Fundamentals of Buddhism Four Lectures

Inasmuch as the Buddha teaches that all genuine progress on the path of virtue is necessarily dependent upon one's own understanding and insight, all dogmatism is excluded from the Buddha's teaching. Blind faith in authority is rejected by the Buddha, and is entirely opposed to the spirit of his teaching. In the Kalama Sutta the Buddha says:

Do not go merely by hearsay or tradition, by what has been handed down from olden time, by rumours, by mere reasoning and logical deductions, by outward appearances, by cherished opinions and speculations, by mere possibilities, and do not believe merely because I am your master. But when you yourselves have seen that a thing is evil and leads to harm and suffering, then you should reject it. And when you see that a thing is good and blameless, and leads to blessing and welfare, then you should do such a thing.

One who merely believes or repeats what others have found out, such a one the Buddha compares with a blind man. One who desires to make progress upon the path of deliverance must experience and understand the truth for himself. Lacking one's own understanding, no absolute progress is possible.

The teaching of the Buddha is perhaps the only religious teaching that requires no belief in traditions, or in certain historical events. It appeals solely to the understanding of each individual. For wherever there are beings capable of thinking, there the truths proclaimed by the Buddha may be understood and realized, without regard to race, country, nationality or station in life. These truths are universal, not bound up with any particular country, or any particular epoch. And in everyone, even in the lowest, there lies latent the capacity for seeing and realizing these truths, and attaining to the Highest Perfection. And whosoever lives a noble life, such a one has already tasted of the truth and, in greater or lesser degree, travels on the Eightfold Path of Peace which all noble and holy ones have trod, are treading now, and shall in future tread. The universal laws of morality hold good without variation everywhere and at all times, whether one may call oneself a Buddhist, Hindu, Christian or Muslim, or by any other name.

It is the inward condition of a person and his deeds that count, not a mere name. The true disciple of the Buddha is far removed from all dogmatism. He is a free thinker in the noblest sense of the word. He falls neither into positive nor negative dogmas, for he knows: both are mere opinions, mere views, rooted in blindness and self-deception. Therefore the Buddha has said of himself. "The Perfect One is free from any theory, for the Perfect One has seen: Thus is corporeality, thus it arises, thus it passes away; thus is feeling, thus it arises, thus it passes away; thus is perception, thus it arises, thus it passes away; thus are the mental formations, thus they arise, thus they pass away; thus is consciousness, thus it arises thus it passes away."

I.

This important truth of the phenomenality and emptiness of all existence can be, and ought to be, understood by everyone for oneself.

According to the Buddha's teaching, our so-called individual existence is in reality nothing but a mere process of physical and mental phenomena, a process which since time immemorial was already going on before one's apparent birth, and which also after death will continue for immemorial periods of time. In the following we shall see that the above five khandhas, or groups of existence, in no way constitute any real ego-entity, or atta, and that no ego-entity exists apart from them, and hence that the belief in an ego-entity is merely an illusion.

That which we call our physical body is merely a name for a combination of manifold component parts, and in reality constitutes no entity, no personality. This is clear to everyone without further argument. Everybody knows that the body is changing from moment to moment, that old cells are continually breaking down and new ones arising; in brief, that the body will be quite another body after a few years, that nothing will have remained of the former flesh, bones, blood, etc. Consequently, the body of the baby is not the body of the school boy, and the body of the young man is not the body of the gray-haired old man. Hence the body is not a persisting something, but rather a continually changing process of arising and passing away, consisting of a perpetual dying out and arising anew of cells. That, however, which we call our mental life is a continually changing process of feeling, perceptions, mental formations and states of consciousness. At this moment a pleasant feeling arises, the next moment a painful feeling; this moment one state of consciousness, the next moment another. That which we call a being, an individual, a person does not in itself, as such, possess any independent abiding reality. In the absolute sense (paramattha) no individual, no person, is there to be found, but merely perpetually changing combinations of physical states, of feelings, volitions and states of consciousness.

What we call "chariot" has no existence apart from and independent of axle, wheels, shaft, etc. What we call "house" is merely a convenient name for stone, wood, iron, etc., put together after a certain fashion, so as to enclose a portion of space, but there is no separate house-entity as such in existence.

In exactly the same way, that which we call a "being," or an "individual," or "person," or by the name "I" or "he," etc., is nothing but a changing combination of physical and mental phenomena, and has no real existence in itself.

The words "I," "you," "he," etc., are merely terms found useful in conventional or current (vohara) speech, but do not designate realities (paramattha-dhamma). For neither do these physical and mental phenomena constitute an absolute ego-entity, nor yet does there exist, outside these phenomena, any ego-entity, self, or soul, who is the possessor or owner of the same. Thus, when the Buddhist scriptures speak of persons, or even of the rebirth of persons, this is done only for the sake of easier understanding, and is not to be taken in the sense of ultimate truth. This so-called "being," or "I," is in the absolute sense nothing but a perpetually changing process. Therefore also, to speak of the suffering of a "person," or "being," is in the absolute sense incorrect. For it is not a "person," but a physico-mental process that is subject to transiency and suffering.

In the absolute sense there are only numberless processes, countless life-waves, in this vast ever-surging ocean of bodily states, of feelings, perceptions, volitions and states of consciousness. Within these phenomena there exists nothing that is persistent, not even for the brief span of two consecutive moments.

These phenomena have merely momentary duration. They die every moment, and every moment new phenomena are born; a perpetual dying and coming to birth, a ceaseless heaving of waves up and down. All is in a state of perpetual flux; "panta rhei" — all things are flowing — says the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. The old forms fall to pieces, and new ones are born. One feeling disappears, another appears in its place. One state of consciousness exists this moment, another the following moment. Everywhere is found a perpetual change of material and mental phenomena. In this way, moment follows upon moment, day upon day, year upon year, life upon life. And so this ceaselessly changing process goes on for thousands, even aeons of years. An eternally surging sea of feelings, perceptions, volitions and states of consciousness: such is existence, such is Samsara, the world of arising and passing away, of growing and decaying, a world of sorrow, misery, lamentation and despair.

