“If there were no emptiness there would be no attainment of what has not yet been attained, nor would there be the annihilation of pain, nor the extinction of all the passions (sarvakleça).
“Therefore, it is taught by the Buddha that those who recognise the law of universal causation, recognise the Buddha as well as Suffering, Accumulation, Cessation, and the Path.”
* * *
The Mahâyânistic doctrines thus formulated and transmitted down to the present days are: There is no such thing as the ego; mentation is produced by the co-ordination of various vijñânas or senses.
Individual existences have no selfhood or self-essence or reality, for they are but an aggregate of certain qualities sustained by efficient karma. The world of particulars is the work of Ignorance as declared by Buddha in his Formula of Dependence (Twelve Nidânas). When this veil of Mâya is uplifted, the universal light of Dharmakâya shines in all its magnificence. Individual existences then as such lose their significance and become sublimated and ennobled in the oneness of Dharmakâya. Egoistic prejudices are forever vanquished, and the aim of our lives is no more thegratification of selfish cravings, but the glorification of Dharma as it works its own way through the multitudinousness of things. The self does not stand any more in a state of isolation (which is an illusion), it is absorbed in the universal body of Dharma, it recognises itself in other selves animate as well as inanimate, and all things are in Nirvâna. When we reach this state of ideal enlightenment, we are said to have realised the Buddhist life.
Definition.
Karma, or Sanskâra which is sometimes used as its synonym,—though the latter gives a slightly different shade of meaning,—comes from the Sanskrit rootkṛ, “to do,” “to make,” “to perform,” “to effect,” “to produce,” etc. Both terms mean activity in its concrete as well as in its abstract sense, and form an antithesis to intelligence, contemplation, or ideation in general. When karma is used in its most abstract sense, it becomes an equivalent to “beginningless ignorance,” which is universally inherent in nature, and corresponds to the Will or blind activity of Schopenhauer; for ignorance as we have seen above is a negative manifestation of Suchness (Bhûtatathâtâ) and marks the beginning or unfolding of a phenomenal world, whose existence is characterised by incessant activities actuated by the principle of karma. When Goethe says in Faust, “In Anfang war die That,” he uses the term “That” in the sense of karma as it is here understood.
When karma is used in its concrete sense, it is theprinciple of activity in the world of particulars or nâmarûpas: it becomes in the physical world the principle of conservation of energy, in the biological realm that of evolution and heredity etc., and in the moral world that of immortality of deeds. Sanskara, when used as an equivalent of karma, corresponds to this concrete signification of it, as it is the case in the Twelve Chains of Dependence (Nidânas, orPratyâyasamutpâda).[84]Here it follows ignorance (avidyâ) and precedes consciousness (vijñâna). Ignorance in this case means simply privation of enlightenment, and does not imply any sense of activity which is expressed in Sanskâra. It is only when it is coupled with the latter that it becomes the principle of activity, and creates as its first offspring consciousness or mentality. In fact, ignorance and blind activity are one, their logical difference being this: the former emphasises the epistemological phase and the latter the ethical; or, we might say, one is statical and the other dynamical. If we are to draw a comparison between the first four of the Twelve Nidânas and the several processes of evolution that takes place in the Tathâgata-garbha as described above, we can take Ignorance and the principle of blind activity, sanskâra,in the Twelve Chains as corresponding to the All-conserving Soul (âlayavijñâna), and the Vijñâna, consciousness of the Twelve Chains, to the Manovijñâna, and the Nâmârûpa to this visible world,viṣaya, in which the principle of karma works in its concrete form.
As we have a special chapter devoted to “Ignorance” as an equivalent of karma in its abstract sense, let us here treat of the Buddhist conception of karma in the realm of names and forms, i.e. of karma in its concrete sense. But we shall restrict ourselves to the activity of karmaic causation in the moral world, as we are not concerned with physics or biology.
The Working of Karma.
The Buddhist conception of karma briefly stated is this: Any act, good or evil, once committed and conceived, never vanishes like a bubble in water, but lives, potentially or actively as the case may be, in the world of minds and deeds. This mysterious moral energy, so to speak, is embodied in and emanates from every act and thought, for it does not matter whether it is actually performed, or merely conceived in the mind. When the time comes, it is sure to germinate and grow with all its vitality. Says Buddha:
“Karma even after the lapse of a hundred kalpas,Will not be lost nor destroyed;As soon as all the necessary conditions are ready,Its fruit is sure to ripe.”[85]
“Karma even after the lapse of a hundred kalpas,Will not be lost nor destroyed;As soon as all the necessary conditions are ready,Its fruit is sure to ripe.”[85]
Again,
“Whatever a man does, the same he in himself will find,The good man, good: and evil he that evil has designed;And so our deeds are all like seeds, and bring forth fruit in kind.”[86]
“Whatever a man does, the same he in himself will find,The good man, good: and evil he that evil has designed;And so our deeds are all like seeds, and bring forth fruit in kind.”[86]
A grain of wheat, it is said, which was accidentally preserved in good condition in a tomb more than a thousand years old, did not lose its germinating energy, and, when planted with proper care, it actually started to sprout. So with karma, it is endowed with an enormous vitality, nay, it is even immortal. However remote the time of their commission might have been, the karma of our deeds never dies; it must work out its own destiny at whatever cost, if not overcome by some counteracting force. The law of karma is irrefragable.
The irrefragability of karma means that the law of causation is supreme in our moral sphere just as much as in the physical, that life consists in a concatenation of causes and effects regulated by the principle of karma, that nothing in the life of an individual or a nation or a race happens without due cause and sufficient reason, that is, without previous karma. The Buddhists, therefore, do not believe in any special act of grace or revelation in our religious realm and moral life. The idea of deus ex machina is banned in Buddhism. Whatever is suffered or enjoyed morally in our present life is due to the karma, accumulatedsince the beginning of life on earth. Nothing sown, nothing reaped.
Whatever has been done leaves an ineffable mark in the individual’s life and even in that of the universe; and this mark will never be erased save by sheer exhaustion of the karma or by the interruption of an overwhelming counter-karma. In case the karma of an act is not actualised during one’s own life-time, it will in that of one’s successors, who may be physical or spiritual. Not only “the evil that men do lives after them,” but also the good, for it will not be “interred with their bones,” as vulgar minds imagine. We read in theSamyukta Nikâya, III, 1-4:
“Assailed by death, in life’s last throes,At quitting of this human state,What is it one can call his own?What with him take as he goes hence?What is it follows after him,And like a shadow ne’er departs?“His good deeds and his wickedness,Whate’er a mortal does while here;’Tis this that he can call his own,This with him take as he goes hence.This is what follows after him,And like a shadow ne’er departs.“Let all, then, noble deeds perform,A treasure-store for future weal;For merit gained this life within,Will yield a blessing in the next.”[87]
“Assailed by death, in life’s last throes,At quitting of this human state,What is it one can call his own?What with him take as he goes hence?What is it follows after him,And like a shadow ne’er departs?
