Henry Steel Olcott

“ A. To know the whole secret of man's existence and destiny, so that we may estimate at no more than their actual value this life and its relations; and so that we may live in a way to ensure the greatest happiness and the least suffering for our fellow-men and ourselves. ”

“ The perfected individual, Buddhistically speaking, is a Buddha, I should say; for a Buddha is but the rare flower of humanity, without the least supernatural admixture. And, as countless generations—"four asankhyyas and a hundred thousand cycles" (Fausboll and Rhys-David's Buddhist Birth Stories, No. 13) —are required to develop a man into a Buddha, and the iron will to become one runs throughout all the successive births, what shall we call that which thus wills and perseveres? ”

“ A. Nirvāna is the synonym of unselfishness, the entire surrender of selfhood to truth. The ignorant man aspires to nirvānic happiness without the least idea of its nature. Absence of selfishness is Nirvāna. Doing good with the view to getting results, or leading the holy life with the object of gaining heavenly happiness, is not the Noble Life that the Buddha enjoined. Without hope of reward the Noble Life should be lived, and that is the highest life. The nirvānic state can be attained while one is living on this earth. ”

“ But everything that I have found in Buddhism accords with the theory of a gradual evolution of the perfected man—viz., a Buddha—through numberless natal experiences. And in the consciousness of that individual who, at the end of a given chain of births, attains Buddhahood, or who succeeds in attaining the fourth stage of Dhyāna, or mystic self-development, in any of his births anterior to the final one, the scenes of all these serial births are perceptible. ”

“ He thus grows by degrees wiser, nobler in character, and stronger in virtue, until, finally, after numberless re-births he reaches the state when he can become Perfected, Enlightened, All-wise, the ideal Teacher of the human race. ”

“ 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 Tanhā and persists through many cyclic changes. Professor Rhys-Davids calls that which passes from personality to personality along the individual chain, "character" or "doing". ”

“ In the Five Precepts and in many of his discourses, the Buddha teaches us to be merciful to all beings, to try and make them happy, to love them all, to abstain from taking life, or consenting to it, or encouraging its being done. ”

“ VI Ignorance fosters the belief that rebirth is a necessary thing. When ignorance is destroyed the worthlessness of every such rebirth, considered as an end in itself, is perceived, as well as the paramount need of adopting a course of life by which the necessity for such repeated rebirths can be abolished. ”

“ A. The Buddha taught that two things are causeless, viz., Ākāsha, and Nirvāna. Everything has come ont of Ākāsha, in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it, and, after a certain existence, passes away. Nothing ever came out of nothing. We do not believe in miracles; hence we deny creation, and cannot conceive of a creation of something out of nothing. Nothing organic is eternal. Everything is in a state of constant flux, and undergoing change and reformation, keeping up the continuity according to the law of evolution. ”

“ Q. Does popular Buddhism contain nothing but what is true, and in accord with science?
A. Like every other religion that has existed many centuries, it certainly now contains untruth mingled with truth; ever gold is found mixed with dross. The poetical imagination, the zeal, or the lingering superstition of Buddhist devotees have, in various ages, and in various lands, caused the noble principles of the Buddha's moral doctrines to be coupled more or less with what might be removed to advantage. ”

“ Many of the Buddha's disciples, being Arhats and thus having control over their vital powers, must have lived to great ages, and there was nothing to have prevented two or three of them, in succession to each other, to have covered the whole period between the death of the Buddha and the reign of Asoka, and thus to have enabled the latter to get from his contemporary every desired attestation of the fact of the Buddha's life. ”

“ A. It is not in the nature of every man to become a Buddha; for a Buddha is developed only at long intervals of time, and seemingly, when the state of humanity absolutely requires such a teacher to show it the forgotten Path to Nirvāna. ”

“ The denial of "Soul" by Buddha (see Sanyutta Nikāya, the Sutta Pitaka) points to the prevalent delusive belief in an independent personality; an entity, which after one birth would go to a fixed place or state where, as a perfect entity, it could eternally enjoy or suffer. And what he shows is that the "I am I" consciousness is, as regards permanency, logically impossible, since its elementary constituents constantly change and the "I" of one birth differs from the "I" of every other birth. ”

“ The former can work phenomena, the latter cannot. The Arhat of the former class, when fully developed, is no longer a prey to the delusions of the senses, nor the slave of passion or mortal frailty. He penetrates to the root of whatsoever subject his mind is applied to without following the slow processes of reasoning. His self-conquest is complete; and in place of the emotion and desire which vex and enthral the ordinary man, he is lifted up into a condition which is best expressed in the term "Nirvānic". ”

“ Q. Does Buddhism teach us to return evil for evil?
A. In the Dhammapada the Buddha said: "If a man foolishly does me wrong, I will return to him the protection of my ungrudging love; the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from me." This is the path followed by the Arhat. [7] To return evil for evil is positively forbidden in Buddhism. ”

“ Early Buddhism then clearly held to a permanency of records in the Ākāsha, and the potential capacity of man to read the same when he has evolved to the stage of true individual enlightenment. At death, and in convulsions and trance, the javana chittā is transferred to the object last created by the desires. The will to live brings all thoughts into objectivity. ”

