow their tenets and accept their ministry that in exchange for the worldly things which their followers renounce they shall receive other gifts, heavenly ones; they will be endued with power from above; they will have authority from on high; they will become the chosen messengers of God; they may even in their trances enter into His heaven, and see Him face to face.
Buddhism has nothing of all this to offer. A man must surrender all the world, with no immediate gain. There is only this: that if he struggle along in the path of righteousness, he will at length attain unto the Great Peace.
A monk who dreamed dreams, who said that the Buddha had appeared to him in a vision, who announced that he was able to prophesy, would be not exalted, but expelled. He would be deemed silly or mad; think of that—mad—for seeing visions, not holy at all! The boys would jeer at him; he would be turned out of his monastery.
A monk is he who observes purity and sanity of life. Hysteric dreams, the childishness of the mysterious, the insanity of the miraculous, are no part of that.
And so a monk has to put behind him everything that is called good in this life, and govern his body and his soul in strict temperance.
He must wear but yellow garments, ample and decent, but not beautiful; he must shave his head; he must have none but the most distant intercourse with women; he must beg his food daily in the streets; he must eat but twice, and then but a certain amount, and never after noon; he must take no interest in worldly affairs; he must own no property, must attend no plays or performances; 'he must eat, not to satisfy his appetite, but to keep his body alive; he must wear clothes, not from vanity, but from decency; he must live under a roof, not because of vainglory, but because the weather renders it necessary.' All his life is bounded by the very strictest poverty and purity.
There is no austerity. A monk may not over-eat, but he must eat enough; he must not wear fine clothes, but he must be decent and comfortable; he must not have proud dwellings, but he should be sheltered from the weather.
There is no self-punishment in Buddhism. Did not the Buddha prove the futility of this long ago? The body must be kept in health, that the soul may not be hampered. And so the monks live a very healthy, very temperate life, eating and drinking just enough to keep the body in good health; that is the first thing, that is the very beginning of the pure life.