“His good deeds and his wickedness,Whate’er a mortal does while here;’Tis this that he can call his own,This with him take as he goes hence.This is what follows after him,And like a shadow ne’er departs.
“Let all, then, noble deeds perform,A treasure-store for future weal;For merit gained this life within,Will yield a blessing in the next.”[87]
In accordance with this karmaic preservation, Buddhists do not expect to have their sins expatiated by other innocent people so long as their own hearts remain unsoftened as ever. But when the all-embracing love of Buddhas for all sentient beings kindles even the smallest spark of repentance and enlightenment in the heart of a sinner, and when this ever-vacillating light grows to its full magnitude under propitious conditions, the sinner gets fully awakened from the evil karma of eons, and enters, free from all curses, into the eternity of Nirvâna.
Karma and Social Injustice.
The doctrine of karma is very frequently utilised by some Buddhists to explain a state of things which must be considered cases of social injustice.
There are some people who are born rich and noble and destined to enjoy all forms of earthly happiness and all the advantages of social life, though they have done nothing that justifies them in luxuriating in such a fashion any more than their poor neighbors. These people, however, are declared by some pseudo-Buddhists to be merely harvesting the crops of good karma they had prepared in their former lives. On the other hand, the poor, needy, and low that are struggling to eke out a mere existence in spite of their moral rectitude and honest industry, are considered to be suffering the evil karma which had been accumulated during their previous lives. The law of moral retribution is neversuspended, as they reason, on account of the changes which may take place in a mortal being. An act, good or evil, once performed, will not be lost in the eternal succession and interaction of incidents, but will certainly find the sufferer of its due consequence, and it does not matter whether the actor has gone through the vicissitudes of birth and death. For the Buddhist conception of individual identity is not that of personal continuity, but of karmaic conservation. Whatever deeds we may commit, they invariably bear their legitimate fruit and follow us even after death. Therefore, if the rich and noble neglect to do their duties or abandon themselves to the enjoyment of sensual pleasures, then they are sure in their future births, if not in their present life, to gather the crops they have thus unwittingly prepared for themselves. The poor, however hard their lot in this life, can claim their rightful rewards, if they do not get despaired of their present sufferings and give themselves up to temptations, but dutifully continue to do things good and meritorious. Because as their present fate is the result of their former deeds, so will be their future fortune the fruit of their present deeds.
This view as held by some pseudo-Buddhists gives us a wrong impression about the practical working of the principle of karma in this world of nâmarûpas, for it tries to explain by karmaic theory the phenomena which lie outside of the sphere of its applicability. As I understand, what the theory of karmaproposes to explain is not cases of social injustice and economic inequality, but facts of moral causation.
The overbearing attitude of the rich and the noble, the unnecessary sufferings of the poor, the over-production of criminals, and suchlike social phenomena arise from the imperfection of our present social organisation, which is based upon the doctrine of absolute private ownership. People are allowed to amass wealth unlimitedly for their own use and to bequeath it to the successors who do not deserve it in any way. And they do not pay regard to the injuries this system may incur upon the general welfare of the community to which they belong, and upon other members individually. The rich might have slaughtered economically and consequently politically and morally millions of their brethren before they could reach places of social eminence they now occupy and enjoy to its full extent. They might have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of victims on the altar of Mammon in order to carry out their vast scheme of self-aggrandisement. And, what is worse, the wealth thus accumulated by an individual is allowed by the law to be handed down to his descendants, who are in a sense the parasitic members of the community. They are privileged to live upon the sweat and blood of others, who know not where to lay their heads, and who are daily succumbing to the heavy burden, not of their free choice, but forced upon them by society.
Let us here closely see into the facts. There is one portion of society that does almost nothing towardthe promotion of the general welfare, and there is another portion that, besides carrying the burden not of its own, is heroically struggling for bare existence. These sad phenomena which, owing to the imperfection of social organisation, we daily witness about us,—should we attribute them to diversity of individual karma and make individuals responsible for what is really due to the faulty organisation of the community to which they belong? No, the doctrine of karma certainly must not be understood to explain the cause of our social and economical imperfection.
The region where the law of karma is made to work supreme is our moral world, and cannot be made to extend also over our economic field. Poverty is not necessarily the consequence of evil deeds, nor is plenitude that of good acts. Whether a person is affluent or needy is mostly determined by the principle of economy as far as our present social system is concerned. Morality and economy are two different realms of human activity. Honesty and moral rectitude do not necessarily guarantee well-being. Dishonesty and the violation of the moral law, on the contrary, are very frequently utilised as handmaids of material prosperity. Do we not thus see many good, conscientious people around us who are wretchedly poverty-stricken? Shall we take them as suffering the curse of evil karma in their previous lives, when we can understand the fact perfectly well as a case of social injustice? It is not necessary by any means, nay, it is even productive of evil, to establish a relationbetween the two things that in the nature of their being have no causal dependence. Karma ought not to be made accountable for economic inequality.
A virtuous man is contented with his cleanliness of conscience and purity of heart. Obscure as is his present social position, and miserable as are his present pecuniary conditions, he has no mind to look backward and find the cause of his social insignificance there, nor is he anxious about his future earthly fortune which might be awaiting him when his karmaic energy appears in a new garment. His heart is altogether free from such vanities and anxieties. He is sufficient unto himself as he is here and now. And, as to his altruistic aspect of his moral deeds, he is well conscious that their karma would spiritually benefit everybody that gets inspired by it, and also that it would largely contribute to the realisation of goodness on this earth. Why, then, must we contrive such a poor theory of karma as is maintained by some, in order that they might give him a spiritual solace for his material misfortune?
Vulgar people are too eager to see everything and every act they perform working for the accumulation of earthly wealth and the promotion of material welfare. They would want to turn even moral deeds which have no relation to the economic condition of life into the opportunities to attain things mundane. They would desire to have the law of karmaic causation applied to a realm, where prevails an entirely different set of laws. In point of fact, what proceeds frommeritorious deeds is spiritual bliss only,—contentment, tranquillity of mind, meekness of heart, and immovability of faith,—all the heavenly treasures which could not be corrupted by moth or rust. And what more can the karma of good deeds bring to us? And what more would a man of pious heart desire to gain from his being good? “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body more than raiment?” Let us then do away with the worldly interpretation of karma, which is so contrary to the spirit of Buddhism.
As long as we live under the present state of things, it is impossible to escape the curse of social injustice and economic inequality. Some people must be born rich and noble and enjoying a superabundance of material wealth, while others must be groaning under the unbearable burden imposed upon them by cruel society. Unless we make a radical change in our present social organisation, we cannot expect every one of us to enjoy equal opportunity and fair chance. Unless we have a certain form of socialism installed which is liberal and rational and systematic, there must be some who are economically more favored than others. But this state of affairs is a phenomenon of worldly institution and is doomed to die away sooner or later. The law of karma, on the contrary, is an eternal ordinance of the will of the Dharmakâya as manifested in this world ofparticulars. We must not confuse a transient accident of human society with an absolute decree issued from the world-authority.
