Note 276 — PART II. THE ETHICS OF BUDDHISM; AN IDEAL OF SELF-CONQUEST AND UNIVERSAL BENEVOLENCE

But this, as we have just seen, is not the Buddhism of the Buddhist world in general. The masses in Buddhist lands have never accepted the doctrine of Nirvana in the sense of extinction of existence. The following conversation between Moncure Conway and a Singhalese priest discloses the meaning of the term to an orthodox Buddhist of Ceylon: “I asked, ‘Have those who are in Nirvana any consciousness?’ I was then informed that there is no Singhalese word for consciousness. Sumangala said, ‘To reach Nirvana is to be no more.’ I pointed to a stone step and said, ‘One is there only as that stone is here?’ ‘Not so much,’ answered the priest; ‘for the stone is actually here, but in Nirvana there is no existence at all’” (My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East (1906), p. 134).