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Title: Buddhism
Author: Annie H. Small
Release date: September 13, 2025 [eBook #76869]
Language: English
Original publication: London: J. M. Dent & Co, 1905
Credits: Carla Foust, Richard Illner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUDDHISM ***
_STUDIES IN THE FAITHS._ I
BUDDHISM
BY
ANNIE H. SMALL
AUTHOR OF
‘YESHUDAS,’ ‘SUWARTA,’ ‘STUDIES IN BUDDHISM,’ ETC.
[Illustration: Printer Logo]
1905
LONDON
J. M. DENT & CO.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THE SCARED TOOTH, KANDY.]
TO
G. S. AND W. M. M.
THIS LITTLE SERIES OF STUDIES IS
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
PREFACE
It is in the belief that it may be not unprofitable for us of the
Christian Faith, that we should sit for a little space at the feet of
the great Indian Sage and Teacher, to study some of the truths which he
esteemed most highly, and to compare them with those already familiar
to us but too little dwelt upon by us, and in the light of them once
again to make real to our thinking those truths which are peculiarly
ours in Christ Jesus our Lord, that this little book has been written.
But no reader will mistake so slight a sketch for an attempt to tell
the whole.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INDIA AND GAUTAMA 11
ISRAEL AND JESUS 27
THE UNIVERSAL LAW. BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 39
THE UNIVERSAL LAW IN HUMAN LIFE: BUDDHISM
AND CHRISTIANITY 45
THE WAY OF EMANCIPATION: BUDDHISM 61
THE FORMULA OF CONFESSION 69
THE WAY OF SALVATION: CHRISTIANITY 75
THE TWO IDEALS 91
THE BUDDHA AND THE CHRIST 103
INDIA AND GAUTAMA
“_But lo! Siddharta turned_
_Eyes gleaming with divine tears to the sky,
Eyes lit with heavenly pity to the earth;
From sky to earth he looked, from earth to sky,
As if his spirit sought in lonely flight
Some far-off vision, linking this and that,
Lost--past--but searchable, but seen, but known.
Then cried he, while his lifted countenance
Glowed with the burning passion of a love
Unspeakable, the ardour of a hope
Boundless, insatiate: ‘Oh! suffering world;
Oh! known and unknown of my common flesh,
Caught in this common net of death and woe,
And life which binds to both! I see, I feel
The vastness of the agony of earth,
The vainness of its joys, the mockery
Of all its best, the anguish of its worst;
Since pleasures end in pain, and youth in age,
And love in loss, and life in hateful death,
And death in unknown lives, which will but yoke
Men to their wheel again to whirl the round
Of false delights and woes that are not false.
Since pleasures end in pain, and youth in age,
And love in loss, and life in hateful death,
And death in unknown lives, which will but yoke
Men to their wheel again to whirl the round
Of false delights and woes that are not false._
* * * * *
_I would not let one cry_
_Whom I could save.’_”
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD.
♦The Story of India♦
Beyond other lands the great land of India has borne the burden of
the havoc which has been wrought in this world of ours, and through
it in the fair universe of God; and she has realized deeply that man
has had some awful share in the tragedy. Her religious teaching is the
expression of her sense of this fact, and of her yearning after the
re-uniting of each several severed part with the original Oneness.
To this end the appalling panorama presented to the view in such a
city as Benares--the washings, the offerings and acts of worship, the
pilgrim processions from temple to temple. To this end the fastings
and austerities, the renunciations, the so-to-speak experiments in
ways of salvation. And to this end the long thoughts and dreams of the
centuries, and the missions of men like Gautama. The history of the
Passion of India is, rightly understood, the most noble which the world
has known, with one exception only. The huge blunders into which she
has fallen take nothing from the grandeur of the story, they add much
to its pathos. She has dreamed that man must seek God, and has never
had the vision of God seeking man. She has failed to evolve the idea of
a personal God, a living, speaking, loving God; and the pantheism into
which she has drifted seems to us at best a poor thing, and at worst
a bad thing. Life has failed of any moral significance. But the great
heart of India is fundamentally right. Her mistakes are not, as has been
so often affirmed, of the essence of her nature; they are only the best
solution which her unaided mind and heart could discover, of the problem
of the sorrow of the world. The greatest of her Masters was Gautama the
Buddha, who proved, in one aspect of his teaching, too great for her
acceptance, in another, too narrow; and he was rejected, not, however,
before he made an ineffaceable mark upon her thought, and not before she
had sent his influence far over the world.
♦Gautama♦
Gautama, known as the Buddha, was born at Kapila Wastu, on the river
Rohini, about a hundred miles from Benares, some 550 years before
Christ. He came of a noble family. Wonderful tales, most of them legends
of a comparatively recent date, are told of his birth, childhood, and
youth; little is really known. He was chivalrous and noble in character,
and revealed very early a peculiarly sensitive temperament; the sight
of suffering overwhelmed him; and his father, whose only child he was,
brought him up in strictest seclusion, sheltering him, so far as might
be, from contact with the darker aspects of life.
♦His Story♦
♦The Seeker♦
He was married early and happily, and ten years later a son was born to
him. It was about this time that the knowledge of the world’s sorrow
reached him. The story is told of his driving out beyond the palace
gates, and meeting examples of suffering, old age, and death. He
insisted upon an explanation, and the charioteer explained to his master
how that these were the common lot of humanity. Gautama returned to the
palace; but from that day was unable to settle into the old life. Unrest
grew upon him, and at length he determined to leave his home, don the
garb of the Seeker, and learn from those who had studied the problems of
evil in human life, the lesson of their meaning and their remedy.
♦The Way of Religion♦
He went, as was natural, in the first place, to the religious teachers,
the Brahmans, in order to learn from them how by religious service and
ritual, evil had been mastered. It is significant that the time spent in
this study was short, and that very little is told of it. The cruelty of
the sacrifices repelled him, and he could discover no relation whatever
between the elaborate symbolism of the worship, and the deeper needs of
his awakened nature.
♦The Way of the ascetic Student♦
He left the sacred city, and retired with five companions of like
mind with himself, that in the quiet of a forest retreat they might
meditate together. The only way known to them was the way of severest
self-discipline. Great thinkers of India had taught that the universe
is one great Soul from which all other souls had broken away. These,
separate from their true home, wander in misery, finding bodies as
they may, according to their nature, and having no rest until they
return to the original Soul. This is the doctrine of transmigration or
re-incarnation. The soul is incarnated again and again, suffering in
each new body the true recompense of the previous life. This process
is repeated until the soul is purified from all evil, when it returns
to the Mother Soul. The fewer the deeds, good or evil, the fewer the
re-incarnations; and for those who would cut short the painful history,
the life of the ascetic is the only true life. By austerity the power of
the body may be vanquished, the selfish life (cause of all deeds, good
or evil) may be subdued, and the soul may be set free.
To this life Gautama gave himself for six years, adding ever severer and
severer tests; until he was regarded as the greatest of living saints.
But for himself was no satisfaction; the answer to his problem was not
yet found. At length he owned sorrowfully that the way of asceticism
was not the way of release. He had not yet discovered the cause of
life’s suffering, and although the body seemed vanquished, Self lived,
and temptation and sorrow were still possible. With superb courage he
confessed to his companions that for him the experiment was a failure,
and withdrew.