An Individualistic View of Karma.
There is another popular misconception concerning the doctrine of karma, which seriously mars the true interpretation of Buddhism. I mean by this an individualistic view of the doctrine. This view asserts that deeds, good or evil, committed by a person determine only his own fate, no other’s being affected thereby in any possible way, and that the reason why we should refrain from doing wrong is: for we, and not others, have to suffer its evil consequences. This conception of karma which I call individualistic, presupposes the absolute reality of an individual soul and its continuance as such in a new corporeal existence which is made possible by its previous karma. Because an individual soul is here understood as an independent unit, which stands in no relation to others, and which therefore neither does influence nor is influenced by them in any wise. All that is done by oneself is suffered by oneself only and no other people have anything to do with it, nor do they suffer a whit thereby.
Buddhism, however, does not advocate this individualistic interpretation of karmaic law, for it is not in accord with the theory of non-âtman, nor with that of Dharmakâya.
According to the orthodox theory, karma simply means the conservation or immortality of the innerforce of deeds regardless of their author’s physical identity. Deeds once committed, good or evil, leave permanent effects on the general system of sentient beings, of which the actor is merely a component part; and it is not the actor himself only, but everybody constituting a grand psychic community called “Dharmadhâtu” (spiritual universe), that suffers or enjoys the outcome of a moral deed.
Because the universe is not a theatre for one particular soul only; on the contrary, it belongs to all sentient beings, each forming a psychic unit; and these units are so intimately knitted together in blood and soul that the effects of even apparently trifling deeds committed by an individual are felt by others just as much and just as surely as the doer himself. Throw an insignificant piece of stone into a vast expanse of water, and it will certainly create an almost endless series of ripples, however imperceptible, that never stop till they reach the furthest shore. The tremulation thus caused is felt by the sinking stone as much as the water disturbed. The universe that may seem to crude observers merely as a system of crass physical forces is in reality a great spiritual community, and every one of sentient beings forms its component part. This most complicated, most subtle, most sensitive, and best organised mass of spiritual atoms transmits its current of moral electricity from one particle to another with utmost rapidity and surety. Because this community is at bottom an expression of one Dharmakâya. However diversifiedand dissimilar it may appear in its material individual aspect, it is after all no more than an evolution of one pervading essence, in which the multitudinousness of things finds its unity and identity. Therefore, it is for the interests of the community at large, and not for their own welfare only, that sincere Buddhists refrain from transgressing moral laws and are encouraged to promote goodness. Those whose spiritual insight thus penetrates deep into the inner unity and interaction of all human souls are called Bodhisattvas.
It is with this spirit, let me repeat, that pious Buddhists do not wish to keep for themselves any merits created by their acts of love and benevolence, but wish to turn them over (parivarta) to the deliverance of all sentient creatures from the darkness of ignorance. The most typical way of concluding any religious treatise by Buddhists, therefore, runs generally in the following manner:
“The deep significance of the three karmas as taught by Buddha,I have thus completed elucidating in accord with the Dharma and logic:By dint of this merit I pray to deliver all sentient beingsAnd to make them soon attain to perfect enlightenment.”[88]
“The deep significance of the three karmas as taught by Buddha,I have thus completed elucidating in accord with the Dharma and logic:By dint of this merit I pray to deliver all sentient beingsAnd to make them soon attain to perfect enlightenment.”[88]
Or,
“All the merits arising from this my expositionMay abide and be universally distributed among all beings;And may they ascend in the scale of existence and increase in bliss and wisdom,And soon attain to an enlightenment supreme, perfect, great, and far-reaching.”[89]
“All the merits arising from this my expositionMay abide and be universally distributed among all beings;And may they ascend in the scale of existence and increase in bliss and wisdom,And soon attain to an enlightenment supreme, perfect, great, and far-reaching.”[89]
The reason why a moral deed performed by one person would contribute to the attainment by others of supreme enlightenment, is that souls which are ordinarily supposed to be individual and independent of others are not so in fact, but are very closely intermingled with one another, so that a stir produced in one is sooner or later transmitted to another influencing it rightfully or wrongfully. The karmaic effect of my own deed determines not only my own future, but to a not little extent that of others; hence those invocations just quoted by pious Buddhists who desire to dedicate all the merits they can attain to the general welfare of the masses.
The ever-increasing tendency of humanity to widen and facilitate communication in every possible way is a phenomenon illustrative of the intrinsic oneness of human souls. Isolation kills, for it is another name for death. Every soul that lives and grows desires to embrace others, to be in communion with them, to be supplemented by them, and to expand infinitely so that all individual souls are brought together and united in the one soul. Under this condition only a man’s karma is enabled to influence other people, and his merits can be utilised for the promotion of general enlightenment.
Karma and Determinism.
If the irrefragability of karma means the predetermination of our moral life, some would reason, the doctrine is fatalism pure and simple. It is quite true that our present life is the result of the karma accumulated in our previous existences, and that as long as the karma preserves its vitality there is no chance whatever to escape its consequences, good or evil. It is also true that as the meanest sparrow shall not fall on the ground without the knowledge of God, and as the very hairs of our heads are all numbered by him, so even a single blade of grass does not quiver before the evening breeze without the force of karma. It is also true that if our intellect were not near-sighted as it is, we could reduce a possible complexity of the conditions under which our life exists into its simplest terms, and thus predict with mathematical precision the course of a life through which it is destined to pass. If we could record all our previous karma from time immemorial and all its consequences both on ourselves and on those who come in contact with us, there would be no difficulty in determining our future life with utmost certainty. The human intellect, however, as it happens, is incapable of undertaking a work of such an enormous magnitude, we cannot perceive the full significance of determinism; but, from the divine point of view, determinism seems to be perfectly justified, for there cannot be any short-sightedness on the part of a world-soul as to the destiny of the universe, whichis nothing but its own expression. It is only from the human point of view that we feel uncertain about our final disposition and endeavor to explain existence now from a mechanical, now from a teleological standpoint, and yet, strange enough, at the bottom of our soul we feel that there is something mysterious here which makes us cry, either in despair or in trustful resignation, “Let thy will be done.” While this very confidence in “thy will” proves that we have in our inmost consciousness and outside the pale of intellectual analysis a belief in the supreme order, which is absolutely preordained and which at least is not controllable by our finite, limited, fragmentary mind, yet the doctrine of karma must not be understood in the strictest sense of fatalism.
As far as a general theory of determinism is concerned, Buddhism has no objection to it. Grant that there is a law of causation, that every deed, actualised or thought of, leaves something behind, and that this something becomes a determining factor for our future life; then how could we escape the conclusion that “each of us is inevitable” as Whitman sings? Religious confidence in a divine will that is supposed to give us always the best of things, is in fact no more than a determinism. But if, in applying the doctrine to our practical life, we forget to endeavor to unfold all the possibilities that might lie in us, but could be awakened only after strenuous efforts, there will be no moral characters, no personal responsibility, no noble aspirations; the mind will be nothing but a reflex nervous system and life a sheer machinery.
