Outlines of Mahayana BuddhismSuzuki, Daisetz Teitaro
Religion
Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism
Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro
Mahayana Buddhism -- Doctrines
Buddha-dharma means any thing, or any virtue, or any faculty, that
belongs to Buddhahood. Non-attachment is a Buddha-dharma, love is a
Buddha-dharma, wisdom is a Buddha-dharma. and in fact anything is a
Buddha-dharma which is an attribute of the Perfect One, not to mention
the Dharmakâya or Nirvâna which constitutes the very essence of
Buddhahood. Therefore, the conclusion which is to be drawn from those
seven propositions of Asanga as above quoted is this: Not only is this
world of constant transformation as a whole Nirvâna, but its apparent
errors and sins and evils are also the various phases of the
manifestation of Nirvâna.
The above being the Mahâyânistic view of Nirvâna, it is evident that
Nirvâna is not something transcendental or that which stands above
this world of birth {356} and death, joy and sorrow, love and hate,
peace and struggle. Nirvâna is not to be sought in the heavens nor
after a departure from this earthly life nor in the annihilation of
human passions and aspirations. On the contrary, it must be sought in
the midst of worldliness, as life with all its thrills of pain and
pleasure is no more than Nirvâna itself. Extinguish your life and
seek Nirvâna in anchoretism, and your Nirvâna is forever lost. Consign
your aspirations, hopes, pleasures, and woes, and everything that
makes up a life to the eternal silence of the grave, and you bury
Nirvâna never to be recovered. In asceticism, or in meditation, or in
ritualism, or even in metaphysics, the more impetuously you pursue
Nirvâna, the further away it flies from you. It was the most serious
mistake ever committed by any religious thinkers to imagine that
Nirvâna which is the complete satisfaction of our religious feeling
could be gained by laying aside all human desires, ambitions, hopes,
pains, and pleasures. Have your own Bodhi (intelligence) thoroughly
enlightened through love and knowledge, and everything that was
thought sinful and filthy turns out to be of divine purity. It is the
same human heart, formerly the fount of ignorance and egoism, now the
abode of eternal beatitude--Nirvâna shining in its intrinsic
magnificence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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