* * * * *
♦Solitary Study♦
♦Enlightenment♦
He retreated deeper into the forest, and spent the following year in
profound meditation. Seated under the tree ever after known as the Bo
tree (tree of wisdom) the light dawned upon him. He saw that earthly
desire, the yielding to selfish aims, was the true cause of human
misery. If men were free from these, suffering must cease. Not then in
religious ceremonial, which is not even symbolic of the truth; nor in
self-torture or bodily discipline; but in the strenuous and constant
denial of the Self-life until the dominion of self is broken, and also,
in the tenderest pity for the great world of suffering men and women, is
salvation to be found.
_Towards self, discipline,
Towards others, love_,--
this is the path of emancipation.
♦Temptation♦
It was while Gautama, now the Buddha, or Enlightened One, rested from
the mental strain through which he had passed, and meditated upon his
new-found Gospel, that the tempter came to him with subtle temptation.
All earthly desires came before him, and he mastered them one by one,
until at length he lay under the tree exhausted, but triumphant.
♦Service♦
Peace had been obtained for himself, and now the thought of the
suffering world possessed him. It was not in the nature of Gautama to
desire publicity; but he could not rest with this new-found gospel of
release from misery through the conquest of Desire. He went in search
of his old Brahman teachers; but they were dead. He then found the five
companions of his ascetic life, who received him at first with doubt;
but when he made plain to them in a wonderful sermon, the experience
through which he had passed, they gladly received the new gospel. The
rest of his busy life was spent in telling his gospel, and in sending
out his disciples on preaching tours. Before many months had passed,
he was able to send out sixty disciples; and in the course of a very
few years his followers numbered many thousands. From the high and the
low, and especially from the troubled, they gathered around him, and
many entered upon the Way. For forty years he carried on his gentle and
loving ministry; travelling from place to place, eating the food which
the rich and the poor vied with each other in providing for his own and
his followers’ need, and then teaching those who gathered around him.
When the Rainy Season came round, he retired with his disciples to some
quiet retreat, and talked with them of the great things of the “Kingdom
of righteousness.”
♦Death♦
His long life was spent thus in the open air, a simple and sweet and
unselfish life; and when he died, at Kusi-Nagar, his body was burned
and the ashes were divided, and carried for reverent burial to those
parts of the land where there were the largest number of his followers.
Gautama died in the year 480 B.C.
THE FOURFOLD SACRED TRUTH.[1]
♦The sum of the teaching♦
“Now this, O recluses, is the noble truth concerning suffering. Birth is
painful, and so is old age; disease is painful, and so is death. Union
with the unpleasant is painful, painful is separation from the pleasant;
and any craving that is unsatisfied, that, too, is painful....”
“Now this, O recluses, is the noble truth concerning the origin of
suffering. Verily it originates in that craving thirst which causes
the renewal of becomings, is accompanied by sensual delight, and seeks
satisfaction now here, now there--that is to say, the craving for the
gratification of the passions, or the craving for a future life, or the
craving for success in this present life.”
“Now this, O recluses, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of
suffering. Verily it is the destruction in which no craving remains
over, of this very thirst; the laying aside of, the getting rid of, the
being free from, the harbouring no longer of, this thirst.”
“Now this, O recluses, is the noble truth concerning the way which leads
to the destruction of suffering. Verily it is this Eight-fold noble
path; that is to say: Right Views, Right Aspirations, Right Speech,
Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right
Rapture.”
[1] From the Sermon preached at Benares to the five companions
of his hermit life upon his return after attainment of Buddha-hood.
From Prof. Rhys David’s translation, by permission.
ISRAEL AND JESUS
“_A great epoch was exhausted, and passing away to give place to
another, the first utterances of which had already been heard in the
north, and which awaited but the_ INITIATOR _to be revealed_.”
“_He came. The soul the most full of love, the most sacredly virtuous,
the most deeply inspired by God and the future, that men have yet
seen on earth; Jesus. He bent over the corpse of the dead world, and
whispered a word of faith. Over the clay that had lost all of man but
the movement and the form, He uttered words until then unknown_, LOVE,
SACRIFICE, A HEAVENLY ORIGIN. _And the dead arose. A new life circulated
through the clay, which philosophy had tried in vain to re-animate.
From that corpse arose the Christian world, the world of liberty and
equality. From that clay arose the true Man, the image of God, the
precursor of Humanity._”--MAZZINI.
♦The Story of Israel♦
“Suff’rance is the badge of all our tribe” is the sum of the history of
the isolated, unsuccessful,[2] little Semitic nation of Israel.
[2] Unsuccessful, that is to say, as a nation.
But she has been made great--against her will indeed--by the fact that
she sheltered a unique succession of patriotic men who were impelled
by the miserable little ideals and ambitions of their nation, to raise
their voices in expostulation, or solemn warning, or hot indignation,
each according to his time and his manner.
♦The Seers♦
There is nothing in the national character or circumstances to warrant
it, but in the message spoken by these men, each in his turn, there was
that power and significance, that forward look, which we describe as
“vision.” In contradistinction to the Aryan SEEKERS, these were SEERS.
♦God♦
They had found God; this was their secret. They believed that God had
spoken, and must yet speak to man more clearly still: in the hope of
hearing that voice of God they lived, and that men might be prepared to
recognize that Voice when it should speak, they toiled and suffered.
The case of the human race was, in their thinking, bad. It was not
that man had suffered, but that he had sinned, this was the tragedy.
For if the relation of man to the Unseen were a personal relation,
then suffering became at once the effect of a moral cause. “Ah, sinful
nation.... They have forsaken the Lord.” Therefore was “the whole head
sick, and the whole heart faint.”
♦The Hope♦
The word of the Seer was nevertheless a word of hope. Hope was indeed
their note. The God of their vision was a God Who must, by His very
nature, right all wrong, end all evil, and speak the word which must
reveal the way back to Himself as the only true rest of man.
The Hope grew stronger in all religious souls as its fulfilment seemed
to be delayed, and every earnest young mother dreamed that the child she
bore might be the Bearer of that final message from Jehovah.
* * * * *
♦The Silence♦
Four hundred years of silence might well have ended the Hope, but
it lived on: a sordid, national Hope in the people at large, a high
world-wide Hope in the hearts of the silent waiting few, who studied the
writings of those old Seers, and looked out upon the great world in its
darkness; and believed that not only should the Light come, but that
it should be the true glory of Israel to enlighten through It all the
nations.
* * * * *
♦Jesus♦
“Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Many such questions must
have been asked, even by those of the purest spiritual insight during
the brief working life of Jesus. There was no human ideal of dignity or
greatness which He did not ruthlessly deny.
♦Consecration♦
He gave Himself in solemn sacrament to His service, but used as the
symbol of consecration a ceremony which usually typified repentance from
sin on the part of man, remission on the side of God.
♦Method of Service♦
His human gifts and powers were unmeasurable, and He brought them to His
life-work in all their perfection; but during a season of sore strain
in solitary meditation, He set aside deliberately each well-tried human
method which would have brought those powers and gifts into service; and
chose to work out His purpose in a way startlingly new to human history,
to the last inexplicable even to those who most deeply trusted Him.