In fact karma is not a machine which is not incapable of regeneration and self-multiplication. Karma is a wonderful organic power; it grows, it expands, and even gives birth to a new karma. It is like unto a grain of mustard, the least of all seeds, but, being full of vitality, it grows as soon as it comes in contact with the nourishing soil and becometh a tree so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Its mystery is like that of sympathetic waves that pass through all the hearts which feel the great deeds of a hero or listen to the story of a self-sacrificing mother. Karma, good or evil, is contagious and sympathetic in its work. Even a most insignificant act of goodness reaps an unexpectedly rich crop. Even to the vilest rogue comes a chance for repentance by dint of a single good karma ever effected in his life, which has extended through many a kalpa. And the most wonderful thing in our spiritual world is that the karma thus bringing repentance and Nirvâna to the heart of the meanest awakens and rekindles a similar karma potentially slumbering in other hearts and leads them to the final abode of enlightenment.
Inasmuch as we confine ourselves to general, superficial view of the theory of karma, it leads to a form of determinism, but in our practical life which is a product of extremely complicated factors, the doctrine of karma allows in us all kinds of possibilities and all chances of development. We thus escape the mechanical conception of life, we are saved from the despair of predetermination, though this is true to a great extent;and we are assured of the actualisation of hopes, however remote it may be. Though the curse of evil karma may sometimes hang upon us very heavily, there is no reason to bury our aspirations altogether in the grave; on the contrary, let us bear it bravely and perform all the acts of goodness to destroy the last remnant of evil and to mature the stock of good karma.
The Maturing of Good Stock (kuçalamûla) and theAccumulation of merits (punyaskandha).
One of the most significant facts, which we cannot well afford to ignore while treating of the doctrine of karma, is the Buddhist belief that Çâkyamuni reached his supreme Buddhahood only after a long practise of the six virtues of perfection (pâramitâs) through many a rebirth. This belief constitutes the very foundation of the ethics of Buddhism and has all-important bearings on the doctrine of karma.
The doctrine of karma ethically considered is this: Sentient beings can attain to perfection not by an intervention from on high, but through long, steady, unflinching personal efforts towards the actualisation of ideals, or, in other words, towards the maturing of good stock (kuçalamûla) and the accumulation of merits (punyaskandha). This can be accomplished only through the karma of good deeds untiringly practised throughout many a generation. Each single act of goodness we perform to-day is recorded withstrict accuracy in the annals of human evolution and is so much the gain for the cause of righteousness. On the contrary, every deed of ill-will, every thought of self-aggrandisement, every word of impurity, every assertion of egoism, is a drawback to the perfection of humanity. To speak concretely, the Buddha represents the crystalisation in the historical person of Çâkyamuni of all the good karma that was accumulated in innumerable kalpas previous to his birth. And if Devadatta, as legend has him, was really the enemy of the Buddha, he symbolises in him the evil karma that was being stored up with the good deeds of all Buddhas. Later Buddhism has thus elaborated to represent in these two historical figures the concrete results of good and evil karma, and tries to show in what direction its followers should exercise their spiritual energy.
The doctrine of karma is, therefore, really the theory of evolution and heredity as working in our moral field. As Walt Whitman fitly sings, in every one of us, “converging objects of the universe” are perpetually flowing, through every one of us is “afflatus surging and surging—the current and index.” And these converging objects and this afflatus are no more than our karma which is interwoven in our being and which is being matured from the very beginning of consciousness upon the earth. Each generation either retards or furthers the maturing of karma and transmits to the succeeding one its stock either impaired or augmented. Those who are blind enough not tosee the significance of life, those who take their ego for the sole reality, and those who ignore the spiritual inheritance accumulated from time immemorial,—are the most worthless, most ungrateful, and most irresponsible people of the world. Buddhism calls them the children of Mâra engaged in the work of destruction.
Dr. G. R. Wilson of Scotland states a very pretty story about a royal robe in his article on “The Sense of Danger” (The Monist, 1903, April), which graphically illustrates how potential karma stored from time out of mind is saturated in every fibre of our subliminal consciousness or in the Âlayavijñâna, as Buddhists might say. The story runs as follows:
“An Oriental robe it was, whose beginning was in a prehistoric dynasty of which the hieroglyphics are undecipherable. With that pertinacity and durability so characteristic of the East, this royal garment has been handed down, not through hundreds of years, but through hundreds of generations,—generations, some of them, unconsciously long and stale and dreary; others short and quick and merry. A garment of kings, this, and of queens, a garment to which, as tradition prescribed, each monarch added something of quality,—a jewel of price, a patch of gold, a hem of rich embroidery,—and with each contribution a legend, worked into the imperishable fibre, told the story of the giver. Did something of the personality of these kings and queens linger in the work of their hands? If so, the robe was no dead thing, no mere covering to be lightly assumed or lightly laid aside, but a livingpower, royal influence, and the wearer, all unwitting, must have taken on something of the character of the dead. It is a princess of the royal blood, perhaps, sensitive and mystical, trembling on the apprehensive verge of monarchy, who dons the robe, and as she dons it, tingles to its message. These great rubies that blaze upon its front are the souvenirs of bloody conquerors. As she fingers them idly, she is thrilled with an emotion she does not understand, for in her blood something answers to the fighting spirit they embody. Pearls are for peace. That rope has been strung by kings and queens who favored art and learning; and as the girl’s fingers stray towards them the inspiration changes and her mind reverts to the purposes of the civilised scholar. Here is a gaudy hem, the legacy of an unfaithful queen, steeped in intrigue all her life until her murder ended it; and as the maiden lifts it to examine it more closely, she learns with shame and blushes, yet not knowing what has wrought this change in her, that, deep down in her character, are mischievous possibilities, possibilities of wickedness and disgrace that will dog the footsteps of her reign. Suchlike are the suggestions which the hidden parts of the mind bring forth, and in such subtle manner are they born.”
The doctrine of karma thus declares that an act of love and good-will you are performing here is not for your selfish interests, but it simply means the appreciation of the works of your worthy ancestors and the discharge of your duties towardsall humanity and your contribution to the world-treasury of moral ideals. Mature good stock, accumulate merits, purify evil karma, remove the ego-hindrance, and cultivate love for all beings; and the heavenly gate of Nirvâna will be opened not only to you, but to the entire world.
We can sing with Walt Whitman the immortality of karma and the eternal progress of humanity, thus:
“Did you guess anything lived only its moment?The world does not so exist—no part palpable or impalpable so exist;No consummation exists without being from some long previous consummation—and that from some other,Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the beginning than any.”[90]
“Did you guess anything lived only its moment?The world does not so exist—no part palpable or impalpable so exist;No consummation exists without being from some long previous consummation—and that from some other,Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the beginning than any.”[90]
Immortality.