Without a real insight into this phenomenality, or egolessness (anatta) or impersonality of all existence, it will be impossible to understand the Four Noble Truths rightly.

II.

In this connection let us come back to the second noble truth, the origin of suffering, rooted in selfish craving and ignorance (tanha and avijja). In order to understand this truth better, it will be necessary to speak of a doctrine which so often is wrongly interpreted and misunderstood. It is the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth (see Chapter II). With regard to this teaching, Buddhism is often accused of self-contradiction. Thus it is said that Buddhism on the one hand denies the existence of the soul, while on the other hand it teaches the transmigration of the soul. Nothing could be more mistaken than this. For Buddhism teaches no transmigration at all. The Buddhist doctrine of rebirth — which is really the same as the law of causality extended to the mental and moral domain — has nothing whatever to do with the brahman doctrine of reincarnation, or transmigration. There exists a fundamental difference between these two doctrines.

According to the brahmanical teaching, there exists a soul independently of the body which, after death, leaves its physical envelope and passes over into a new body, exactly as one might throw off an old garment and put on a new one. Quite otherwise, however, is it with the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth. Buddhism does not recognize in this world any existence of mind apart from matter. All mental phenomena are conditioned through the six organs of sense, and without these they cannot exist. According to Buddhism, mind without matter is an impossibility. And, as we have seen, the mental phenomena, just as all bodily phenomena, are subject to change, and no persisting element, no ego-entity, no soul, is there to be found. But where there is no real unchanging entity, no soul, there one cannot speak of the transmigration of such a thing.

How then is rebirth possible without something to be reborn, without an ego, or soul? Here I have to point out that even the word "rebirth," in this connection, is really not quite correct, but used as a mere makeshift. What the Buddha teaches is, correctly speaking, the law of cause and effect working in the moral domain. For just as everything in the physical world happens in accordance with law, as the arising of any physical state is dependent on some preceding state as its cause, in just the same way must this law have universal application in the mental and moral domain too. If every physical state is preceded by another state as its cause, so also must this present physico-mental life be dependent upon causes anterior to its birth. Thus, according to Buddhism, the present life-process is the result of the craving for life in a former birth, and the craving for life in this birth is the cause of the life-process that continues after death.

But, as there is nothing that persists from one moment of consciousness to the next, so also no abiding element exists in this ever changing life-process that can pass over from one life to another.

Nothing transmigrates from this moment to the next, nothing from one life to another life. This process of continually producing and being produced may best be compared with a wave on the ocean. In the case of a wave there is not the smallest quantity of water that actually travels over the surface of the sea. The wave-structure that seems to hasten over the surface of the water, though creating the appearance of one and the same mass of water, is in reality nothing but a continued rising and falling of ever new masses of water. And the rising and falling is produced by the transmission of force originally generated by wind. Just so the Buddha did not teach that it is an ego-entity, or a soul, that hastens through the ocean of rebirth, but that it is in reality merely a life-wave which, according to its nature and activities, appears here as man, there as animal, and elsewhere as invisible being.

III.

There is another teaching of the Buddha which often gives rise to serious misunderstanding. It is the teaching of Nibbana, or the extinction of suffering. This third noble truth points out that, through the cessation of all selfish craving and all ignorance, of necessity all suffering comes to an end, to extinction, and no new rebirth will take place. For if the seed is destroyed, it can never sprout again. If the selfish craving that clutches convulsively at life is destroyed, then, after death, there can never again take place a fresh shooting up, a continuation of this process of existence, a so-called rebirth. Where, however, there is no birth, there can be no death. Where there is no arising, there can be no passing away. Where no life exists, no suffering can exist. Now, because with the extinction of all selfish craving, all its concurrent phenomena, such as conceit, self-seeking, greed, hate, anger and cruelty, come to extinction, this freedom from selfish craving signifies the highest state of selflessness, wisdom and holiness.

Now this fact — that after the death of the Holy One, the Arahant, this physico-mental life-process no longer continues — is erroneously believed by many to be identical with annihilation of self, annihilation of a real being, and it is therefore maintained that the goal of Buddhism is simply annihilation. Against such a misleading statement one must enter an emphatic protest. How is it ever possible to speak of the annihilation of a self, or soul, or ego, where no such thing is to be found? We have seen that in reality there does not exist any ego-entity, or soul, and therefore also no "transmigration" of such a thing into a new mother's womb.

That bodily process starting anew in the mother's womb is in no way a continuation of a former bodily process, but merely a result, or effect, caused by selfish craving and clinging to life of the so-called dying individual. Thus one who says that the non-producing of any new life-process is identical with annihilation of a self, should also say that abstention from sexual intercourse is identical with annihilation of a child — which, of course, is absurd.

Here, once more, we may expressly emphasize that without a clear perception of the phenomenality or egolessness (anatta) of all existence, it will be impossible to obtain a real understanding of the Buddha's teaching, especially that of rebirth and Nibbana. This teaching of anatta is in fact the only characteristic Buddhist doctrine, with which the entire teaching stands or falls.

IV.

A further reproach, so often heard against Buddhism, that it is a gloomy and "pessimistic" teaching, proves entirely unfounded by the statements already made. For, as we have seen, the Buddha not only discloses and explains the fact of misery, but he also shows the way to find total release from it. In view of this fact, one is rather entitled to call the Buddha's teaching the boldest optimism ever proclaimed to the world.

Truly, Buddhism is a teaching that assures hope, comfort and happiness, even to the most unfortunate. It is a teaching that offers, even to the most wretched of criminals, prospects of final perfection and peace, and this, not through blind belief, or prayers, or asceticism, or outward ceremonies, rites and rituals, but through walking and earnestly persevering on that Noble Eightfold Path of inward perfection, purity and emancipation of heart, consisting in right understanding, right thought, right speech, right bodily action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration and peace of mind.

