FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114  
115   116   117   118   >>  
ght quite the contrary idea. In the _N[=i]ga Nik[=a]ya_ he said: "Hear, Subbhadra! The world will never be without Arhats if the ascetics (Bhikkhus) in my congregations _well and truly keep my precepts_." (_Imeccha Subhaddabhikkhu samma vihareiyum asunno loko Arahantehiassa._) [8] Kolb, in his _History of Culture_, says: "It is Buddhism we have to thank for the sparing of prisoners of war, who heretofore had been slain; also for the discontinuance of the carrying away into captivity of the inhabitants of conquered lands." [9] The fifth S[=i]la has reference to the mere taking of intoxicants and stupefying drugs, which leads ultimately to drunkenness. [10] The "soul" here criticised is the equivalent of the Greek _psuche_. The word "material" covers other states of matter than that of the physical body. [11] Upon reflection, I have substituted "personality" for "individuality" as written in the first edition. The successive appearances upon one or many earths, or "descents into generation," of the _tanhaically_-coherent parts (_Skandhas_) of a certain being are a succession of personalities. In each birth the _personality_ differs from that of the previous, or next succeeding birth. Karma the _deus ex machina_, masks (or shall we say reflects?) itself, now in the personality of a sage, again as an artisan, and so on throughout the string of births. But though personalities ever shift, the one line of life along which they are strung like beads, runs unbroken, it is ever _that particular line_, never any other. It is therefore individual--an individual vital undulation--which is careering through the objective side of Nature, under the impulse of Karma and the creative direction of Tanh[=a] and persists through many cyclic changes. Professor Rhys-Davids calls that which passes from personality to personality along the individual chain, "character" or "doing". Since "character" is not a mere metaphysical abstraction, but the sum of one's mental qualities and moral propensities, would it not help to dispel what Professor Rhys-Davids calls "the desperate expedient of a mystery" (_Buddhism_, p. 101), if we regarded the life-undulation as individuality and each of its series of natal manifestations as a separate personality? We _must_ have two words to distinguish between the concepts, and I find none so clear and expressive as the two I have chosen. The perfected individual, Buddhistically speaking, is a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114  
115   116   117   118   >>  



Top keywords:
personality
 

individual

 

Buddhism

 
character
 

undulation

 

Professor

 

Davids

 

individuality

 
personalities
 
unbroken

succeeding

 

careering

 

births

 

objective

 

string

 

artisan

 

strung

 

reflects

 

machina

 
series

manifestations
 

separate

 
regarded
 

expedient

 

desperate

 

mystery

 

chosen

 
expressive
 
perfected
 

Buddhistically


speaking
 

distinguish

 

concepts

 

dispel

 

cyclic

 

persists

 

passes

 

direction

 

Nature

 

impulse


creative

 

qualities

 

propensities

 
mental
 

metaphysical

 

abstraction

 

prisoners

 

sparing

 

heretofore

 

conquered