We read in theMilinda-pañha:
“Your Majesty, it is as if a man were to ascend to the story of a house with a light, and eat there; and the light in burning were to set fire to the thatch; and the thatch in burning were to set fire to the house; and the house in burning were to set fire to the village; and the people of the village were to seize him, and say, ‘Why, O man, did you set fire to the village?’ and he were to say, ‘I did not set fire to the village. The fire of the lamp by whose light I ate was a different one from the one which set fire to the village’;and they, quarreling, were to come to you. Whose cause, Your Majesty, would you sustain?”
“That of the people of the village, Reverend Sir,” etc.
“And why?”
“Because, in spite of what the man might say, the latter fire sprang from the former.”
“In exactly the same way, Your Majesty, although the name and form which is born into the next existence is different from the name and form which is to end at death, nevertheless, it is sprung from it. Therefore is one not freed from one’s evil deeds.”
The above is the Buddhist notion of individual identity and its conservation, which denies the immortality of the ego-soul and upholds that of karma.
Another good way, perhaps, of illustrating this doctrine is to follow the growth and perpetuation of the seed. The seed is in fact a concrete expression of karma. When a plant reaches a certain stage of development, it blooms and bears fruit. This fruit contains in it a latent energy which under favorable conditions grows to a mature plant of its own kind. The new plant now repeats the processes which its predecessors went through, and an eternal perpetuation of the plant is attained. The life of an individual plant cannot be permanent according to its inherent nature, it is destined to be cut short some time in its course. But this is not the case with the current of an ever-lasting vitality that has been running in the plant ever since the beginning of the world. Because this current is not individual in its nature and stands above the vicissitudeswhich take place in the life of particular plants. It may not be manifested in its kinetic form all the time, but potentially it is ever present in the being of the seed. Changes are simply a matter of form, and do not interfere with the current of life in the plant, which is preserved in the universe as the energy of vegetation.
This energy of vegetation is that which is manifested in a mature plant, that which makes it blossom in the springtime, that which goes to seed, that which lies apparently dormant in the seeds, and that which resuscitates them to sprout among favorable surroundings. This energy of vegetation, this mysterious force, when stated in Buddhist phraseology, is nothing else than the vegetative expression of karma, which in the biological world constitutes the law of heredity, or the transmission of acquired character, or some other laws which might be discovered by the biologist. And it is when this force manifests itself in the moral realm of human affairs that karma obtains its proper significance as the law of moral causation.
Now, there are several forms of transmission, by means of which the karma of a person or a people or a nation or a race is able to perpetuate itself to eternity. A few of them are described below.
One may be called genealogical, or, perhaps, biological. Suppose here are descendants of an illustrious family, some of whose ancestors distinguished themselves by bravery, or benevolence, or intelligence, or by some other praiseworthy deeds or faculties. Thesepeople are as a rule respected by their neighbors as if their ancestral spirits were transmitted through generations and still lingering among their consanguineous successors. Some of them in the line might have even been below the normal level in their intellect and morals, but this fact does not altogether nullify the possibility and belief that others of their family might some day develop the faculties possessed by the forefathers, dormant as they appear now, through the inspiration they could get from the noble examples of the past. The respect they are enjoying and the possibility of inspiration they may have are all the work of the karma generated by the ancestors. The author or authors of the noble karma are all gone now, their bones have long returned to their elements, their ego-souls are no more, their concrete individual personalities are things of the past; but their karma is still here and as fresh as it was on the day of its generation and will so remain till the end of time. If some of them, on the other hand, left a black record behind them, the evil karma will tenaciously cling to the history of the family, and the descendants will have to suffer the curse as long as its vitality is kept up, no matter how innocent they themselves are.
Here one important thing I wish to note is the mysterious way in which evil karma works. Evil does not always generate evils only; it very frequently turns out to be a condition, if not a cause, which will induce a moral being to overcome it with hisutmost spiritual efforts. His being conscious of the very fact that his family history is somehow besmirched with dark spots, would rekindle in his heart a flickering light of goodness. His stock of good karma finally being brought into maturity, his virtues would then eclipse the evils of the past and turn a new page before him, which is full of bliss and glory. Everything in this world, thus, seems to turn to be merely a means for the final realisation of Good. Buddhists ascribe this spiritual phenomenon to the virtues of the upâya (expediency) of the Dharmakâya or Amitâbha Buddha.[91]
To return to the subject. It does not need any further illustration to show that all these things which have been said about the family are also true of the race, the tribe, clan, nation, or any other form of community. History of mankind in all its manifold aspects of existence is nothing but a grand drama visualising the Buddhist doctrine of karmaic immortality. It is like an immense ocean whose boundaries nobody knows and the waves of events now swelling and surging, now ebbing, now whirling, now refluxing, in all times, day and night, illustrate how the lawsof karma are at work in this actual life. One act provokes another and that a third and so on to eternity without ever losing the chain of karmaic causation.
Next, we come to a form of karma which might be called historical. By this I mean that a man’s karma can be immortalised by some historical objects, such as buildings, literary works, productions of art, implements, or instruments. In fact, almost any object, human or natural, which, however insignificant in itself, is associated with the memory of a great man, bears his karma, and transmits it to posterity.
Everybody is familiar with the facts that all literary work embodies in itself the author’s soul and spirit, and that posterity can feel his living presence in the thoughts and sentiments expressed there, and that whenever the reader draws his inspiration from the work and actualises it in action, the author and the reader, though corporeally separate and living in different times, must be said spiritually feeling the pulsation of one and the same heart. And the same thing is true of productions of art. When we enter a gallery decorated with the noble works of Græcean or Roman artists, we feel as if we were breathing right in the midst of these art-loving people and seem to reawaken in us the same impressions that were received by them. We forget, as they did, the reality of our particular existence, we are unconsciously raised above it, and our imagination is filled with things not earthly. What a mysterious power it is!—thepower by which those inanimate objects carry us away to a world of ideals! What a mysterious power it is that reawakens the spirits of by-gone artists on a sheet of canvas or in a piece of marble! It was not indeed entirely without truth that primitive or ignorant people intuitively believed in the spiritual power of idols. What they failed to grasp was the distinction between the subjective presence of a spirit and its objective reality. As far as their religious feeling, and not their critical intellect, was concerned, they were perfectly justified in believing in idolatry. Taking all in all, these facts unmistakably testify the Buddhist doctrine of the immortality of karma. A chord of karma touched by mortals of bygone ages still vibrates in their works, and the vibration with its full force is transmitted to the sympathetic souls down to the present day.