It was a small matter that He rejected all such aids to the personal
life as would have won for Him the allegiance of the People, and that
He would have none of the glory and dignity which hedges the king idea,
and which upholds in that office even men of weakest calibre. But it is
truly strange to find that His was not, in any way known to history,
a _religious_ life; there was no apartness about it, no mystery, no
sanctity.
He chose the simple, familiar open air life of the people. Until the
pressure of work became too heavy, He maintained His family, He made
friendships, He was the most brotherly of men. He entered keenly into
every department of the life of the remote little country-side as it
presented itself to Him; He was simply a Man among men.
His brothers were staggered by the waste of energy and power, and we
cannot wonder at their remonstrance: “If Thou do these things, show
Thyself openly.” For His method certainly involved the greatest amount
of labour for the least visible return. He travelled on foot up and
down the country roads, resting in the quietest spots, healing and
aiding the poorest and sometimes the least deserving of the country
folk. He taught also, wasting the loveliest of His exquisite word
pictures upon groups of unappreciative fishermen and villagers.
♦The Cross♦
And in the end, as if to crown fittingly a career so utterly at variance
with all previous conceptions of greatness, He set His face steadfastly
to go to the capital, where were for Him nothing save cruel torture and
shameful death--the punishment inflicted by men upon those who dare to
subvert, and in so doing to condemn their own methods.
He died a young man, in defence of His chosen life; and to all
appearance the strange little movement died with Him that day; for He
had few followers, only one or two of whom were men of any promise.
♦Character♦
♦Motive♦
♦Selflessness♦
♦Calm♦
“My Father worketh, and I work.” “My meat is to do the will of Him that
sent Me, and to finish HIS work.” Such words as these, so often upon His
lips, reveal to us the secret of the life of Jesus. The Father-thought
filled His heart to the exclusion of all memory or thought of His own
great Name and Power. Jesus had, so to speak, no Self; His centre was
God; with Whose will and purpose He found Himself in perfect accord.
He was the first human being who was unconscious of the need of
at-one-ment; He was, from the beginning, at one with His own nature,
because at one with the Centre of the universe. There was no conflict
in His life. “Christ’s life outwardly,” writes Professor Drummond, “was
one of the most troubled lives ever lived. Tempest and tumult, tumult
and tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time till the worn body
was laid in the grave. But the inner life was a sea of glass. The
great calm was always there. At any moment you might have gone to Him,
and found rest.... There was nothing the world could do to Him that
could ruffle the surface of His spirit. Such living as mere living is
altogether unique. It is only when we see what it was in Him that we
know what the word rest means. It is the mind at leisure from itself; it
is the perfect poise of the will; the absolute adjustment of the inward
man to the stress of all outward things; the preparedness against every
emergency; the stability of assured convictions; the eternal calm of an
invulnerable faith; the repose of a heart set deep in God.”
* * * * *
St. John, writing long years after Jesus’ bodily presence had been
withdrawn, uses two words of Him, which better than any other serve to
tell His character. He was “_full of grace and truth_.” Human qualities
both, though rare; never indeed found in fulness and in balanced
perfection even in the noblest human character; nevertheless, humanity
is brought very near to the Unseen when we read that these qualities
represent to the most seeing of all the Seers, “the glory of the only
begotten of the Father.”
♦Grace♦
“Grace,” essence of all gentle, sympathetic, forth-going, self-effacing,
womanly virtues.
♦Truth♦
“Truth,” essence of all strong, courageous, strenuous, manly virtues.
It has been as difficult to grasp the union of truth and grace in Jesus,
as it has been to receive the divine and the human. The Mediæval Church,
feeling after the “grace,” and failing to recognize it in Him, elevated
the virgin mother to symbolize the character. The great artists--with
truer insight--struggled to express the union on canvas, but the task
was beyond even their art; the “Christs” have been, without exception,
far short of the ideal. Grace may be womanly, it is never effeminate.
That “perfect poise,” whether of the divine and the human, or of the
grace and the truth, alone explains, and alone represents to the
Christian, the only Son of the Father, Jesus Christ our Lord.
THE UNIVERSAL LAW
“_The works of God are fair for nought,
Unless our eyes in seeing,
See hidden in the thing, the thought
That animates its being._”
“_The outward form is not the whole,
But every part is moulded
To image forth an inward soul,
That dimly is unfolded._”
* * * * *
“_Thus nature dwells within our reach;
But though we stand so near her,
We still interpret half her speech
With ears too dull to hear her._”
“_Whoever at the coarsest sound
Still listens for the finest,
Shall hear the noisy world go round
To music the divinest._”
“_Whoever yearns to see aright,
Because his heart is tender,
Shall catch a glimpse of heavenly light
In every earthly splendour._”
THE LAW ACCORDING TO THE BUDDHA.
“The whole knowable universe forms one undivided whole.”
♦The Causal Law♦
It is composed of “a vast aggregate of original elements which are
perpetually working out their fresh re-distribution in accordance with
their own inherent energies.” These elements never become more nor less;
but under the Law which governs them, they are in constant motion; they
form, distribute, change, re-form; each fresh combination being the
effect of Causes, or groups of Causes which precede it.
The all-governing Law which keeps the universe in motion is the Law of
Evolution, the Law of Cause and Effect.
This Law is absolute in its working, it provides for no exceptions.
Harvest-time follows seed-time; effects follow causes: and as the
harvest provides the seed for all future seed-times and harvests, so,
in every sphere, effects in their turn become causes of all future
causes and effects. There is no possible deviation from this universal,
fundamental law.
There is, nevertheless, infinite variety in the universe. For, Causes
continually combine to produce ever new Effects; and the universe in
its endless progression, is an ever-varying, harmonious, reposeful
Unity. There can be no conflict under the governance of the one glorious
unalterable Law.
THE LAW ACCORDING TO THE CHRIST.
♦The Causal Law♦
Christ has many things to say which reveal His constant consciousness of
the Harvest Law, as it may be called. To Him also it was the deepest,
the fundamental thought; and He illustrates His teaching continually by
reference to it. The Causes already in the field--the ground as well
as the seed--determine the harvest of the sower. As surely as tares are
sown amongst the good seed, so surely shall there be a mingled harvest
of tares and good grain. The kind of harvest will be according to the
kind of seed. The tree is known by its fruit. “Men do not gather grapes
of thorns, nor figs of thistles.”
There is no evasion of the Causal Law; and in the fair universe there
is no desire to evade it. For the Causal Law is the Law of Life. “The
earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the
full corn in the ear”--the farmer knoweth not how--but “when the fruit
is ripe, straightway he putteth forth the sickle, because the harvest is
come.”
* * * * *
♦The First Cause♦
♦Buddha♦
How the universe came into existence, who enacted the Law, the Buddha
did not inquire, and forbade men to inquire. It was enough for them that
they found themselves a part of the endless chain of causation; duty
lay for them in the practical task of finding their place in the chain,
and of adjusting themselves within it.
♦Christ♦
The Christ, on the other hand, assumed a Builder of the universe, and
a Purpose in the Law; and He summed the graciousness and the harmony of
nature in the only human phrase which conveyed His own conception of its
wonderfulness. “My Father worketh.” “Not a sparrow falleth to the ground
without your Father.” “Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not,
neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all
his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe
the grass of the field...?”
