Yet what of the Buddhas who successively melt into Nirvana, and nevertheless “return in their order”? Are they, too, phantoms?—is their individuality also unreal? Probably the question admits of many different answers,—since there is a Buddhist Realism as well as a Buddhist Idealism; but, for present purposes, the following famous text is a sufficient reply:—
Namu itsu shin san-zé shō butsu!
“Hail to all the Buddhas of the Three Existences,[43] who are but one in the One Mind!”[44]
In relation to the Absolute, no difference exists even between gods and men:—
“The Golden Verse of the Jō-sho-sa-chi[45] says:—‘This doctrine is equal and alike for all; there is neither superior nor inferior, neither above nor below.’”
Nay, according to a still more celebrated text, there is not even any difference of personality:—
Ji ta hō kai byō dō ri yaku.
“The ‘I’ and the ‘Not-I’ are not different in the World of Law: both are favored alike.”[46]
And a still more wonderful text—(to my thinking, the most remarkable of all Buddhist texts)—declares that the world itself, phantom though it be, is yet not different from Mind:—