Architectural creations bear out the doctrine of karma with no less force than works of art and literature. As the uppermost bricks on an Egyptian pyramid would fall on the ground with the same amount of energy that required to raise them up in the times of Pharaohs; as a burning piece of coal in the furnace that was dug out from the heart of the earth emits the same quantity of heat that it absorbed from the sun some hundred thousand years ago; even so every insignificant bit of rock or brick or cement we may find among the ruins of Babylonian palaces, Indian topes, Persian kiosks, Egyptian obelisks, or Roman pantheons, is fraught with the same spirit and soul that actuatedthe ancient peoples to construct those gigantic architectural wonders. The spirit is here, not in its individual form, but in its karmaic presence. When we pick these insignificant, unseemly pieces, our souls become singularly responsive to inspirations coming from those of the past, and our mental eyes vividly perceive the splendor of the gods, glory of the kings, peace of the nation, prosperity of the peoples, etc., etc. Because our souls and theirs are linked with the chain of karmaic causation through the medium of those visible remains of ancient days. Because the karma of those old peoples is still breathing its immortality in those architectural productions and sending its sympathetic waves out to the beholders. When thus we come to be convinced of the truth of the immortality of karma, we can truly exclaim with Christians, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
It is hardly necessary to give any further illustration to establish the doctrine of karma concerning its historical significance. All scientific apparatus and instruments are an undying eye-witness of the genius of the inventors. All industrial machines and agricultural implements most concretely testify the immortality of karma created by the constructors, in exact proportion as they are beneficial to the general welfare and progress of humanity. The instruments or machines or implements may be superseded by later and better ones, and possibly altogether forgotten by succeeding generations, but this does not annul the fact that theimproved ones were only possible through the knowledge and experience which came from the use of the older ones, in other words, that the ideas and thoughts of the former inventors are still surviving through those of their successors, just as much as in the case of genealogical karma-transmission. Whatever garb the karma of a person may wear in its way down to posterity, it is ever there where its inspiration is felt. Even in an article of most trivial significance, even in a piece of rag, or in a slip of time-worn paper, only let there be an association with the memory of the deceased; and an unutterable feeling imperceptibly creeps into the heart of the beholder; and if the deceased were known for his saintliness or righteousness, this would be an opportunity for our inspiration and moral elevation according to how our own karma at that moment is made up.
We now come to see more closely the spiritual purport of karmaic activity. Any intelligent reader could infer from what has been said above what important bearing the Buddhist doctrine of karma has on our moral and spiritual life. The following remarks, however, will greatly help him to understand the full extent of the doctrine and to pass an impartial judgment on its merits.
Here, if not anywhere else, looms up most conspicuously the characteristic difference between Buddhism and Christianity as to their conception of soul-activity. Christianity, if I understand it rightly, conceives our soul-phenomena as the work of anindividual ego-entity, which keeps itself mysteriously hidden somewhere within the body. To Christians, the soul is a metaphysical being, and its incarnation in the flesh is imprisonment. It groans after emancipation, it craves for the celestial abode, where, after bodily death, it can enjoy all the blessings due to its naked existence. It finds the nectar of immortality up in Heaven and in the presence of God the father and Christ the son, and not in the perpetuation of karma in this universe. The soul of the wicked, on the other hand, is eternally damned, if it is conceded that they have any soul. As soon as it is liberated from the bodily incarceration, it is hurled into the infernal fire, and is there consumed suffering unspeakable agony. Christianity, therefore, does not believe in the transmigration or reincarnation of a soul. A soul once departed from the flesh never returns to it; it is either living an eternal life in Heaven or suffering an instant annihilation in Hell. This is the necessary conclusion from their premises of an individual concrete ego-soul.
Buddhism, however, does not teach the metaphysical existence of the soul. All our mental and spiritual experiences, it declares, are due to the operations of karma which inherits its efficiency from its previous “seeds of activity” (karmabîja), and which has brought the five skandhas into the present state of co-ordination. The present karma, while in its force, generates in turn the “seeds of activity” which under favorable conditions grow to maturity again. Therefore, as longas the force of karma is thus successively generated, there are the five skandhas constantly coming into existence and working co-ordinately as a person. Karma-reproduction, so to speak, effected in this manner, is the Buddhist conception of the transmigration of a soul.
A Japanese national hero, General Kusunoki Masashige, who was an orthodox Buddhist, is said to have uttered the following words when he fell in the battle-field: “I will be reborn seven times yet and complete discharging my duties for the Imperial House.” And he did not utter these words to no purpose. Because even to-day, after the lapse of more than seven hundred years, his spirit is still alive among his countrymen, and indeed his bronze statue on horseback is solemnly guarding the Japanese Imperial palace. He was reborn more than seven times and will be reborn as long as the Japanese as a nation exist on earth. This constant rebirth or reincarnation means no more nor less than the immortality of karma. Says Buddha: “Ye disciples, take after my death those moral precepts and doctrines which were taught to you for my own person, for I live in them.” To live in karma, and not as an ego-entity, is the Buddhist conception of immortality. Therefore, the Buddhists will perfectly agree with the sentiment expressed by a noted modern poet in these lines:
“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not in breaths:In feelings, not in figures on a dial,We should count time by heart-throbs. He most livesWho thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”
“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not in breaths:In feelings, not in figures on a dial,We should count time by heart-throbs. He most livesWho thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”
Some may like to call this kind of immortality unsatisfactory, and impetuously demand that the ego-soul, instead of mysterious force of karma, should be made immortal, as it is more tangible and better appreciated by the masses. The Buddhist response to such a demand would be; “If their intellectual and moral insight is not developed enough to see truth in the theory of karma, why, we shall let them adhere as long as they please to their crude, primitive faith and rest contented with it.” Even the Buddha could not make children find pleasure in abstract metaphysical problems, whatever truth and genuine spiritual consolation there might be in them. What their hearts are after are toys and fairy-tales and parables. Therefore, a motto of Buddhism is: “Minister to the patients according to their wants and conditions.” We cannot make a plant grow even an inch higher by artificially pulling its roots; we have but to wait till it is ready for development. Unless a child becomes a man, we must not expect of him to put away childish things.
The conclusion that could be drawn from the above is obvious. If we desire immortality, let there be the maturing of good karma and the cleansing of the heart from the contamination of evils. In good karma we are made to live eternally, but in evil one we are doomed, not only ourselves but every one that follows our steps on the path of evils. Karma is always generative; therefore, good karma is infinite bliss, and evil one is eternal curse. It was for this reason that at the appearance of the Buddha in the Jambudvîpaheaven and earth resounded with the joyous acclamation of gods and men. It was a signal triumph for the cause of goodness. The ideal of moral perfection found a concrete example in the person of Çâkyamuni. It showed how the stock of good karma accumulated and matured from the beginning of consciousness on earth could be crystalised in one person and brought to an actuality even in this world of woes. The Buddha, therefore, was the culmination of all the good karma previously stored up by his spiritual ancestors. And he was at the same time the starting point for the fermentation of new karma, because his moral “seeds of activity” which were generated during his lifetime have been scattered liberally wherever his virtues and teachings could be promulgated. That is, his karma-seeds have been sown in the souls of all sentient beings. Every one of these seeds which are infinite in number will become a new centre of moral activity. In proportion how strong it grows and begins to bear fruit, it destroys the seeds of evil doers. Good karma is a combined shield and sword, while it protects itself it destroys all that is against it. Therefore, good karma is not only statically immortal, but it is dynamically so; that is to say, its immortality is not a mere absence of birth and death, but a constant positive increase in its moral efficiency.