THE UNIVERSAL
LAW IN HUMAN LIFE
“_It has been remarked by one of the most distinguished physical
philosophers of our day that no atmospheric vibration ever becomes
extinct; that the pulses of speech, when they have done their work,
and become to our ears inaudible, pass in waves away, but wander
still, hither and thither through the regions of the air, eternally.
He conceives that as the atmosphere comprises still within itself the
distinct traces of any sound impressed on any portion of it, as there
the record indestructively exists, we have only to suffer a change of
position, or receive the endowment of an acuter sense, to hear again
every idle word that we have spoken, and every sigh that we have caused.
The truth is, that already, and within the limits of our mental nature
there is a power which will effect all this. It is fully within the
scope of our natural faculties of association and memory. It may be
doubted whether any idea once in the mind is ever lost and past recall:
it may drop indeed into the gulf of forgotten things, and the waves of
successive thoughts roll over it; but there are in our nature possible
and even inevitable convulsions, which may displace the waters, heave up
the deep, and disentomb whatever may be fair or hideous there.... It is
remarkable how slight a suggestion is occasionally sufficient to bring
back vast trains of emotion. There are cases in which some particular
function of the memory acquires most exquisite sensibility, and
usually, as if God would warn us what must happen when our moral nature
is divorced from the physical, it is the memory of conscience that
maintains this preternatural watch.... And if thus the past be truly
indestructible, if thus its fragments may be regathered, if its details
of evil thought and act may be thus brought together and fused into one
big agony,--why, it may be left to fools to make a mock at sin._”
“_Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap. For he that soweth unto his own flesh, shall of the
flesh reap corruption._”
“_The lust when it hath conceived, beareth sin; and the sin, when it
is full-grown, bringeth forth death. Be not deceived, my beloved
brethren._”
THE LAW ACCORDING TO THE BUDDHA.
I
♦The Sacred Truth of Suffering♦
But conflict has appeared, and associates itself with the creatures
which seem to have an existence apart from the mother universe. There
ought to be no Self, no life apart, all such Selves or lives are
abnormal. Conflict, suffering, is the inevitable result.
♦The Self-Life♦
How the universe became thus maimed, and creatures born to the misery of
separation came into being, the Buddha did not inquire, even as he did
not inquire into the problem of a First Cause which set the chain of
causation in the universe in motion. He took the situation as he found
it, and applied himself to it. If separation from the universe, that is,
a separate existence or being, be the evil, clearly the only possible
remedy must be to end the separation.
The Buddha broke away from previous Indian teaching on one point;
to the Brahman, Soul in the universe and soul in man are the central
fact; Soul, either in the Brahman sense, or in the sense in which we
understand it, Buddhist teaching denies. The being of man is composed
of certain elements in addition to the body or material part. These
are:--Sensations, Ideas, Tendencies, and Powers; and it is these which
make up the consciousness of existence--the Self. As soon as a Self is
born, that is, a being apart from the only true Centre, it becomes its
own centre. It has no knowledge, but it sees that which is outside of
itself, and supposes that there must be joy in drawing towards itself,
in possession.
♦Desire♦
It therefore begins to feel outward from itself, to _desire_; and then
to attempt to grasp that which it desires. Whatever be the result of
that grasping, whether success or failure to attain the desire, sorrow,
suffering, and loss are the inevitable end.
“_This, O recluses, is the noble Truth concerning suffering. Birth is
painful, and so is old age; disease is painful, and so is death; union
with the unpleasant is painful, painful is separation from the pleasant;
and any craving that is unsatisfied, that too is painful._”
The Effect of that Cause--a Self apart from its true Centre--is, as it
ought to be,--misery.
II
♦The Sacred Truth of the Cause of Suffering♦
“_Now this, O recluses, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering.
Verily it originates in that craving thirst which causes the renewal of
becomings, is accompanied by sensual delight, and seeks satisfaction,
now here, now there; that is to say, the craving for the gratification
of the passions, or the craving for a future life, or the craving for
success in this present life._”
♦The Self-life the Cause: Misery the Effect♦
The self-life, then, is the cause of suffering.
The Self attains its desire only to lose it again, or in the very
attainment to find disappointment, and so suffering.
The Self fails of its desire, and again it suffers.
In either case, so surely as a Self desires, and grasps at that which it
desires, so surely will that Self have misery. For although each Self
imagines itself to be free, to be responsible to none save Self, there
is, even in separate existence, no such thing as freedom. The Causal
Law, which acts so graciously in the universe of perfect mercifulness
and truth, has the Self-life in its grip, and avenges the universe for
the wrong done to it.
Every desire, every forth-going for Self, every action, good or bad, is
a seed sown and will have its appropriate harvest; by so much increasing
the sum of the Self-life; and at the dissolution of the body it will
live on, taking to itself another body, and becoming the seed of
harvests to come.
It will be noted that this is not a doctrine of heredity, effects are
not transmitted with the physical being by parents. The true parent
is the selfish Self, which transmits through its actions--_Karma_,
as the Buddhist calls them--certain good or bad qualities, ideas,
characteristics, which take to themselves new and appropriate form at
the dissolution of the being which produced them.
Thus, a being and a character, the effect of certain previous causes,
sows, in desire and action, seeds which another must reap to-morrow.
As I now sow, another at my dissolution and the re-incarnation of my
_Karma_ (the sum of my Self-graspings), will reap. “The Buddha himself
cannot contradict this law, which is the Buddha of Buddha.” “Neither man
nor God can prevent the results.”
THE LAW ACCORDING TO THE CHRIST.
I
♦CHRIST The Self-life the Cause of Suffering♦
That Suffering, or conflict, is the Effect of which separation from God
and the self-centred life is the Cause, is an element of the teaching of
the Christ apt to be forgotten by students of His life.
♦Reasons for forgetfulness of this teaching♦
There are two chief reasons for this:--_First_, His pitifulness towards
all sufferers, and indignant repudiation of the idea current in His time
that individual suffering was necessarily the effect of individual sin.
_Second_, His peculiar doctrine of Suffering, which belongs to a later
stage of this study.
But if His life meant anything at all, it meant that in His view the
Self-centred life, the life of Desire, is the true and original Cause of
human misery. The sheep which had become separated from the shepherd,
the coin lost from its place upon the wedding chain, the son who chose
a life of which his own pleasure was the motive power; each of these
represents vividly His thought, that separation and isolation are
abnormal, a pain to God, ruin and misery to man.
II
♦The Harvest of the Self-life♦
The harvest of the self-centred life is the subject of some of His most
solemn words. “One thing thou lackest yet,” He said to one of warm
enthusiasm and blameless life. “Free yourself from the self life. Come
out into the open.” But the great renunciation seemed too costly. “How
hardly shall such enter the Kingdom,” was the sorrowful after-word.
Again,--and note the first personal pronoun in this story:--
“The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he
reasoned within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, because I have not
where to bestow my fruits?’ And he said, ‘This will I do: I will pull
down my barns and build greater; and there will I bestow all my corn and
my goods. And I will say to my soul (life), Soul, thou hast much goods
laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’”
“But God said unto him, ‘Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul
required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall
they be?’”
“_So is he that layeth up treasure for_ HIMSELF _and is not rich toward
God_.”
THE REMEDY.
♦The Sacred Truth of the Cessation of Suffering♦
The third sacred truth points the direction in which man must look
for the only possible remedy. He has broken away from his only true
Home, and finds himself a sufferer under the rigour of the very law
which should be his life and joy. The self-life, with its desires and
forthgoings, is the seed of separation. The self-life must therefore be
subdued.