II. Kamma and Rebirth

When beholding this world and thinking about the destinies of beings, it will appear to most people as if everything in nature was unjust. Why, they will say, is one person rich and powerful, but another person poor and distressed? Why is one person all his life well and healthy, but another person from his very birth sickly or infirm? Why is one person endowed with attractive appearance, intelligence and perfect senses, while another person is repulsive and ugly, an idiot, blind, or deaf and dumb? Why is one child born amid utter misery and among wretched people, and brought up as a criminal, while another child is born in the midst of plenty and comfort, of noble-minded parents, and enjoys all the advantages of kindly treatment and the best mental and moral education, and sees nothing but good things all around? Why does one person, often without the slightest effort, succeed in all his enterprises, while to another person all his plans fail? Why do some live in luxury, while others have to live in poverty and distress? Why is one person happy, but another person unhappy? Why does one person enjoy long life, while another person in the prime of life is carried away by death? Why is this so? Why do such differences exist in nature?

Of all those circumstances and conditions constituting the destiny of a being, none, according to the Buddha's Teaching, can come into existence without a previous cause and the presence of a number of necessary conditions. Just as, for example, from a rotten mango seed a healthy mango tree with healthy and sweet fruits never will come, just so the evil volitional actions, or evil kamma, produced in former births, are the seeds, or root-causes, of an evil destiny in a later birth. It is a necessary postulate of thinking that the good and bad destiny of a being, as well as its latent character, cannot be the product of mere chance, but must of necessity have its causes in a previous birth.

According to Buddhism, no organic entity, physical or psychical, can come into existence without a previous cause, i.e. without a preceding congenial state out of which it has developed. Also, no living organic entity can ever be produced by something altogether outside of it. It can originate only out of itself, i.e. it must have already existed in the bud, or germ, as it were. To be sure, besides this cause, or root-condition, or seed, there are still many minor conditions required for its actual arising and its development, just as the mango tree besides its main cause, the seed, requires for its germinating, growth and development such further conditions as earth, water, light, heat, etc. Thus the true cause of the birth of a being, together with its character and destiny, goes back to the kamma-volitions produced in a former birth.

According to Buddhism, there are three factors necessary for the rebirth of a human being, that is, for the formation of the embryo in the mother's womb. They are: the female ovum, the male sperm, and the karma-energy (kamma-vega), which in the Suttas is metaphorically called "gandhabba," i.e. "ghost," or "soul." This kamma-energy is sent forth by a dying individual at the moment of his death. The father and mother only provide the necessary physical material for the formation of the embryonic body. With regard to the characteristic features, the tendencies and faculties lying latent in the embryo, the Buddha's teaching may be explained in the following way: The dying individual, with his whole being convulsively clinging to life, at the very moment of his death sends forth kammic energies which, like a flash of lightning, hit at a new mother's womb ready for conception. Thus, through the impinging of the kamma-energies on ovum and sperm, there appears just as a precipitate the so-called primary cell.

This process may be compared with the functioning of the air-vibrations produced through speech, which, by impinging on the acoustic organ of another man, produce a sound, which is a purely subjective sensation. On this occasion no transmigration of a sound-sensation takes place, but simply a transference of energy, called the air vibrations. In a similar way, the kamma-energies, sent out by the dying individual, produce from the material furnished by the parents the new embryonic being. But no transmigration of a real being, or a soul-entity, takes place on that occasion, but simply the transmission of kamma-energy.

Hence we may say that the present life-process (upapatti-bhava) is the objectification of the corresponding pre-natal kamma-process (kamma-bhava), and that the future life-process is the objectification of the corresponding present kamma-process. Thus nothing transmigrates from one life to the next. And what we call our ego is in reality only this process of continual change, of continual arising and passing away. Thus follows moment after moment, day after day, year after year, life after life. Just as the wave that apparently hastens over the surface of the pond is in reality nothing but a continuous rising and falling of ever new masses of water, each time called forth through the transmission of energy, even so, closely considered, in the ultimate sense there is no permanent ego-entity that passes through the ocean of Samsara, but merely a process of physical and psychical phenomena takes place, ever and again being whipped up by the impulse and will for life.

It is undoubtedly true that the mental condition of the parents at the moment of conception has a considerable influence upon the character of the embryonic being, and that the nature of the mother may make a deep impression on the character of the child she bears in her womb. The indivisible unity of the psychic individuality of the child, however, can in no way be produced by the parents. One must here never confound the actual cause — the preceding state out of which the later state arises — with the influences and conditions from without. If it were really the case that the new individual, as an inseparable whole, was begotten by its parents, twins could never exhibit totally opposite tendencies. In such a case, children, especially twins, would, with positively no exception, always be found to possess the same character as the parents.

At all times, and in probably all the countries on earth, the belief in rebirth has been held by many people; and this belief seems to be due to an intuitional instinct that lies dormant in all beings. At all times many great thinkers too have taught a continuation of life after death. Already from time immemorial there was taught some form of metempsychosis, i.e. "transformation of soul," or metamorphosis, i.e. "transformation of body," etc., thus by the esoteric doctrines of old Egypt, by Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato, Plotinus, Pindaros, Vergil, also by some African tribes. Many modern thinkers too teach a continuation of the life-process after death.

The great German scientist Edgar Dacque, in his book The Primeval World, Saga and Mankind, speaking about the widespread belief shared by all peoples of the world in a transmigration after death, gives the following warning:

Peoples with culture and acquaintance with science, such as the old Egyptians and wise Indians, acted and lived in accordance with this belief. They lost this belief only after the rise of the naively realistic and rationalistic Hellenism and Judaism. For this reason it would be better, concerning this problem, not to assume the bloodless attitude of modern sham-civilization, but rather adopt a reverential attitude in trying to solve this problem and grasp it in its profundity.

This law of rebirth can be made comprehensible only by the subconscious life-stream (in Pali, bhavanga-sota), which is mentioned in the Abhidhamma Pitaka and further explained in the commentaries, especially the Visuddhimagga. The fundamental import of bhavanga-sota, or the subconscious life-stream, as a working hypothesis for the explanation of the various Buddhist doctrines, such as rebirth, kamma, remembrance of former births, etc., has up to now not yet sufficiently been recognized, or understood, by Western scholars. The term bhavanga-sota, is identical with what the modern psychologists, such as Jung, etc., call the soul, or the unconscious, thereby not meaning, of course, the eternal soul-entity of Christian teaching but an ever-changing subconscious process. This subconscious life-stream is the necessary condition of all life. In it, all impressions and experiences are stored up, or better said, appear as a multiple process of past images, or memory pictures, which however, as such, are hidden to full consciousness, but which, especially in dreams, cross the threshold of consciousness and make themselves fully conscious.

