The splendour of Asia: The story and teaching of the Buddha

by L. Adams Beck

Making his way perfect through the disentangling powers of wisdom, fasting cruelly, yet not trusting in this austerity for enfranchisement, he strengthened in heart and wisdom even as his body weakened.

And first he meditated on transience, and all about him confirmed the truth, for nothing stayed but all became and passed instantly, never resting, into further becoming. About him the seasons trod their quiet round. Scarcely had the young spring burst into blossom, when, before she had leisure to mirror her beauty in the river at his feet, she was lost in the burning splendour of summer, and this passed without pause or division into the gold and orange fruitage of autumn and the passionate weeping of the rains, and so ended in the temperate sweetness of winter, there to recommence the eternal Wheel of Change.

And he thought: “There is no being, for all is becoming. On what shall we build?”

And before him the spider spun her frail thread, glittering with morning dew, lovely as a queen’s garments in the pale morning gold that filtered through green leaves. And so in a moment it was gone. And he thought:

“Surely the existence of man is frailer. A blow, a breath of pestilence and he lies broken, an offence to the earth. To appear, to disappear. Such is the history of man as of the meanest of insects.” And before his strained perception unrolled itself the whole vast phantasmagoria of thought like a veil hung to conceal the Permanent, the Eternal, and he could not penetrate behind it. Before him were the steps by which the creature ascends to the Source, but in the height they dissolved into vapour and dispersed into cloud and there was no way there.

And sometimes so present were the evil and pain of life to his vision, so unescapable their presence, that for a space it seemed the perfection of divine attainment was but an infinite of the first power, but evil and pain an infinite of immeasurable power, terrible in perfection. And to a lesser than the Bodhisattva this must have brought madness or despair, but strong as an eagle to the sun he outsoared the dark clouds. And unknown to himself nature spread her guards about him. In the rising of the moon was peace and her light shed tenderer dreams like the soft falling of snow, and the strong leap of the sun at dawn in the first of his three strides, was the outrush of hope—hope unfulfilled but ever on before. And the breeze was good to him, laying a cool hand on weary temples, and the singing of the river overflowed from the very heart of quiet.

And as the tapestry of life unrolled its pictures before his eyes he read its lesson. Happiness is a dream and sorrow a truth and individual life a misfortune from which impersonal contemplation is the only enfranchisement. Could this be true? Could it be possible that a barren soul, a proud and complete selfishness and heedlessness of all other sufferers than himself, disdain of the crowd and indifference to all that the vulgar covet, represent the only escape for the wise man from the entanglements of Maya—Illusion? No—a thousand times no! Better to drop into the jaws of darkness and be extinguished than remain petrified and apart in a world where men must bleed and die.

Then is goodness itself a lie? Is man the eternal dupe of words and phrases contrived to make us docile to suffering as slaves to the whip? Is hope but a watery rainbow painted on a dissolving cloud? Is the Way itself a dream begotten of Misery, the Mother, and Pride, the father—Pride that will have man think himself a something when in reality he is nothing and his fate concerns the universe as much as blown grains of sand in a whirlwind, rising and settling as aimlessly?

And at such times the Bodhisattva felt the endless turning of the Wheel within his own soul, and a vertigo of perception seized him as the Infinities gazed over his head in untroubled calm, and only the Wheel turned and turned in merciless revolution.

Then were it not better to submit to passive ignorance and fight no more? To sink into wearied submission, accepting the lash and fetter for doom? For each life is built up of millions, and where is the redemption for its infinite littleness? Let all pass for all is nothing.