Self must cease to sow the seed of evil deeds, however pleasant; for
every such seed sown is adding to the harvest of evil.
Not only so, but Self must cease to sow the seed of any deeds good
or evil, of which self-desire is the motive. Self must be rigorously
disciplined and denied.
Deeds of mercy and love, having no selfish end, are indeed good; these
hasten the at-one-ment of the broken universe; for the universe, in its
unity, is pure truth and pure mercifulness.
“_Now this, O recluses, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of
suffering. Verily, it is the destruction, in which no craving remains
over, of this very thirst; the laying aside of, the becoming free from,
the harbouring no longer of, this thirst._”
♦CHRIST♦
Read in the light of the third sacred truth, the words of Christ:--
“If thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it
from thee.”
“If thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from
thee.”
“If any man cometh unto Me, and hateth not his own father, and mother,
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life
also, he cannot be my disciple.”
“Whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot
be My disciple.”
“If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast ... and come,
follow Me.”
“Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of
Man hath not where to lay His head.”
* * * * *
“_It is only with renunciation that life, properly speaking, can be said
to begin._”
“_All turning to self is so far turning from God; and so much as we have
of self-love, so much we have of the hellish earthly weight that must
be taken off.... Self is not only the seat and habitation, but the very
life of sin; the works of the devil are all wrought in self, it is his
peculiar workshop, and therefore Christ is not come as a Saviour from
sin, as a Destroyer of the works of the devil in any of us, but as far
as self is overcome and beaten down in us._”--LAW.
“_God will have us surrender without terms, and until then we are fast
prisoners, and not children in His universe._”--MARTINEAU.
“_Christ’s love is firm, and can be severe. It never pares down
His requirements to make discipleship easy; rather it attracts by
heightening them, and insisting most strenuously upon the most difficult
surrender._”--MCLAREN.
“_For all followers of Christ, whoever and wherever they may be,
the one essential and inestimable law is that of self-surrender. This
was the very essence and substance of Christ’s teaching, again and
again declared in language of almost awful sternness. This is Christ’s
claim, just because He is our God and owns us; possible, because He
is our kinsman, and understands us; blessed, because it enables Him
to give us tenfold more, even now; merciful, for it is the way of our
salvation._”--THOROLD.
THE WAY OF EMANCIPATION.
BUDDHISM
I. THE WAY OF THE COMMON LIFE.
II. THE WAY OF THE SAINT.
“_The instant of harmony is the instant when the Buddha in us and the
pure truth become one. This is enlightenment. Literally we become Buddha
by the correspondence of our wisdom with the universal truth. The aim is
to reach this plane._”
I. THE WAY OF THE COMMON LIFE.
The three sacred truths discover the situation of humanity in relation
to the universe, and the ideal remedy for its misery. _End the self-life
and thus end the misery._
But the full teaching of the denial of Self cannot be received by all.
The Self-life and the world-life are pleasant, and many will accept the
misery which may come, rather than forego present joy.
For such, a simple, natural, human life, hedged and moralized by the
law, is provided.
♦The ten Sins♦
The ten sins must be conquered. They are:--
THREE SINS OF THE BODY.
The taking of life.
Theft.
Unlawful sexual intercourse.
FOUR SINS OF THE TONGUE.
Lying.
Slander.
Swearing.
Vain conversation.
THREE SINS OF THE MIND.
Covetousness.
Malice.
Unbelief.
♦The Moral Law♦
For aid in the conquest of the sins, there is a short inclusive moral
law:--
“Thou shalt not kill, nor cause to be killed, any living thing.”
“Thou shalt abstain from anything in any place, that has not been given
thee.”
“Thou shalt avoid an unchaste life as a burning heap of coals.”
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against another.”
“Thou shalt not drink the Soma juice.”
(This command is not only a command of total abstinence from
intoxicants, but a law of separation from the whole sacrificial system
of Brahmanism.)
♦The Ideal♦
The ideal is of a life lived in the world, adding to _Karma_ as little
as may be; solemnized by the thought of the future re-buildings of
the being; a life of kindness, honesty, purity and temperance; a life
of self-discipline, which shall aim at lessening the evil around as
far as may be, and shall add none to the future. In particular, the
human brotherhood, reverence for age, and for every living thing, and
peacefulness of spirit, are the virtues to be practised.
* * * * *
♦Some Precepts♦
“Do not ask about descent, but ask about conduct.”
“Watching his speech, well restrained in mind, let a man never commit
any wrong with his body. Let a man but keep these three roads of action
clear, and he will achieve the way that is taught by the wise.”
“He who holds back rising anger like a rolling chariot, him I call a
real driver, other people are but holding the reins.”
“He who by causing pain to others wishes to obtain pleasure for himself,
he, entangled in the bonds of hatred, will never be free from hatred.”
“If a man find no prudent companion who walks with him, is wise,
and lives soberly, let him walk alone, like a king who has left his
conquered country behind, like an elephant in the forest.”
“Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good, let
him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth.”
* * * * *
♦No Nirvana♦
But in the common life, how well soever it may be lived, there is no
Nirvana.
* * * * *
Christ has in His teaching no counterpart to this path for the weak;
even as there is small encouragement in the Buddha’s message for those
who choose to walk in it.
“Narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and
few be they that find it.”
II. THE WAY OF THE SAINT.
“_Noisy go the small waters, silent goes the vast ocean._”
♦Character of the Path♦
For him who will receive it there is another way revealed in the fourth
sacred truth. It tells of the Eightfold Sacred Path which may lead
within his own lifetime to the extinction of the Self-life.
It is called by the Buddha “the middle path,” for it is neither the path
of the common life on the one hand, nor of asceticism (the Brahman path)
on the other.
It is a path of understanding, and of release from all illusions about
the harvest of Desire.
It is not a path of ease. Self-desire must be rigorously denied. The
fetters which bind to the self-life must be broken.
The Path leads past sorrow and pain, past the illusions concerning the
world and its pleasures, past future separate conscious existences,
safely to the desired end, the repose of Nirvana.
THE FORMULA OF CONFESSION
I SEEK REFUGE IN THE BUDDHA.
I SEEK REFUGE IN THE LAW.
I SEEK REFUGE IN THE CHURCH.
♦The Path♦
“_This, O Recluses, is the noble truth concerning the WAY which leads to
the destruction of suffering. Verily it is this noble Eightfold Path;
that is to say_:--
_Right Views._
_Right Aspirations._
_Right Speech._
_Right Conduct._
_Right Livelihood._
_Right Effort._
_Right Mindfulness._
_Right Rapture._
Let no man think that this path is one easy to be trodden. At its
entrance, after the Understanding which is the first step, and the
Right Aspirations which is the entrance upon the Path, the candidate for
Arahatship--sainthood--leads a life of constant, untiring watchfulness
and self-culture.”
♦Hindrances♦
One by one the Hindrances must be overcome as he treads the Eightfold
Path:--
_The belief in the Self._
_Doubt of the Teaching._
_Trust in works of merit, or in religious ceremonies._
_The desires of the body._
_The love of life._
_The desires after the earth life._
_The desires after a future life._
_Pride._
_Self-righteousness._
_Ignorance._
Each of these fetters which bind to the Self-life is loosened only
at the cost of long strenuous discipline; and a glance must show the
student that only one who has broken the bonds which bind him to the
world-life, and has become a monk, is competent to practise it.
