Said Kūtadanta: "I feel, O Lord, that thou proclaimest a great doctrine, but I cannot grasp it. Forbear with me that I ask again: Tell me, O Lord, if there be no ātman, how can there be immortality? The activity of the mind passeth, and our thoughts are gone when we have done thinking."24
Buddha replied: "Our thinking is gone, but our thoughts continue. Reasoning ceases, but knowledge remains." 25
Said Kūtadanta: "How is that? Is not reasoning and knowledge the same?"25
The Blessed One explained the distinction by an illustration: "It is as when a man wants, during the night, to send a letter, and, after having Ids clerk called, has a lamp lit, and gets the letter written. Then, when that has been done, he extinguishes the lamp. But though the writing has been finished and the light has been put out the letter is still there. Thus does reasoning cease and knowledge remain; and in the same way mental activity ceases, but experience, wisdom, and all the fruits of our acts endure."27
Kūtadanta continued: "Tell me, O Lord, pray tell me, where, if the sankhāras are dissolved, is the identity of my self. If my thoughts are propagated, and if my soul migrates, my thoughts cease to be my thoughts and my soul ceases to be my soul. Give me an illustration, but pray, O Lord, tell me, where is the identity of my self?"28
Said the Blessed One: "Suppose a man were to light a lamp; would it burn the night through?"29
"Yes, it might do so," was the reply.30
"Now, is it the same flame that burns in the first watch of the night as in the second?"31
Kūtadanta hesitated. He thought "Yes, it is the same flame," but fearing the complications of a hidden meaning, and trying to be exact, he said: "No, it is not."32
"Then," continued the Blessed One, "there are flames, one in the first watch and the other in the second watch."33