FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150  
151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   >>   >|  
_Atthasalini_, p. 89.] [Footnote 5: Prof. De la Vallae Poussin's article in the _E. R.E._ on Nirva@na. See also _Cullavagga_, IX. i. 4; Mrs Rhys Davids's _Psalms of the early Buddhists_, I. and II., Introduction, p. xxxvii; _Digha_, II. 15; _Udana_, VIII.; _Sa@myutta_, III. 109.] 109 Mr Schrader, in discussing Nibbana in _Pali Text Society Journal_, 1905, says that the Buddha held that those who sought to become identified after death with the soul of the world as infinite space (_akasa_) or consciousness (_vinnana_) attained to a state in which they had a corresponding feeling of infiniteness without having really lost their individuality. This latter interpretation of Nibbana seems to me to be very new and quite against the spirit of the Buddhistic texts. It seems to me to be a hopeless task to explain Nibbana in terms of worldly experience, and there is no way in which we can better indicate it than by saying that it is a cessation of all sorrow; the stage at which all worldly experiences have ceased can hardly be described either as positive or negative. Whether we exist in some form eternally or do not exist is not a proper Buddhistic question, for it is a heresy to think of a Tathagata as existing eternally (_s'as'vata_) or not-existing (_as'as'vata_) or whether he is existing as well as not existing or whether he is neither existing nor non-existing. Any one who seeks to discuss whether Nibbana is either a positive and eternal state or a mere state of non-existence or annihilation, takes a view which has been discarded in Buddhism as heretical. It is true that we in modern times are not satisfied with it, for we want to know what it all means. But it is not possible to give any answer since Buddhism regarded all these questions as illegitimate. Later Buddhistic writers like Nagarjuna and Candrakirtti took advantage of this attitude of early Buddhism and interpreted it as meaning the non-essential character of all existence. Nothing existed, and therefore any question regarding the existence or non-existence of anything would be meaningless. There is no difference between the worldly stage (_sa@msara_) and Nibbana, for as all appearances are non-essential, they never existed during the sa@msara so that they could not be annihilated in Nibbana. Upani@sads and Buddhism. The Upani@sads had discovered that the true self was ananda (bliss) [Footnote ref 1]. We could suppose that early Buddhism tacitly
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150  
151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Nibbana
 

existing

 

Buddhism

 

existence

 

worldly

 
Buddhistic
 
positive
 

existed

 
essential
 

eternally


question

 

Footnote

 
modern
 

regarded

 
Vallae
 

Poussin

 
discarded
 
article
 

heretical

 

satisfied


answer

 

Tathagata

 

annihilation

 

questions

 

eternal

 

discuss

 

annihilated

 

Atthasalini

 

appearances

 

discovered


suppose

 
tacitly
 

ananda

 

difference

 

advantage

 
attitude
 

Candrakirtti

 
Nagarjuna
 

heresy

 
writers

interpreted
 

meaning

 
meaningless
 
character
 

Nothing

 

illegitimate

 
Cullavagga
 

infiniteness

 
feeling
 

Schrader