“Come, look at this world glittering like a royal chariot: the foolish
are immersed in it, but the wise do not touch it.”
“Look upon the world as you would on a bubble, look upon it as you would
on a mirage, the King of death does not see him who thus looks upon the
world.”
♦Self-mastery the ideal♦
“Self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self: therefore curb
thyself as the merchant curbs a noble horse.”
“By oneself is evil done, by oneself one suffers: by oneself evil is
left undone, by oneself one is purified. The pure and the impure by
themselves; no one can purify another.”
“If one man conquer in battle a thousand times ten thousand men, and
if another conquers himself he is the greatest of conquerors. One’s
own self conquered is better than all other people: not even a god, ...
could change into defeat the victory of a man who has vanquished
himself, and always lives under restraint.”
“Like a well-guarded frontier fort, with defences within and without, so
let a man guard himself. Not a moment should escape, for they who allow
the right moment to pass, suffer pain when they are in hell.”
“If a man holds himself dear, let him watch himself carefully: during
one at least out of the three watches a wise man should be watchful.”
♦The last Message♦
“Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Hold the truth as
a lamp. Hold fast to the lamp of truth. Hold fast as a refuge to the
truth. Look not for refuge to any besides yourselves.”
♦The goal is Nirvana♦
Sainthood is attained through long struggle. The writings tell of the
thirty-seven stages which must be passed before the Eightfold Path is
trod,--stages which represent the severest Self-discipline, but which
lead out to the life of entire freedom and serenity, until in the end
emancipation from the Self-life with all its attendant evils, and the
repose of Nirvana in at-one-ment with the Universe, has been attained.
“This is the ultimate goal. Caught in the vortex of evolution there
is no rest from birth to death even in highest heaven; and until you
realize Nirvana, this changefulness must go on. On earth the purified
perfected nature enjoys Nirvana, and after the dissolution of the
physical body there is no further birth in an objective world. Neither
man nor gods see him again.”
THE WAY OF SALVATION.
CHRISTIANITY
“_If God is Love, why do we need a Mediator? I think the best answer
is, I do not know. Nor do I know why, God being Love, the intervention
of maternal suffering is the indispensable condition of existence, or
why suffering is the necessary medium for the procuring of anything that
really deserves the name of blessing. Why are knowledge, civilization,
health, purchased only by severe labour for us by others, that is by
mediation? I only know that it is so, an unalterable law, the beauty of
which I can dimly see, and always most brightly in those moments when
I am least earthly in feeling, and most disposed to reckon nobleness
immeasurably above physical, or even mental comfort. And seeing that
as the law of the Universe, I am prepared to believe and acquiesce in
it when found in the Atonement, as part of the Divine Government--a
philosophically as well as theologically demanded necessity. It is no
exception to the great system, but in perfect harmony with it._”
I
♦The Father-thought♦
The fundamental thought of the message of the Christ, as of His life,
is the thought of the Fatherhood of God, man being in His view the
child of God, brought into being for a great purpose. None have been so
conscious as He of the failure of man to maintain this high relation, or
of the disastrous effect of the failure upon the whole of human life. It
involved the breaking up of the Home, unutterable pain to the Father,
unutterable loss to man, as is recorded in St. Luke XV. The self-life,
as opposed to the child-life, had been set up; there are two centres
where one had been, two conflicting wills in a universe in which one
Will alone must reign.
In other words, Jesus realized, above the universe, and beyond Law,
One to Whom man is related by the closest ties, from Whom he is unable
truly to separate himself, and towards Whom he is accountable. Thus to
each man there falls, in addition to his personal and relative share in
the suffering involved in conflict with the inexorable working of the
inexorable Causal Law, a very solemn personal responsibility.
♦The Father is the true Centre♦
That the true centre of man’s life is the Father--“the Father from Whom
every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named”--is the fact never to
be forgotten in the study of the “Way of Salvation” as taught by Jesus.
The first move, when the Prodigal Son “comes to himself,” is back to the
Father.
And should he prefer to remain in the far country, sowing there the
seed of his evil desires and forthgoings, the law of the harvest is
immutable: every seed sown brings its assured and appropriate harvest.
“Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the
flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.”
II
♦The Law of Cause and Effect♦
At the World’s Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago some years ago,
a Buddhist delegate made the statement that no doctrine which ignores or
denies the Law of Cause and Effect would find acceptance with men of his
Faith. It is probable that he had not realized that the Christian Faith
is founded upon the Law also.
♦The supreme illustration♦
The supreme illustration of the working of the Causal or Harvest Law,
that which most exquisitely reveals its gracious beneficence, is that
of the life, death, and rising of Jesus Christ. His own words in this
connection are unmistakable, and should be carefully studied by any who
are tempted to think that the death upon the Cross was either a mere
martyrdom, or an arbitrary enactment of God designed to supersede His
own Law. The Christ came not to be destroyed, nor to destroy, but to
fulfil.
Why choose so ineffective a manner of life? Why court disaster by these
repeated visits to the capital, unless prepared to yield something to
the leaders of the religious and political parties there? Further, why
go away, leaving the little company of devoted followers leaderless and
comfortless?
Because He was carrying out the Father’s Purpose? Surely; but it was
the Father’s Purpose because it was in the very nature of the case. The
Causal Law demanded the Cross as the Effect of many Causes. The Causal
Law demanded the Cross as a Cause from which should appear in their
order such gracious world-embracing Effects as the wise and gentle
Buddha must have rejoiced to know.
♦Evil Causes♦
Jesus refers to the evil Causes which led to the Cross very little,
because in the “combination of Causes,” to use the Buddhist phrase,
these must fall in with those which in the natural working of the Law
must serve the purpose of the Law. The evil Causes were present, and
penitent humanity will never cease to mourn them.
♦The essential Cause♦
♦The Harvest♦
To make His meaning quite clear Jesus returned for illustration to the
Law as it works in nature. “Except the corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it bringeth
forth much fruit.” The little seed, hidden in the ground and apparently
dead, reappears, not in its own individual life, but in a rich harvest.
Present apparent failure; future great result. Now to all appearance,
defeat, death, a Cross; some day, when realities are known, victory,
life, glory.
How can these things be? If the little grain of wheat could speak, would
it not say, “I die that the harvest may be”? and these are the very
words of the Lord Jesus.
His harvest is, as we must remember, the same harvest which has been so
passionately desired by all lovers of men--desired by the Buddha above
them all--the harvest of the at-one-ment of humanity with the Universe,
or, as He would state it, the harvest of the at-one-ment of men with the
Father.
In other words, this shameful death is the seed of the Kingdom of the
Father, sown in this world of ours, the harvest of which is silently,
gradually, surely growing, as all harvests do grow. Men and women are
being at-oned with the Father simply by falling into line with the
universal harvest law. This fact may be stated and illustrated in many
ways, but it must never be forgotten that this is our Lord’s own way of
stating it. “_I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men._”
III
♦Suffering and Love♦
Is the Causal Law a cruel Law, since death to life appears to be its
true meaning?