“ A. Yes; but we are taught by the Buddha that only those who diligently attend to the Precepts, discipline their minds, and strive to attain or have attained one of the eight stages of holiness and perfection, constitute his "Order". It is expressly stated that the Order referred to in the "Tisarana" refers to the "Attha Ariya Puggala"—the Noble Ones who have attained one of the eight stages of perfection. The mere wearing of yellow robes, or even ordination, does not of itself make a man pure or wise or entitle him to reverence. ”

“ A. Modern scientists teach that every generation of men is heir to the consequences of the virtues and the vices of the preceding generation, not in the mass, as such, but in every individual case. Every one of us, according to Buddhism, gets a birth which represents the causes generated by him in an antecedent birth. This is the idea of Karma. ”

“ IV The fourth Teacher in the present kalpa was Sākya Muni, or Gautama Buddha, who was born in a Royal family in India about 2,500 years ago. He is an historical personage and his name was Siddhārtha Gautama.
V Sākya Muni taught that ignorance produces desire, unsatisfied desire is the cause of rebirth, and rebirth, the cause of sorrow. To get rid of sorrow, therefore, it is necessary to escape rebirth; to escape rebirth, it is necessary to extinguish desire; and to extinguish desire, it is necessary to destroy ignorance. ”

“ A. As the result of deeds of peculiar merit, a man may attain certain advantages of place, body, environment and teaching in his next stage of progress, which ward off the effects of bad Karma and help his higher evolution. ”

“ But every being may equally reach Nirvāna, by conquering Ignorance and gaining Wisdom.
143. Q. Does Buddhism teach that man is reborn only upon our earth?
A. As a general rule that would be the case, until he had evolved beyond its level; but the inhabited worlds are numberless. The world upon which a person is to have his next birth, as well as the nature of the rebirth itself, is decided by the preponderance of the individual's merit or demerit. In other words, it will be controlled by his attractions, as science would describe it; or by his Karma, as we, Buddhists, would say. ”

“ A. The object in view was to cause the most virtuous, intelligent, unselfish and spiritually-minded persons to withdraw from the social surroundings where their sensual and other selfish desires were naturally strengthened, devote their lives to the acquisition of the highest wisdom, and fit themselves to teach and guide others out of the pleasant path leading towards misery, into the harder path that leads to true happiness and final liberation. ”

“ The mixing of these arts and practices with Buddhism is a sign of deterioration. Their facts and phenomena are real and capable of scientific explanation. They are embraced in the term "magic," but when resorted to, for selfish purposes, attract bad influences about one, and impede spiritual advancement. When employed for harmless and beneficent purposes, such as healing the sick, saving life, etc., the Buddha permitted their use.
[7] A Buddhist ascetic who, by a prescribed course of practice, has attained to a superior state of spiritual and intellectual development. ”

“ Buddhists do not believe that one life—even though it were extended to one hundred or five hundred years—is long enough for the reward or punishment of a man's deeds. The great circle of rebirths will be more or less quickly run through according to the preponderating purity or impurity of the several lives of the individual.
240. Q. Is this new aggregation of Skandhas—this new personality—the same being as that in the previous birth, whose Tanhā has brought it into existence? ”

“ A. Yes; our belief is that, under the operation of eternal causation, a Buddha takes birth at intervals, when mankind have become plunged into misery through ignorance, and need the wisdom which it is the function of a Buddha to teach. ”

“ History says that enemies of the Buddha Dharma burnt piles of our books as high as a coco-nut tree.
168. Q. Do Buddhists consider the Buddha as one who by his own virtue can save us from the consequence of our individual sins?
A. Not at all. Man must emancipate himself. Until he does that he will continue being born over and over and over again—the victim of ignorance, the slave of unquenched passions. ”

“ Q. Is Buddhism opposed to education, and to the study of science?
A. Quite the contrary: in the Sigālowāda Sutta in a discourse preached by the Buddha, He specified as one of the duties of a teacher that he should give his pupils "instruction in science and lore". The Buddha's higher teachings are for the enlightened, the wise, and the thoughtful.
329. Q. Can you show any further endorsement of Buddhism by science?
A. The Buddha's doctrine teaches that there were many progenitors of the human race; also that there is a principle of differentiation among men ”

“ Q. What did the Buddha say in "Vasala Sutta" about a man of the Pariah Sopāka caste?
A. That by his merits he reached the highest fame; that many Khattiyas (Kshattriyas) and Brāhmanas went to serve him; and that after death he was born in the Brāhma-world: while there are many Brāhmanas who for their evil deeds are born in hell.
229. Q. Does Buddhism teach the immortality of the soul?
A. It considers "soul" to be a word used by the ignorant to express a false idea. If everything is subject to change, then man is included, and every material part of him must change. ”

“ Q. Who are said to be incapable of progress in spirituality?
A. The killers of father, mother, and holy Arhats; Bhikkhus who sow discord in the Sangha; those who attempt to injure the person of a Buddha; those who hold extremely nihilistic views as to the future existence; and those who are extremely sensual.
121. Q. Does Buddhism specify places or conditions of torment into which a bad man's Karma draws him on leaving this life? ”

“ Arthur Schopenhauer, a modern German philosopher of the most eminent ability, taught that "the Principle or Radical, of Nature, and of all her objects, the human body included, is, intrinsically what we ourselves are the most conscious of in our own body, viz., Will. ”