Note 21 — Chapter II

Buddha’s zeal is not chilled in the least by the cold of approaching death. His boundless knowledge enabled him at a glance to obtain the most intimate acquaintance with the inward dispositions of his disciples’ minds. If, therefore, he asked them three successive times whether they entertained doubts on any doctrinal points, it was not to satisfy himself that their faith was firm and unshaken. He wished to make them conscious of a fact which was felt and clearly understood by every one in particular, but was not as yet fully appreciated by the universality of his disciples. Every individual in particular was well aware of the unwavering dispositions of his mind respecting Buddha’s teachings, but no one ever had the opportunity of ascertaining that all his brethren had the same firmness of belief. On this solemn occasion they witnessed the most comforting sight of a perfect unity of faith in all the members of the assembly. Buddha revealed then one great truth which no one but himself could be acquainted with. A true Rahan, says he, has entered at last in the first way that leads to perfection; he is, therefore, no more exposed to the danger of wavering in his belief; he knows enough of truth to adhere firmly to it, and is enabled to prosecute safely his researches after what is still unknown to him. Every member of the assembly is a true believer, more or less advanced in the knowledge of the law, it is true, but at least he is conscious of his being in the right way. On this subject no doubt subsists in his mind; he adheres to Buddha and his doctrines as to the centre of truth, and never thinks for a moment to question the veracity of his doctor, or to call in doubt any portion of his instructions.

The last words of Buddha to the assembled Bickus are designed to remind them of the great and vital principle he has endeavoured to inculcate in their minds during the forty-five years of his preaching, viz., that change and mutability are acting upon all that exists, and are inherent in all parts of nature. This world, therefore, offering but an endless vicissitude of forms, that appear and disappear, has no real existence. It is an illusion from beginning to end. As long as man remains tied up, so to speak, to nature, he is carried away by the ever-acting principle of change: nowhere can he find any rest or fixity; he quits one existence to pass into another; he leaves one form to assume a different one. What happens to man befalls all other parts of nature. From this notion, Buddha infers that there is nothing existing but name and form. There is no substance in nature, and therefore no reality. So much stress was laid by Buddha on this capital principle that he bequeathed it, as his last Will, to his disciples: he wished that they should ever bear in their minds and remember that he came among them for the purpose of making them thoroughly acquainted with it. From this cardinal point he inferred the chief conclusions that form his religious system, viz., metempsychosis, the contempt of the world, and Neibban. By the law of endless changes, man is hurried from one state into another, or from one form of being into another form. Where is the wise man that could love a world, or an existence therein, when he finds no substance, no reality in it? Is he not induced, or rather compelled, to search after a state in which he can find fixity, reality, and truth, or at least an exemption from the harassing condition of perpetual migration from one state into another?

The reader who has been almost born with and educated in theistic notions, and who sees in the world nothing but what has been created by a supreme and all-wise Being, is at a loss to understand how a grave philosopher, as undoubtedly Buddha was, gifted with great powers for observing, arguing, discussing, and inferring conclusions, could have fallen into errors so glaring and so contrary to his reason. That we might properly appreciate the efforts of such a genius, and have some correct ideas about his process of arguing, we must divest ourselves of the knowledge supplied to us by revelation, and descend to the level occupied by the founder of Buddhism. Unacquainted with a first cause, or with the existence of a Supreme Being, he studies nature as he finds it. What does he see in it? Perpetual changes, endless vicissitudes. The form that he perceives to-day has undergone some change on the following day. Everything about him grows, reaches a certain point, and then falls into decay. He finds nothing that stands always in the same condition. Hence he proclaims the great law of mutability pervading all nature, and concludes that all that we feel, see, or hear, is illusion and deception, &c.; deprived of all reality, fixity, and substance. His philosophical mind is not satisfied with such a discovery. He pants after truth and reality, which are not to be found here. He feels that he must disentangle himself from the condition of illusion and deception. But where is reality and fixity to be found? Beyond all, that exists in Neibban.