Jesus, speaking with the authority of a perfect understanding of the
Father-heart, speaks of the Law as in its essence pure Love. The
Father, Himself Love, introduced the Law, and the Law lies very deep in
Love since He Himself obeyed it. _God so loved, that He gave._
There is no attempt to minimize the suffering which lies inside the Law
in the case of a world which has defied it. Jesus, the Saviour, knew
strong crying and tears during those dark days of the sowing of the
seed. But already He saw of the travail of His soul and was satisfied.
The Father’s Name--that is the newly-revealed Name, Father--is
glorified. The defeat of the arch-enemy is assured. The life-giving
power of the Cross is realized, for all the world and for all time, as
in a vision of glory. These were the thoughts which upheld the Saviour
of the world, as He, resolutely refusing all relief, faced the days
which lay before Him. Thus, the grain of wheat, falling into the ground
and dying, has already borne a great Harvest. (See St. John xii. 24-36.)
“_The great lesson of love is to die unto oneself. Christ’s love is
always shown through death, just because the death of self is both
the greatest expression of, and the only way to love. The two things
go together inseparably; in fact, they are opposite faces of the same
thing. And that dying is eternal life._”
“_The pages blotted with tears are not always the darkest to look back
upon. One page in the world’s history, stained with the bitterest tears
ever shed upon earth, and steeped in guiltless blood, is not the darkest
to read. It is in the light of that sorrow, and that sin, thou must
learn to understand all the rest. All these hard and bitter questions
are answered there to the holy heart: nowhere else, and to none else._”
IV
♦The Law is Universal, austere, but immeasurably glorious♦
Jesus maintained that the Law of the Harvest--the Law of Death unto
Life--is universal. It holds as truly of every man and woman who would
be in line with the Purpose of God as it did of the Christ. Devotion to
Self kills the true Self; for the true centre of Man is not Self, but
the Father. Hence the often-repeated demand of Jesus that His servants
should follow Him in His life and death. Such surrender of the Self as
His must, in their measure, be theirs. It is the only true human living,
the living day by day in harmony with the fundamental Law.
The demand seems, until it is in some measure experienced, far too high,
too austere, for the common human life. Many shrink back from it in
fear. But those who know something of the forth-going life which takes
the place of the old self-centred life know that it is immeasurably
fuller, richer, nobler than the old; for they make the great discovery
that the true glory of the child is that he should be in sympathy with
the Father, in the joy of the harvest of a loving heart.
V
♦No distinction between layman and saint♦
♦The Law of Desire as taught by Christ♦
It is a unique fact, though quite in the nature of the case, that in
the thought of Jesus no distinction is drawn between layman and saint.
All are called to be saints. The Law applies to every man. And it is
no less startling to note that the Law of the death of self unto the
finding of the greater self may be fulfilled in the ordinary daily human
life. As we have already noted, there was no apartness in His own life;
accordingly, there are no religious orders in His Kingdom; “they are in
the world,” “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world”;
these are His own words. The reason is to be found in the Christian
definition of the Law of Desire. Buddhism and Christianity are at one
in the demand that the desires of the Self-life must die. But Christ
substitutes for it a Desire so gracious, so fruitful, that it easily
chokes all other desire, and makes even of the fascinating world a safe
abode. This Desire is the Father. He is possessed by a passion for the
Father, for His presence, His love, the fulfilment of His Purpose. The
Law of the surrender of Desire becomes the most gracious free impulse of
human nature. To die to self is the lesson of love. Uttermost allegiance
to the King is an all-absorbing, consuming Desire. It is the old thirst
for God, for the living God which distinguished the old seers of Israel,
who foresaw that the thirst must be satisfied some day.
VI
♦Each surrendered life another Seed Sown♦
Each surrendered life is another seed sown, and adds its share to the
great Harvest of the Kingdom: “a Harvest of love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-restraint.” It is a literal
harvest; not as some, who forget the ethical in Christianity, would
have us believe, some magical transformation. The obedience to the
fundamental Law is the whole of Christian law; but then it is the
inclusive law, the law which the Father Himself obeys, the law of Love.
VII
♦The End♦
And the End? It is not the dreamless repose of Nirvana.
♦With Him♦
Let it be told in two commentaries upon two words of Jesus, from sources
far removed from each other.
“Demain--Quelle promptitude!
Dans le Paradis--Quel Séjour!
Avec Moi--Quelle Compagnie!”
BOSSUET.
♦New Service♦
“Right, lad; the best reward for having wrought well already is to have
more to do; and he that has been faithful over a few things must find
his account in being made ruler over many things. That is the true and
heroical rest, which only is worthy of gentlemen and sons of God. As
for those who, either in this world or in the world to come, look for
idleness, and hope that God shall feed them with pleasant things, as it
were, with a spoon, Amyas, I count them cowards and base, even though
they call themselves saints and elect.”--KINGSLEY.
THE TWO IDEALS
(The two following poems present respectively the Buddhist and
Christian Ideals of Life.)
THE BUDDHIST IDEAL.
DHANIYA SUTTA.
1 _Hot steams my food. My cows are milked.
--So said the herdsman Dhaniya--
Along the banks of the Mahī
With equals and with friends I dwell.
Right well is my trim cottage thatched,
And on my hearth the fire burns bright.
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
2 _Cool is my mind. No fallow land lies there.
--So said the Exalted One--
For one night only, as I wander on,
I dwell upon the banks of the Mahī.
My lodging’s open to the sky. The fires
Are out (for in my heart the flames
Of Lust, Ill-will, and Dulness burn no more).
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
3 _There are no gadflies here. My kine
--So said the herdsman Dhaniya--
Are roaming through the meadows rich with grass;
Well can they bear the fickle rain-god’s blows.
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
4 _My basket raft was woven well together.
--So said the Exalted One--
Crossed over now, I’ve reached the farther bank
And overcome the floods (the Lust of Sense,
The Lust of Life, Delusion, Ignorance).
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
5 _Obedient is my wife, no wanton she,
--So said the herdsman Dhaniya--
Long has she dwelt with me, my well-beloved,
I hear no evil thing in her against me.
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
6 _Obedient is my heart, wholly set free,
--So said the Exalted One--
Long has it been watched over, well subdued,
No evil thing is found within my breast.
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
7 _On my own earnings do I live at ease.
--So said the herdsman Dhaniya--
My boys are all about me, strong in health,
I hear no evil thing in them against me.
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
8 _No man can call me servant, and I wander
--So said the Exalted One--
At will, o’er all the earth on what I find.
I feel no need of wages, or of gain.
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
9 _I’ve barren cows, and sucking calves
--So said the herdsman Dhaniya--
And cows in calf, and heifers sleek,
And a strong bull, lord o’er the cows.
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
10 _No barren cows have I, nor sucking calves,
--So said the Exalted One--
No cows in calf, nor heifers sleek,
Nor a strong bull, lord o’er the cows.
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
11 _The stakes are driven in, nothing can shake them.
--So said the herdsman Dhaniya--
The ropes of munja grass are new and strong,
No calves could break them loose, and stray.
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
12 _I’ve broken all the bonds loose, like a bull,
Or like the lordly elephant, calm in his strength,
Contemning the weak strands of jungle rope.
I ne’er again shall enter the dark womb.