Pious Buddhists believe that every time Buddha’s name is invoked with a heart free from evil thoughts, he enters right into the soul and becomes integral part of his being. This does not mean, however, thatBuddha’s ego-substratum which might have been enjoying its immortal spiritual bliss in the presence of an anthropomorphic God descends on earth at the invocation of his name and renders in that capacity whatever help the supplicant needs. It means, on the other hand, that the Buddhist awakens in his personal karma that which constituted Buddhahood in the Buddha and nourishes it to maturity. That which constitutes Buddhahood is not the personal ego of the Buddha, but his karma. Every chemical element, whenever occasioned to befree itself from a combination, never fails to generate heat which it absorbed at the time of combination with other elements; and this takes place no matter how remote the time of combination was. It is even so with the karma-seed of Buddha. It might have been in the barren soil of a sinful heart, and, being deeply buried there for many a year, might have been forgotten altogether by the owner. But, sooner or later, it will never fail to grow under favorable conditions and generate what it gained from the Buddha in the beginning of the world. And this regeneration will not be merely chemical, but predominantly biological; for it is the law which conditions the immortality of karma.
Wehave considered the doctrine of Suchness (Bhûtatathâtâ) under “Speculative Buddhism,” where it appeared altogether too abstract to be of any practical use to our earthly life. The theory as such did not seem to have any immediate bearings on our religious consciousness. The fact is, it must pass through some practical modification before it fully satisfies our spiritual needs. As there is no concrete figure in this world that is a perfect type of mathematical exactitude,—since everything here must be perceived through our more or less distorted physical organs; even so with pure reason: however perfect in itself, it must appear to us more or less modified while passing through our affective-intellectual objectives. This modification of pure reason, however, is necessary from the human point of view; because mere abstraction is contentless, lifeless, and has no value for our practical life, and again, because our religious cravings will not be satisfied with empty concepts lacking vitality.
We may sometimes ignore the claims of reasonand rest satisfied, though usually unconsciously, with assertions which are conflicting when critically examined, but we cannot disregard by any means those of the religious sentiment, which finds satisfaction only in the very fact of things. If it ever harbored some flagrant contradictions in the name of faith, it was because its ever-pressing demands had to be met with even at the expense of reason. The truth is: the religious consciousness first of all demands fact, and when it attains that, it is not of much consequence to it whether or not its intellectual interpretation is logically tenable. If on the other hand logic be all-important and demand the first consideration and the sentiment had to follow its trail without a murmuring, our life would surely lose its savory aspect, turn tasteless, our existence would become void, the world would be a mere succession of meaningless events, and what remains would be nothing else than devastation, barrenness, and universal misery. The truth is, in this life the will predominates and the intellect subserves; which explains the fact that while all existing religions on the one hand display some logical inaccuracy and on the other hand a mechanical explanation of the world is gaining ground more and more, religion is still playing an important part everywhere in our practical life. Abstraction is good for the exercises of the intellect, but when it is the question of life and death we must have something more substantial and of more vitality than theorisation. It may not be a mathematically exactand certain proposition, but it must be a working, living, real theory, that is, it must be a faith born of the inmost consciousness of our being.
What practical transformations then has the doctrine of Suchness, in order to meet the religious demands, to suffer?
God.
Buddhism does not use the word God. The word is rather offensive to most of its followers, especially when it is intimately associated in vulgar minds with the idea of a creator who produced the world out of nothing, caused the downfall of mankind, and, touched by the pang of remorse, sent down his only son to save the depraved. But, on account of this, Buddhism must not be judged as an atheism which endorses an agnostic, materialistic interpretation of the universe. Far from it. Buddhism outspokenly acknowledges the presence in the world of a reality which transcends the limitations of phenomenality, but which is nevertheless immanent everywhere and manifests itself in its full glory, and in which we live and move and have our being.
God or the religious object of Buddhism is generally called Dharmakâya-Buddha and occasionally Vairocana-Buddha or Vairocana-Dharmakâya-Buddha; still another name for it is Amitâbha-Buddha or Amitâyur-Buddha,—the latter two being mostly used by the followers of the Sukhâvatî sect of Japan and China.Again, very frequently we find Çâkyamuni, the Buddha, and the Tathâgata stripped of his historical personality and identified with the highest truth and reality. These, however, by no means exhaust a legion of names invented by the fertile imagination of Buddhists for their object of reverence as called forth by their various spiritual needs.
Dharmakâya.
Western scholars usually translate Dharmakâya by “Body of the Law” meaning by the Law the doctrine set forth by Çâkyamuni the Buddha. It is said that when Buddha was preparing himself to enter into eternal Nirvâna, he commanded his disciples to revere the Dharma or religion taught by him as his own person, because a man continues to live in the work, deeds, and words left behind himself. So, Dharmakâya came to be understood by Western scholars as meaning the person of Buddha incarnated in his religion. This interpretation of the term is not very accurate, however, and is productive of some very serious misinterpretations concerning the fundamental doctrines of Mahâyânism. Historically, the Body of the Law as the Buddha incarnate might have been the sense of Dharmakâya, as we can infer from the occasional use of the term in some Hînayâna texts. But as it is used by Eastern Buddhists, it has acquired an entirely new significance, having nothing to do with the body of religious teachings established by the Buddha.
This transformation in the conception of Dharmakâya has been effected by the different interpretation the term Dharma came to receive from the hand of the Mahâyânists. Dharma is a very pregnant word and covers a wide range of meaning. It comes from the rootdhṛ, which means “to hold,” “to carry”, “to bear,” and the primitive sense of dharma was “that which carries or bears or supports,” and then it came to signify “that which forms the norm, or regulates the course of things,” that is, “law,” “institution,” “rule,” “doctrine,” then, “duty,” “justice,” “virtue,” “moral merit,” “character,” “attribute,” “essential quality,” “substance,” “that which exists,” “reality,” “being,” etc., etc. The English equivalent most frequently used for dharma by Oriental scholars is law or doctrine. This may be all right as far as the Pâli texts go; but when we wish to apply this interpretation to the Mahâyâna terms, such as Dharmadhâtu, Dharmakâya, Dharmalakṣa, Dharmaloka, etc., we are placed in an awkward position and are at a loss how to get at the meaning of those terms. There are passages in Mahâyâna literature in which the whole significance of the text depends upon how we understand the word dharma. And it may even be said that one of the many reasons why Christian students of Buddhism so frequently fail to recognise the importance of Mahâyânism is due to their misinterpretation of dharma. Max Mueller, therefore, rightly remarks in his introduction to an English translation of theVajracchedîka Sûtra, when he says: “If wewere always to translate dharma by law, it seems to me that the whole drift of our treatise would become unintelligible.” Not only that particular text of Mahâyânism, but its entire literature would become utterly incomprehensible.