Professor James (whose words I here retranslate from the German version) says: "Many achievements of genius have here their beginning. In conversion, mystical experience, and as prayer, it co-operates with religious life. It contains all momentarily inactive reminiscences and sources of all our dimly motivated passions, impulses, intuitions, hypotheses, fancies, superstitions; in short, all our non-rational operations result therefrom. It is the source of dreams, etc."

Jung, in his Soul Problems of the Present Day, says: "From the living source of instinct springs forth everything creative." And in another place: "Whatever has been created by the human mind, results from contents which were really unconscious (or subconscious) germs." And: "The term 'instinct' is of course nothing but a collective term for all possible organic and psychic factors, whose nature is for the greater part unknown to us."

The existence of the subconscious life-stream, or bhavanga-sota, is a necessary postulate of our thinking. If whatever we have seen, heard, felt, perceived, thought, experienced and done were not, without exception, registered somewhere and in some way, either in the extremely complex nervous system (comparable to a phonograph record or photographic plate) or in the subconscious or unconscious, we would not even be able to remember what we were thinking at the preceding moment; we would not know anything of the existence of other beings and things; we would not know our parents, teachers, friends, and so on; we would not even be able to think at all, as thinking is conditioned by the remembrance of former experiences; and our mind would be a complete tabula rasa and emptier than the actual mind of an infant just born, nay even of the embryo in the mother's womb.

Thus this subconscious life-stream, or bhavanga-sota, can be called the precipitate of all our former actions and experiences, which must have been going on since time immemorial and must continue for still immeasurable periods of time to come. Therefore what constitutes the true and innermost nature of man, or any other being, is this subconscious life-stream, of which we do not know whence it came and whither it will go. As Heraclitus says: "We never enter the same stream. We are identical with it, and we are not." Just so it is said in the Milindapañha: "na ca so, na ca añño; neither is it the same, nor is it another (that is reborn)." All life, be it corporeal, conscious or subconscious, is a flowing, a continual process of becoming, change and transformation. No persistent element is there to be discovered in this process. Hence there is no permanent ego, or personality, to be found, but merely these transitory phenomena.

About this unreality of the ego, the Hungarian psychologist Volgyesi in his Message to the Nervous World says:

In the ultimate sense, there do not even exist such things as mental states, i.e. stationary things. Feeling, perception, consciousness, etc., are in reality mere passing processes of feeling, perceiving, becoming conscious, etc., within which and outside of which no separate or permanent entity lies hidden.

Thus a real understanding of the Buddha's doctrine of kamma and rebirth is possible only to one who has caught a glimpse of the egoless nature, or anattata, and of the conditionality, or idappaccayata, of all phenomena of existence. Therefore it is said in the Visuddhimagga (Chap. XIX):

Everywhere, in all the realms of existence, the noble disciple sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the volitional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma, no recipient of the kamma-result apart from the result. And he is well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language, when, with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer, or with regard to a kamma-result, they speak of the recipient of the result.

No doer of the deeds is found,
No one who ever reaps their fruits;
Empty phenomena roll on:
This only is the correct view.

And while the deeds and their results
Roll on and on, conditioned all,
There is no first beginning found,
Just as it is with seed and tree...

No god, no Brahma, can be called
The maker of this wheel of life:
Empty phenomena roll on,
Dependent on conditions all.

In the Milindapañha the King asks Nagasena:

"What is it, Venerable Sir, that will be reborn?"

"A psycho-physical combination (nama-rupa), O King."

"But how, Venerable Sir? Is it the same psycho-physical combination as this present one?"

"No, O King. But the present psycho-physical combination produces kammically wholesome and unwholesome volitional activities, and through such kamma a new psycho-physical combination will be born."

As in the ultimate sense (paramatthavasena) there is no such thing as a real ego-entity, or personality, one cannot properly speak of the rebirth of such a one. What we are here concerned with is this psycho-physical process, which is cut off at death, in order to continue immediately thereafter somewhere else.

Similarly we read in the Milindapañha:

"Does, Venerable Sir, rebirth take place without transmigration?"

"Yes, O King."

"But how, Venerable Sir, can rebirth take place without the passing over of anything? Please, illustrate this matter for me."

"If, O King, a man should light a lamp with the help of another lamp, does the light of the one lamp pass over to the other lamp?"

"No, Venerable Sir."

"Just so, O King, does rebirth take place without transmigration."

Further, in the Visuddhimagga (Chap. XVII) it is said:

Whosoever has no clear idea about death and does not know that death consists in the dissolution of the five groups of existence (i.e. corporeality, feeling, perception, mental formations, consciousness), he thinks that it is a person, or being, that dies and transmigrates to a new body, etc. And whosoever has no clear idea about rebirth, and does not know that rebirth consists in the arising of the five groups of existence, he thinks that it is a person, or being, that is reborn, or that the person reappears in a new body. And whosoever has no clear idea about Samsara, the round of rebirths, he thinks that a real person wanders from this world to another world, comes from that world to this world, etc. And whosoever has no clear idea about the phenomena of existence, he thinks that the phenomena are his ego or something appertaining to the ego, or something permanent, joyful, or pleasant. And whosoever has no clear idea about the conditional arising of the phenomena of existence, and about the arising of kammic volitions conditioned through ignorance, he thinks that it is the ego that understands or fails to understand, that acts or causes to act, that enters into a new existence at rebirth. Or he thinks that the atoms or the Creator, etc., with the help of the embryonic process, shape the body, provide it with various faculties; that it is the ego that receives the sensuous impression, that feels, that desires, that becomes attached, that enters into existence again in another world. Or he thinks that all beings come to life through fate or chance.

A mere phenomenon it is, a thing conditioned,
That rises in the following existence.
But not from a previous life does it transmigrate there,
And yet it cannot rise without a previous cause.

