[f30] Read, for instance, chap. XV., entitled “Duration of Life of the Tathagata.” [f31] _Dhammanadam_, 153, 154. [f32] Ata etasmāt kāraṇan mahāmate mayedam uktaṁ: yāṁ ca rātriṁ tathāgato ’bhisambuddho yāṁ ca rātriṁ parinirvāsyati atrāntara ekam api aksharaṁ tathāgatena na udāhṛitaṁ na udāharishyati.—_Laṅkāvatāra_, Chap. III., p. 144. See also Chapter VII., p. 240. (For this reason, O Mahāmati, I say unto you: During the time that elapsed between the night of the Tathagata’s Enlightenment and the night of his entrance into Nirvana, not one word, not one statement was given out by him.) [f33] According to Aśvaghosha’s _Awakening of Faith_, Ignorance means the sudden awakening of a thought (_citta_) in consciousness. This may be variously interpreted, but as long as Ignorance is conceived, not as a process requiring a certain duration of time, but an event instantaneously taking place, its disappearance which is enlightenment must also be an instantaneous happening. [f34] This is the usual formula given as the qualification of an Arhat, to be met with throughout the Nikāyas. [f35] Chapter II., “On Skilfullness.” [f36] In this connection it may not be amiss to say a word about what is known in Buddhism as the “act of no-effort or no-purpose” (_anābhogacaryā_) or “the original vows of no-purpose” (_anābhogapraṇidhāna_). This corresponds, if I judge rightly, to the Christian idea of not letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing. When spirit attains to the reality of enlightenment and as a result is thoroughly purified of all defilements, intellectual and affective, it grows so perfect that whatever it does is pure, unselfish, and conducive to the welfare of the world. So long as we are conscious of the efforts we make in trying to overcome our selfish impulses and passions, there is a taint of constraint and artificiality, which interferes with spiritual innocence and freedom, and love which is the native virtue of an enlightened spirit cannot work out all that is implied in it and meant to be exercised for the preservation of itself. The “original vows” are the content of love and begin to be operative, anabhoga (un-purposely), only when enlightenment is really creative. This is where religious life differs from mere morality, this is where the mere enunciation of the Law of Origination (_pratītya-samutpāda_) does not constitute Buddhist life, and this is where Zen Buddhism maintains its reason of existence against the alleged positivism of the Hinayana and against the alleged nihilism of the Prajñā-pāramitā school. [f37] _Dialogues of the Buddha_, Part III., p. 35. [f38] _Dialogues of the Buddha_, Part I., p. 82.