In Mahâyânism Dharma means in many cases “thing,” “substance,” or “being,” or “reality,” both in its particular and in its general sense, though it is also frequently used in the sense of law or doctrine. Kâya may be rendered “body,” not in the sense of personality, but in that of system, unity, and organised form. Dharmakâya, the combination of dharma and kâya, thus means the organised totality of things or the principle of cosmic unity, though not as a purely philosophical concept, but as an object of the religious consciousness. Throughout this work, however, the original Sanskrit form will be retained in preference to any English equivalents that have been used heretofore; for Dharmakâya conveys to the minds of Eastern Buddhists a peculiar religious flavor, which, when translated by either God or the All or some abstract philosophical terms, suffers considerably.
Dharmakâya as Religious Object.
As aforesaid, the Dharmakâya is not a product of philosophical reflection and is not exactly equivalent to Suchness; it has a religious signification as the object of the religious consciousness. The Dharmakâya is a soul, a willing and knowing being, one that iswill and intelligence, thought and action. It is, as understood by the Mahâyânists, not an abstract metaphysical principle like Suchness, but it is living spirit, that manifests itself in nature as well as in thought. The universe as an expression of this spirit is not a meaningless display of blind forces, nor is it an arena for the struggle of diverse mechanical powers. Further, Buddhists ascribe to the Dharmakâya innumerable merits and virtues and an absolute perfect intelligence, and makes it an inexhaustible fountain-head of love and compassion; and it is in this that the Dharmakâya finally assumes a totally different aspect from a mere metaphysical principle, cold and lifeless.
TheAvatamsaka Sûtragives some comprehensive statements concerning the nature of the Dharmakâya as follows:
“The Dharmakâya, though manifesting itself in the triple world, is free from impurities and desires. It unfolds itself here, there, and everywhere responding to the call of karma. It is not an individual reality, it is not a false existence, but is universal and pure. It comes from nowhere, it goes to nowhere; it does not assert itself, nor is it subject to annihilation. It is forever serene and eternal. It is the One, devoid of all determinations. This Body of Dharma has no boundary, no quarters, but is embodied in all bodies. Its freedom or spontaneity is incomprehensible, its spiritual presence in things corporeal is incomprehensible. All forms of corporeality are involved therein, it is able to create all things. Assuming any concretematerial body as required by the nature and condition of karma, it illuminates all creations. Though it is the treasure of intelligence, it is void of particularity. There is no place in the universe where this Body does not prevail. The universe becomes, but this Body forever remains. It is free from all opposites and contraries, yet it is working in all things to lead them to Nirvâna.”
More Detailed Characterisation.
The above gives us a general, concise view as to what the Dharmakâya is, but let me quote the following more detailed description of it, in order that we may more clearly and definitely see into the characteristically Buddhistic conception of the highest being.[92]
“O ye, sons of Buddha! The Tathâgata[93]is not a particular dharma, nor a particular form of activity, nor has it a particular body, nor does it abide in a particular place, nor is its work of salvation confined to one particular people. On the contrary, it involves in itself infinite dharmas, infinite activities, infinite bodies, infinite spaces, and universally works for the salvation of all things.
“O ye, sons of Buddha! It is like unto space. Space[94]contains in itself all material existences and all the vacuums that obtain between them. Again, it establishesitself in all possible quarters, and yet we cannot say of it that it is or it is not in this particular spot, for space has no palpable form. Even so with the Dharmakâya of the Tathâgata. It presents itself in all places, in all directions, in all dharmas, and in all beings; yet the Dharmakâya itself has not been thereby particularised. Because the Body of the Tathâgata has no particular body but manifests itself everywhere and anywhere in response to the nature and condition of things.
“O ye, sons of Buddha! It is like unto space. Space is boundless, comprehends in itself all existence, and yet shows no trace of passion [partiality]. It is even so with the Dharmakâya of the Tathâgata. It illuminates all good works worldly as well as religious, but it betrays no passion or prejudice. Why? Because the Dharmakâya is perfectly free from all passions and prejudices.[95]
“O ye, sons of Buddha! It is like unto the Sun. The benefits conferred by the light of the sun upon all living beings on earth are incalculable: e.g. by dispelling darkness it gives nourishment to all trees, herbs, grains, plants, and grass; it vanquishes humidity; it illuminates ether whereby benefitting all theliving beings in air; its rays penetrate into the waters whereby bringing forth the beautiful lotus-flowers into full blossom; it impartially shines on all figures and forms and brings into completion all the works on earth. Why? Because from the sun emanate infinite rays of life-giving light.
“O ye, sons of Buddha! It is even so with the Sun-Body of the Tathâgata which in innumerable ways bestows benefits upon all beings. That is, it benefits us by destroying evils, all good things thus being quickened to growth; it benefits us with its universal illumination which vanquishes the darkness of ignorance harbored in all beings; it benefits us through its great compassionate heart which saves and protects all beings; it benefits us through its great loving heart which delivers all beings from the misery of birth and death; it benefits us by the establishment of a good religion whereby we are all strengthened in our moral activities; it benefits us by giving us a firm belief in the truth which cleanses all our spiritual impurities; it benefits by helping us to understand the doctrine by virtue of which we are not led to disavow the law of causation; it benefits us with a divine vision which enables us to observe the metempsychosis of all beings; it benefits us by avoiding injurious deeds which may destroy the stock of merits accumulated by all beings; it benefits us with an intellectual light which unfolds the mind-flowers of all beings; it benefits us with an aspiration whereby we are enlivened to practice all that constitutes Buddhahood. Why? Because the Sun-Bodyof the Tathâgata universally emits the rays of the Light of Intelligence.
“O ye, sons of Buddha! When the day breaks, the rising sun shines first on the peaks of all the higher mountains, then on those of high mountains, and finally all over the plains and fields; but the sunlight itself does not make this thought: I will shine first on all the highest mountains and then gradually ascending higher and higher shine on the plains and fields. The reason why one gets the sunlight earlier than another is simply because there is a gradation of height on the surface of the earth.
“O ye, sons of Buddha! It is even so with the Tathâgata who is in possession of innumerable and immeasurable suns of universal intelligence. The innumerable rays of the Light of Intelligence, emanating everlastingly from the spiritual Body of the Tathâgata, will first fall on the Bodhisattvas and Mahâsattvas who are the highest peaks among mankind, then on the Nidânabuddhas, then on the Çrâvakas, then on those beings who are endowed with definitely good character, as they will each according to his own capacity unhesitatingly embrace the doctrine of deliverance, and finally on all common mortals whose character may be either indefinite or definitely bad, providing them with those conditions which will prove beneficial in their future births. But the Light of Intelligence emanating from the Tathâgata does not make this thought: ‘I will first shine on the Bodhisattvasand then gradually pass over to all common mortals, etc.’ The Light is universal and illuminates everything without any prejudice, yet on account of the diversity that obtains among sentient beings as to their character, aspirations, etc., the Light of Intelligence is diversely perceived by them.