When this conditionally arisen bodily-mental phenomenon (the fetus) arises, one says that it has entered into (the next) existence. However, no being (satta), or life-principle (jiva), has transmigrated from the previous existence into this existence, and yet this embryo could not have come into existence without a previous cause.

This fact may be compared with the reflection of one's face in the mirror, or with the calling forth of an echo by one's voice. Now, just as the image in the mirror or the echo are produced by one's face or voice without any passing over of face or voice, just so it is with the arising of rebirth-consciousness. Should there exist a full identity or sameness between the earlier and the later birth, in that case milk could never turn into curd; and should there exist an entire otherness, curd could never be conditioned through milk. Therefore one should admit neither a full identity, nor an entire otherness of the different stages of existence. Hence na ca so, na ca añño: "neither is it the same, nor is it another one." As already said above: all life, be it corporeal, conscious or subconscious, is a flowing, a continual process of becoming, change and transformation.

To sum up the foregoing, we may say: There are in the ultimate sense no real beings or things, neither creators nor created; there is but this process of corporeal and mental phenomena. This whole process of existence has an active side and a passive side. The active or causal side of existence consists of the kamma-process (kamma-bhava), i.e. of wholesome and unwholesome kamma-activity, while the passive or caused side consists of kamma-results, or vipaka, the so-called rebirth-process (upapatti-bhava), i.e. the arising, growing, decaying and passing away of all these kammically neutral phenomena of existence.

Thus, in the absolute sense, there exists no real being that wanders through this round of rebirths, but merely this ever-changing twofold process of kamma-activities and kamma-results takes place. The present life is, as it were, the reflection of the past one, and the future life the reflection of the present one. The present life is the result of the past kammic activity, and the future life the result of the present kammic activity. Therefore, nowhere is there to be found an ego-entity that could be the performer of the kammic activity or the recipient of the kamma-result. Hence Buddhism does not teach any real transmigration, as in the highest sense there is no such thing as a being, or ego-entity, much less the transmigration of such a one.

In every person, as already mentioned, there seems to lie dormant the dim instinctive feeling that death cannot be the end of all things, but that somehow continuation must follow. In which way this may be, however, is not immediately clear.

It is perhaps quite true that a direct proof for rebirth cannot be given. We have, however, the authentic reports about children in Burma and elsewhere, who sometimes are able to remember quite distinctly (probably in dreams) events of their previous life. By the way, what we see in dreams are mostly distorted reflexes of real things and happenings experienced in this or a previous life. And how could we ever explain the birth of such prodigies as Jeremy Bentham, who already in his fourth year could read and write Latin and Greek; or John Stuart Mill, who at the age of three read Greek and at the age of six wrote a history of Rome; or Babington Macaulay, who in his sixth year wrote a compendium of world history; or Beethoven, who gave public concerts when he was seven; or Mozart, who already before his sixth year had written musical compositions; or Voltaire, who read the fables of Lafontaine when he was three years old. Should all these prodigies and geniuses, who for the most part came from illiterate parents, not already in previous births have laid the foundations to their extraordinary faculties? "Natura non facit saltus: nature makes no leaps."

We may rightly state that the Buddhist doctrine of kamma and rebirth offers the only plausible explanation for all the variations and dissimilarities in nature. From the apple seed only an apple tree may come, no mango tree; from a mango seed only a mango tree, no apple tree. Just so, all animate things, as man, animal, etc., probably even plants, nay even crystals, must of necessity be manifestations or objectifications of some specific kind of subconscious impulse or will for life. Buddhism says nothing on the last-mentioned points; it simply states that all vegetable life belongs to the germinal order, or bija-niyama.

Buddhism teaches that if in previous births the bodily, verbal and mental kamma, or volitional activities, have been evil and low and thus have unfavorably influenced the subconscious life-stream (bhavanga-sota), then also the results, manifested in the present life, must be disagreeable and evil; and so must be the character and the new actions induced or conditioned through the evil pictures and images of the subconscious life-stream. If the beings, however, have in former lives sown good seeds, then they will reap good fruits in the present life.

In Majjhima Nikaya 135 a brahman raises the problem:

There are found people who are short-lived, and those that are long-lived; there are found people who are very sick, and those that are healthy; there are found people who are hideous, and those that are beautiful; there are found people who are powerless, and those that are powerful; there are found people who are poor, and those that are rich; there are found people who are of low family, and those that are of high family; there are found people who are stupid, and those that are intelligent. What then, Master Gotama, is the reason that among human beings such inferiority and superiority are found?

The Blessed One gave the reply:

Beings are owners of their kamma, heirs of their kamma; kamma is the womb from which they have sprung, kamma is their friend and refuge. Thus kamma divides beings into the high and low.

In Anguttara Nikaya III,40 it is said: "Killing, stealing, adultery, lying, backbiting, harsh speech and empty prattling, practiced, cultivated and frequently engaged in, will lead to hell, the animal world or the realm of ghosts." Further: "Whoso kills and is cruel, will either go to hell, or if reborn as a human, will be short-lived. Whoso tortures other beings, will be afflicted with disease. The hater will be hideous, the envious will be without influence, the stubborn will be of low rank, the indolent will be ignorant." In the reverse case, a person will be reborn in a heavenly world; or, if reborn as a human being, will be endowed with health, beauty, influence, riches, noble rank and intelligence.

George Grimm, in his book The Doctrine of the Buddha, tries to show how the law of affinity may at the moment of death regulate the grasping of the new germ. He says:

Whoso, devoid of compassion can kill men, or even animals, carries deep within himself the inclination to shorten life. He finds satisfaction, or even pleasure, in the short-livedness of other creatures. Short-lived germs have therefore some affinity for him, an affinity which makes itself known after his death in the grasping of another germ, which then takes place to his own detriment. Even so, germs bearing within themselves the power of developing into a deformed body, have an affinity for one who finds pleasure in ill-treating and disfiguring other.

Any angry person begets within himself an affinity for ugly bodies and their respective germs, since it is the characteristic mark of anger to disfigure the face.

Whoever is jealous, niggardly, haughty, carries within himself the tendency to grudge everything to others, and to despise them. Accordingly, germs that are destined to develop in poor outward circumstances, possess affinity for him.