So let the rain pour down now, if it likes, to-night!_
13 _Then lo! a thunder-cloud filling the hollows,
And the high ground, that moment poured forth rain,
And Dhaniya, the herdsman, as he heard
The god’s rain rushing, yielded him, and said:_
14 _O, great the gain that has accrued to us,
In that we met the Exalted One to-day!
In thee of the seeing eye we put our trust.
Be thou, O mighty Sage, a teacher to us.
My wife and I will be obedient;
Under the Happy One we both will lead
A holy life, and pass beyond old age and death,
And put an end, for aye, to every pain!_
15 _The man with sons takes pride in sons,
--So said Mara, the Evil One--
The man with kine takes joy in kine.
Lusts, evil, and Karma bring delights to men;
He, who has none of these, has no delights._
16 _He, who has sons, has sorrow in his sons,
--So said the Exalted One--
He who has kine, has trouble with his kine,
Lusts, evil, and Karma, are the source of care;
He, who has none of these, is not care-worn.
Dhaniya Sutta is ended._
(By kind permission of Professor RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., Ph.D., whose
translation it is. From _Buddhism: Its History and Literature_.)
THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL.
_There was silence. None did dare
To use again the spoken air
Of that far-charming voice, until
A Christian resting on the hill,
With a thoughtful smile subdued
(Seeming learnt in solitude)
Which a weeper might have viewed
Without new tears, did softly say,
And looked up unto heaven alway,
While he praised the Earth--_
_O Earth,
I count the praises thou art worth,
By thy waves that move aloud,
By thy hills against the cloud,
By thy valleys warm and green,
By the copse’s elms between;
By their birds which, like a sprite
Scattered, through a strong delight,
Into fragments musical,
Stir and sing in every bush
By thy silver founts that fall,
As if to entice the stars at night
To thine heart; by grass and rush,
And little weeds the children pull,
Mistook for flowers!_
_--Oh, beautiful
Art thou, Earth, albeit worse
Than in heaven is callèd good!
Good to us, that we may know
Meekly from thy good to go;
While the holy, crying Blood,
Puts its music kind and low,
’Twixt such ears as are not dull,
And thine ancient curse!_
_Praisèd be the mosses soft
In thy forest pathways oft,
And the thorns, which make us think
Of the thornless river-brink,
Where the ransomed tread!
Praisèd be thy sunny gleams,
And the storm, that worketh dreams
Of calm unfinishèd.
Praisèd be thine active days,
And thy night-time’s solemn need,
When in God’s dear hook we read
‘No night shall be therein’!
Praisèd be thy dwellings warm,
By household faggot’s cheerful blaze,
Where, to hear of pardoned sin,
Pauseth oft the merry din,
Save the babe’s upon the arm,
Who croweth to the crackling wood.
Yea,--and better understood,
Praisèd be thy dwellings cold,
Hid beneath the churchyard mould,
Where the bodies of the saints,
Separate from earthly taints,
Lie asleep, in blessing bound,
Waiting for the trumpet sound
To free them into blessing;--none
Weeping more beneath the sun,
Though dangerous words of human love
Be graven very near, above._
_Earth, we Christians praise thee thus,
Even for the change that comes,
With a grief, from thee to us!
For thy cradles and thy tombs;
For the pleasant corn and wine,
And summer heat; and also for
The frost upon the sycamore,
And hail upon the vine!_
E. BARRETT-BROWNING.
THE BUDDHA AND THE CHRIST
SOME SIGNIFICANT TITLES
Gautama. Jesus.
Sage of the Sakya. The Word.
Teacher. The Truth.
The All-knowing.
The Lion of the Sakya. The Captain of Salvation.
The Conqueror.
Lord of the World. Lord of lords.
The Blessed. Blessed and only Potentate.
The Excellent. God, Blessed for evermore.
The Enlightened. The Light.
The Dayspring.
The Daystar.
The Morning Star.
Saviour.
Great, Good, Chief Shepherd.
Lamb of God.
The Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Son of Man.
Son of God.
Emmanuel.
♦Gautama and Jesus♦
There is quite sufficient resemblance between Gautama and Jesus in
character and teachings, and in the circumstances of their lives so far
as they are known to us, to give much interest to a comparative study;
and of such studies there are very many.
♦The Buddha and the Christ♦
But they do not come before the world as Gautama and Jesus, they are the
Buddha and the Christ. As Dr. Oldenberg has said: “What makes a Buddha
a Buddha is, as his name indicates, his knowledge. He does not possess
his knowledge, like a Christ, by virtue of a metaphysical superiority of
his nature, surpassing everything earthly; but he has gained it, or more
strictly speaking, has won it, by a struggle. The Buddha is at the same
time the Jina, _i. e._ the conqueror. The history of the struggle for
the Buddhahood must therefore precede the history of the Buddha.”
♦No true parallel♦
♦Christ is all♦
This essential distinction ends all parallel. The Buddha claimed
through travail and sorrow to have discovered his gospel of the Path
to emancipation from the Self-life. The Christ came from the Father,
according to the vision of the Seers, to bring a gospel of recovered
sonship; and, through travail, sorrow, death, and rising (for it was
impossible that the grave should hold Him), to reveal the Way back
into the true life. To the Christian “_Christ is absolutely true, the
Point whence we start, and where we must end. From Christ and to Christ
includes the whole circle of our knowledge and the whole circle of our
uncertainty. All truth and all ways to truth must end in Him Who is The
Truth and The Way. Being in Him, what is unknown cannot baffle us, for
He knows it in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge._”
“_Christ is all, and in all._”
THE END
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ACCESSIBLE BOOKS UPON THE SUBJECT.
_Buddhism: Its History and Literature._ By PROFESSOR RHYS
DAVIDS. (G. and F. Putnam’s Sons, London. 6_s._)
_Buddhist India._ By PROFESSOR RHYS DAVIDS. Story of the
Nations Series. (T. Fisher Unwin.)
_Buddha: His Life, His Doctrine, His Order._ By DR. HERMANN
OLDENBERG. Translated by W. HOEY, M.A., LL.D.
(Williams and Norgate. 18_s._)
_Studies in Eastern Religions. Buddhism._ By PROFESSOR GEDEN.
(Kelly. 3_s._ 6_d._)
_Manual of Buddhism._ By SPENCE HARDY. (Williams and Norgate.
21_s._)
_Buddhism in Translations._ By HENRY CLARKE WARREN. (Published
by Harvard University, U.S.A.)
_The Gospel of Buddha._ By DR. PAUL CARUS. (Open Court
Publishing Co., Chicago.)
The two latter are perhaps the most accessible of the
many translations of Buddhistic literature.
_The Sacred Books of the East._ Edited by DR. MAX MULLER.
Vols. X, XI, XIII, XX, XLIX, and others are translations
of Buddhist Scriptures.
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
TRANSCRIBERS’ NOTES
In both the pure text and HTML versions, the sidenotes have been moved
to the top of the original paragraph and surrounded with ♦ ♦.
The use of quotation marks has been standardized.
On Page 97, “aark” has been replaced with “dark”: _I ne’er again shall
enter the dark womb._
Other possible misspellings and variations in spelling (e.g.,
Eight-fold/Eightfold, Buddhahood/Buddha-hood, etc.) have been preserved
as originally printed, since they do not impact the clarity of the text.
In this text version, italic print has been marked with underscores
(_italic_). Small-caps have been replaced with capital letters.
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