The above presentation of the Daçabhûmî[134] of Bodhisattvahood allows us to see what ideal life is held out by the Mahâyânists before their own eyes and in what respect it differs from that of the Çrâvakas and Pratyekabuddhas as well as from that of other religious followers. Mahâyânism is not contented to make us mere transmitters or “hearers” of the teachings of the Buddha, it wants to inspire with all the religious and ethical motives that stirred the noblest heart of Çâkyamuni to its inmost depths. It fully recognises the intrinsic worth of the human soul; and, holding up its high ideals and noble aspirations, it endeavors to develop all the possibilities of our soul-life, which by our strenuous efforts and all-defying courage will one day be realised even on this earth of impermanence. We as individual existences are nothing but shadows which will vanish as soon as the conditions disappear that make them possible; we as mortal beings are no more than the {330} thousands of dusty particles that are haphazardly and powerlessly scattered about before the cyclone of karma; but when we are united in the love and intelligence of the Dharmakâya in which we have our being, we are Bodhisattvas, and we can immovably stand against the tempest of birth and death, against the overwhelming blast of ignorance. Then even an apparently insignificant act of lovingkindness will lead finally to the eternal abode of bliss, not the actor alone, but the whole community to which he belongs. Because a stream of love spontaneously flows from the lake of Intelligence-heart (_Bodhicitta_) which is fed by the inexhaustible spring of the Dharmakâya, while ignorance leads only to egoism, hatred, avarice, disturbance, and universal misery. CHAPTER XIII. NIRVÂNA. {331} /Nirvâna/, according to Mahâyâna Buddhism, is not understood in its nihilistic sense. Even with the Çrâvakas or Hînayânists, Nirvâna in this sense is not so much the object of their religious life as the recognition of the Fourfold Noble Truth, or the practise of the Eightfold Path, or emancipation from the yoke of egoism. It is mostly due, as far as I can see, to non-Buddhist critics that the conception of Nirvâna has been selected among others as one of the most fundamental teachings of Buddha, declaring it at the same time to consist in the annihilation of all human passions and aspirations, noble as well as worthless.