Here I should like to rectify several wrong applications of the term "kamma" prevailing in the West, and to state once for all: Pali kamma, comes from the root kar, to do, to make, to act, and thus means "deed, action," etc. As a Buddhist technical term, kamma is a name for wholesome and unwholesome volition or will (kusala- and akusala-cetana) and the consciousness and mental factors associated therewith, manifested as bodily, verbal or mere mental action. Already in the Suttas it is said: "Volition (cetana), monks, do I call kamma. Through volition one does the kamma by means of body, speech or mind" (cetanaham bhikkhave kammam vadami; cetayitva kammam karoti kayena vacaya manasa). Thus kamma is volitional action, nothing more, nothing less.

From this fact result the following three statements:

1. The term "kamma" never comprises the result of action, as most people in the West, misled by Theosophy, wish this term to be understood. Kamma is wholesome or unwholesome volitional action and kamma-vipaka is the result of action.

2. There are some who consider every happening, even our new wholesome and unwholesome actions, as the result of our prenatal kamma. In other words, they believe that the results again become the causes of new results, and so ad infinitum. Thus they are stamping Buddhism as fatalism; and they will have to come to the conclusion that, in this case, our destiny can never be influenced or changed, and no deliverance ever be attained.

3. There is a third wrong application of the term "kamma," being an amplification of the first view, i.e. that the term "kamma" comprises also the result of action. It is the assumption of a so-called joint kamma, mass-kamma, or group-kamma, or collective kamma. According to this view, a group of people, e.g. a nation, should be responsible for the bad deeds formerly done by this so-called "same" people. In reality, however, this present people may not consist at all of the same individuals who did these bad deeds. According to Buddhism it is of course quite true that anybody who suffers bodily, suffers for his past or present bad deeds. Thus also each of those individuals born within that suffering nation must, if actually suffering bodily, have done evil somewhere, here or in one of the innumerable spheres of existence, but he may not have had anything to do with the bad deeds of the so-called nation. We might say that through his evil kamma he was attracted to the hellish condition befitting him. In short, the term "kamma" applies, in each instance, only to wholesome and unwholesome volitional activity of the single individual. Kamma thus forms the cause, or seed, from which the results will accrue to the individual, be it in this life or hereafter.1

Hence man has it in his power to shape his future destiny by means of his will and actions. It depends on his actions, or kamma, whether his destiny will lead him up or down, either to happiness or to misery. Moreover, kamma is the cause and seed not only for the continuation of the life-process after death, i.e. for the so-called rebirth, but already in this present life-process our actions, or kamma, may produce good and bad results, and exercise a decisive influence on our present character and destiny. Thus, for instance, if day by day we are practicing kindness towards all living beings, humans as well as animals, we will grow in goodness, while hatred, and all evil actions done through hatred, as well as all the evil and agonizing mental states produced thereby, will not so easily rise again in us; and our nature and character will become firm, happy, peaceful and calm.

If we practice unselfishness and liberality, greed and avarice will become less. If we practice love and kindness, anger and hatred will vanish. If we develop wisdom and knowledge, ignorance and delusion will more and more disappear. The less greed, hatred and ignorance (lobha, dosa, moha) dwell in our hearts, the less will we commit evil and unwholesome actions of body, speech and mind. For all evil things, and all evil destiny, are really rooted in greed, hate and ignorance; and of these three things ignorance or delusion (moha, avijja) is the chief root and the primary cause of all evil and misery in the world. If there is no more ignorance, there will be no more greed and hatred, no more rebirth, no more suffering.

This goal, however, in the ultimate sense, will be realized only by the Holy Ones (Arahants), i.e. by those who, forever and all time, are freed from these three roots; and this is accomplished through the penetrating insight, or vipassana, into the impermanency, unsatisfactoriness and egolessness of this whole life-process, and through the detachment from all forms of existence resulting therefrom. As soon as greed, hate and ignorance have become fully and forever extinguished, and thereby the will for life, convulsively clinging to existence, and the thirsting for life have come to an end, then there will be no more rebirth, and there will have been realized the goal shown by the Enlightened One, namely: extinction of all rebirth and suffering. Thus, the Arahant performs no more kamma, i.e. no more kammically wholesome or unwholesome volitional actions. He is freed from this life-affirming will expressed in bodily actions, words or thoughts, freed from this seed, or cause, of all existence and life.

Now what is called character is in reality the sum of these subconscious tendencies produced partly by the prenatal, partly by the present volitional activity, or kamma. And these tendencies may, during life, become an inducement to wholesome or unwholesome volitional activity by body, speech or mind. If, however, this thirst for life rooted in ignorance is fully extinguished, then there will be no new entering again into existence. Once the root of a coconut tree has been fully destroyed, the tree will die off. In exactly the same way, there will be no entering again into a new existence once the life-affirming three evil roots — greed, hate and ignorance — have been forever destroyed. Here one should not forget that all such personal expressions as "I," "He," "Holy One," etc., are merely conventional names for this really impersonal life-process.

In this connection I have to state that, according to Buddhism, it is merely the last kammical volition just before death, the so-called death-proximate kamma, that decides the immediately following rebirth. In Buddhist countries it is therefore the custom to recall to the dying man's memory the good actions performed by him, in order to rouse in him a happy and pure kammical state of mind, as a preparation for a favorable rebirth. Or his relations let him see beautiful things which they, for his good and benefit, wish to offer to the Buddha, saying: "This, my dear, we shall offer to the Buddha for your good and welfare." Or they let him hear a religious sermon, or let him smell the odor of flowers, or give him sweets to taste, or let him touch precious cloth, saying: "This we shall offer to the Buddha for your own good and welfare."

In the Visuddhimagga (Chap. XVII) it is said that, at the moment before death, as a rule, there will appear to the memory of the evil-doer the mental image of any evil deed, kamma, formerly done; or that there will appear before his mental eyes an attendant circumstance, or object, called kamma-nimitta, connected with that bad deed, such as blood or a blood-stained dagger, etc.; or he may see before his mind an indication of his imminent miserable rebirth, gati-nimitta, such as fiery flames, etc. To another dying man there may appear before his mind the image of a voluptuous object inciting his sensual lust.

