The different degrees of moral attainment
There are in Buddhism three grades of moral attainment. The lowest is that which may be reached by any one in the ordinary life. Through purity of thought and word and deed, through the exercise of universal kindliness, and by the fulfillment of every duty pertaining to his station in life, one attains such a degree of moral excellence that he may at least hope at death to avoid painful rebirth.
The second degree of moral excellence is that attained by the monk of Gautama’s Order. The idea of the Buddhist here is like that of the Christian respecting the monastic life. For centuries in the West the ascetic life was looked upon as more perfect than the ordinary life, and as the better and surer way to salvation. It is the same in Buddhist lands. The goal striven after, the extinction of unholy desires, the Buddhist believes is most quickly and surely reached by him who has rid himself of the cares and worries of domestic life, and withdrawn from all the distractions of the world.
The prime duty of the Buddhist monk is meditation, which takes the place of prayer in the code of the Christian recluse. Through following faithfully and patiently all the rules of the Order he may hope to attain such comparative perfection that at his death he will be reborn in some better state.
The third and highest degree of moral attainment can be reached only in the Arhatship. The Arhat is what we would call the perfect man. He is one who, like the Buddha, reaches a state of perfect insight or mental illumination and of perfect freedom from all desires[282] save the desire for Nirvana. This state is reached only through absolute renunciation of the world. He who would be perfect must leave all earthly pleasures behind, and calling nothing his own, with all appetites stilled, passionless and desireless, go out from home into homelessness.[283] In such a one karma becomes extinct, and for him there are no new births. “The living, moving body of the perfect man is visible still,” says Rhys Davids in explaining this state, ... “but it will decay and die and pass away, and as no new body will be formed, where life was, will be nothing.”[284]
The genuine altruism of Buddhist ethics
It is impossible to conceive a higher altruism than that inculcated by the higher thoroughgoing Buddhism. Since it denies the existence of the soul,—nothing save the seed (karma) of another but different life remaining at death,—when one strives to break the chain of existence, to make an end of the weary cycle of births, such a one is seeking good not for himself but for another. In the words of Dr. Hopkins, “It is to save from sorrow this son of one’s acts that one should seek to find the end.”[285] Thus orthodox Buddhism alone, of all the great ethical systems of history, refuses to sully virtue with promises of reward. Its morality stands absolutely alone, unsupported by the hope of recompense either in this world or in the world to come. “Buddhism alone teaches that to live on earth is weariness, that there is no bliss beyond, and that one should yet be calm, pure, loving, and wise.”[286]
Another thing especially noteworthy regarding the ethics of Buddhism is that it is the ethics of naturalism. “For the first time in the history of the world,” in the words of Rhys Davids, “Buddhism proclaimed a salvation which each man could gain for himself and by himself in this world, during this life, without the least reference to God or the gods, either great or small.” In this respect Buddhism is somewhat like the present-day socialism of the materialistic school, which ardently proclaims justice, equity, and universal brotherhood, but says nothing about God.
III. Some Expressions of the Ethical Spirit of Buddhism
Introductory