To a good man there may appear before his mind any noble deed, kamma, formerly done by him; or an object that was present at that time, the so-called kamma-nimitta; or he may see in his mind an indication of his imminent rebirth, gati-nimitta, such as heavenly palaces, etc.

Already in the Suttas there are distinguished three kinds of kamma, or volitional actions, with regard to the time of their bearing fruit, namely: (1) kamma bearing fruit in this life-time (ditthadhamma-vedaniya-kamma); (2) kamma bearing fruit in the next life (upapajja-vedaniya-kamma); (3) kamma bearing fruit in later lives (aparapariya-vedaniya-kamma). The explanations of this subject are somewhat too technical for the general reader. They imply the following: The kamma-volitional stage of the process in mind consists of a number of impulsive thought moments, or javana-citta, which flash up, one after the other, in rapid succession. Now, of these impulsive moments, the first one will bear fruit in this life-time, the last one in the next birth, and those between these two moments will bear fruit in later lives. The two kinds of kamma bearing fruit in this life-time and in the next birth may sometimes become ineffective (ahosi-kamma). Kamma, however, that bears fruit in later lives will, whenever and wherever there is an opportunity, be productive of kamma-result; and as long as this life-process continues, this kamma will never become ineffective.

The Visuddhimagga divides kamma, according to its functions, into four kinds: generative kamma, supportive kamma, counteractive kamma and destructive kamma, which all may be either wholesome or unwholesome.

Amongst these four kinds, the "generative" (janaka-kamma) generates at rebirth, and during the succeeding life-continuity, corporeal and neutral mental phenomena, such as the five kinds of sense-consciousness and the mental factors associated therewith, such as feeling, perception, sense-impression, etc.

The "supportive" (upatthambhaka-kamma), however, does not generate any kamma-result; but as soon as any other kamma-volition has effected rebirth and a kamma-result been produced, then it supports, according to its nature, the agreeable or disagreeable phenomena and keeps them going.

The "counteractive" (upapilaka-kamma) also does not generate any kamma-result; but as soon as any other kamma-volition has effected rebirth and a kamma-result been produced, then it counteracts, according to its nature, the agreeable or disagreeable phenomena and does not allow them to keep going on.

Again, the "destructive" (upaghataka-kamma) does not generate any kamma-result; but as soon as any other kamma-volition has effected rebirth and a kamma-result been produced, then it destroys the weaker kamma and admits only its own agreeable or disagreeable kamma-results.

In the Commentary to Majjhima Nikaya 135, generative kamma is compared with a farmer sowing the seeds; supportive kamma, with irrigating, manuring, and watching the field, etc.; counteractive kamma,with the drought that causes a poor harvest; destructive kamma, with a fire that destroys the whole harvest.

Another illustration is this: The rebirth of Devadatta in a royal family was due to his good generative kamma. His becoming a monk and attaining high spiritual powers was a good supportive kamma. His intention of killing the Buddha was a counteractive kamma, while his causing a split in the Order of monks was destructive kamma, owing to which he was born in a world of misery. It lies outside the scope of this short exposition to give detailed descriptions of all the manifold divisions of kamma found in the Commentaries. What I chiefly wanted to make clear by this lecture is: that the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth has nothing to do with the transmigration of any soul or ego-entity, as in the ultimate sense there does not exist any such ego or I, but merely a continually changing process of psychic and corporeal phenomena. And further I wanted to point out that the kamma-process and rebirth-process may both be made comprehensible only by the assumption of a subconscious stream of life underlying everything in living nature.

Note

1. Here I should add that the Pali term vipaka, which I generally translate by "effect," or "result," is not really identical with these two English terms. According to the Kathavatthu, it refers only to the kamma-produced "mental" results, such as pleasurable and painful bodily feeling and all other primary mental phenomena, while all the corporeal phenomena, such as the five physical sense-organs, etc., are not called vipaka, but "kammaja" or "kamma-samutthana," i.e. "kamma-born" or "kamma-produced."

III. Paticca-Samuppada: Dependent Origination

It is rather with some hesitation that I dare to speak to you on that profoundest of all Buddhist doctrines, paticca-samuppada, "dependent origination," that is to say, the conditional arising of all those mental and physical phenomena generally summed up by the conventional names "living being," or "individual," or "person." Thus, being well aware of the great difficulty of speaking on this most intricate subject before an audience perhaps only little acquainted with Buddhist philosophy, I shall try my utmost to avoid, as far as possible, all the highly technical or confusing details. I shall use very plain and simple language, so that any one of you may be able to follow my explanations. At the same time I shall not lose sight of the real goal and purpose for which the Buddha taught this doctrine to the world. Thus I would beg you to listen carefully and give my words full and undivided attention. And I further beg you to try to retain in mind those very few technical terms in Pali and English which in the course of my talk I shall be repeatedly using.

You may not be aware that, up to this day, the real significance and purpose of paticca-samuppada are practically unknown to Western scholars. By this, however, I do not mean to say that nobody in the West has ever written or spoken on this doctrine. No, quite the contrary is the case. For there is no other Buddhist doctrine about which Western scholars, and would-be scholars, have written and discussed so much — but understood so little — as just this doctrine of paticca-samuppada. If you wish to get a fair idea of those mostly absurd and immature speculations and fanciful interpretations, often based on mere imagination, you may read the Appendix to my Guide through the Abhidhamma Pitaka.1 It seems that scarcely one of those Western authors and lecturers has ever put to himself the question, for what earthly reason the Buddha ever should have thought it necessary to teach such a doctrine. It was surely not for the sake of mental gymnastics and dialectics. No, quite to the contrary! For paticca-samuppada shows the causes and conditions of all the suffering in the world; and how, through the removal of these conditions, suffering may rise no more in the future. P.S. in fact shows that our present existence, with all its woe and suffering, is conditioned, or more exactly said caused, by the life-affirming volitions or kamma in a former life, and that again our future life depends on the present life-affirming volitions or kamma; and that without these life-affirming volitions, no more future rebirth will take place; and that thereby deliverance will have been found from the round of rebirths, from the restless cycle of Samsara. And this is the final goal and purpose of the Buddha's message, namely, deliverance from rebirth and suffering.

I think that after what you have heard just now, it will not be necessary to tell you that P.S. is not intended, as various scholars in the West have imagined, as an explanation of the primary beginning of all things; and that its first link, avijja or ignorance, is not to be considered the causeless first principle out of which, in the course of time, all physical and conscious life has evolved. P.S. simply teaches the conditionality, or dependent nature, of all the manifold mental and physical phenomena of existence; of everything that happens, be it in the realm of the physical or the mental. P.S. shows that the sum of mental and physical phenomena known by the conventional name "person" or "individual" is not at all the mere play of blind chance; but that each phenomenon in this process of existence is entirely dependent upon other phenomena as conditions; and that therefore with the removal of those phenomena that form the conditions for rebirth and suffering, rebirth and therewith all suffering will necessarily cease and come to an end. And this, as already stated, is the vital point and goal of the Buddha's teaching: deliverance from the cycle of rebirth with all its woe and suffering. Thus P.S. serves in the elucidation of the second and third noble truths about the origin and extinction of suffering, by explaining these two truths from their very foundations upwards, and giving them a fixed philosophical form.2

In the discourses of the Buddha, P.S. is usually expounded by way of twelve links arranged in eleven propositions. They are as follows:

1. Avijjapaccaya sankhara: "Through ignorance the rebirth-producing volitions, or kamma-formations, are conditioned."

2. Sankhara-paccaya viññanam:"Through the kamma-formations (in the past life, the present) consciousness is conditioned."

3. Viññana-paccaya nama-rupam:"Through consciousness the mental and physical phenomena (which make up our so-called individual existence) are conditioned."

4. Nama-rupa-paccaya salayatanam:"Through the mental and physical phenomena the six bases (of mental life, i.e. the five physical sense-organs and consciousness as the sixth) are conditioned."

5. Salayatana-paccaya phasso:"Through the six bases the (sensory and mental) impression is conditioned."

6. Phassa-paccaya vedana: "Through (the sensory or mental) impression feeling is conditioned."

7. Vedana-paccaya tanha: "Through feeling craving is conditioned."

8. Tanha-paccaya upadanam:"Through craving clinging is conditioned."

9. Upadana-paccaya bhavo:"Through clinging the process of becoming (consisting of the active and the passive life-process, that is to say, the rebirth-producing kammic process, and as its result, the rebirth-process) is conditioned."

10. Bhava-paccaya jati:"Through the (rebirth-producing kammic) process of becoming rebirth is conditioned."

11. Jati-paccaya jaramaranam, etc.: "Through rebirth, decay and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are conditioned. Thus arises this whole mass of suffering (in the future)."

This is in brief the whole P.S. or dependent origination. Now let us carefully examine the eleven propositions one by one.

1

Our first proposition was: Avijja-paccaya sankhara: "Through ignorance the kamma-formations are conditioned."

Avijja,3 also called moha, is delusion, infatuation: regarding fleeting things as permanent, miserable things as enjoyment, and egoless things as a self or ego. Avijja is ignorance, not understanding that all our existence is merely an ever-changing process of mental and physical phenomena; it is not understanding that these phenomena, in the ultimate sense, do not form any real permanent entity, or person, or ego; and that there does not exist any permanent entity in, or behind, these fleeting physical and mental phenomena; that therefore what we call "I," or "you," or "he," or "person," or "Buddha," etc., does not, in the ultimate sense (paramattha), possess any reality apart from these ever-changing physical and mental phenomena of existence. Avijja, or moha, is the primary root-condition underlying all moral defilement and depravity. In avijja are rooted all the greed, hatred, conceit, envy and misery in the world. And the overcoming and extinction of avijja, and therewith of all evil and misery, is the final aim of the Buddha's teaching, the ideal for any true Buddhist. And it is for these reasons that avijja is mentioned first in the formula of P.S.

By sankhara, lit. "formations," are here meant the rebirth-producing, kammically unwholesome or wholesome volitions (cetana), or volitional activities. Let us therefore remember sankhara as kamma-formations, or simply as kamma.4

Now, all such evil volitions manifested by body, speech or mind, as above alluded to, are called akusala or unwholesome kamma-formations, as they bring unhappy results, here and in the after-life. Kusala or wholesome kamma-formations, however, are such volitions, or cetana, as will bring happy and pleasant results, here and in the after-life. But even these wholesome kamma-formations are still conditioned and influenced by avijja, as otherwise they would not produce future rebirth. And there is only one individual who no longer performs any wholesome or unwholesome kamma-formation, any life-affirming kamma. It is the Arahant, the holy and fully enlightened disciple of the Buddha. For through deep insight into the true nature of this empty and evanescent process of existence, he has become utterly detached from life; and he is forever freed from ignorance together with all its evil consequences, freed from any further rebirth.

Avijja is to all unwholesome kamma-formations, or volitional activities, an indispensable condition by way of its presence and simultaneous arising. For example, whenever an evil manifestation of will, an evil kamma-formation, arises, at that very same moment its arising is conditioned through the simultaneous arising and presence of avijja. Without the co-arising of avijja, there is no evil kamma-formation. When, for example, an infatuated man, filled with greed or anger, commits various evil deeds by body, speech or mind, at that time these evil kamma-formations are all entirely conditioned through the co-arising and presence of avijja, or ignorance. Thus if there is no avijja, there are no evil kamma-formations. Therefore it is said that avijja is to its associated kamma-formations a condition by way of co-nascence, or simultaneous arising (sahajata). Further, as there is no evil kamma-formation without the presence of avijja, and no avijja without the presence of evil kamma-formations, therefore both are at any time, and under all circumstances, also mutual conditions to each other (aññam-añña-paccaya); and thus avijja and the evil kamma-formations are inseparable. In so far as avijja is an ever-present root of all evil kamma-formations, we say that avijja is to the unwholesome kamma-formations an indispensable condition by way of root (hetu).

But there is still another and entirely different way in which avijja may be a condition to unwholesome kamma-formations, tha