“Sentient beings, however innumerable, I take vow to save; Evil passions, however inextinguishable, I take vow to destroy; The avenues of truth, however numberless, I take vow to study; The way of the Enlightened, however unsurpassable, I take vow to attain.” And an indefatigable pursuit of these noble aims will finally lead to the heaven of the Buddhists, Nirvâna, which is not a state of eternal quietude, but the source of energy and intelligence. By way of summary, and to avoid all misconceptions, let me repeat once more that Nirvâna is thus no negation of life, nor is it an idle contemplation on the misery of existence. The life of a Buddhist consists by no means in the monotonous repetition of reciting the sûtras and going his rounds for meals. Far from that. He enters into all the forms of life-activity, for he does not believe that universal emancipation {369} is achieved by imprisoning himself in the cloister. Theoretically speaking, Nirvâna is the dispersion of the clouds of ignorance hovering around the light of Bodhi. Morally, it is the suppression of egoism and the awakening of love (_karunâ_). Religiously, it is the absolute surrender of the self to the will of the Dharmakâya. When the clouds of ignorance are dispersing, our intellectual horizon gets clearer and wider; we perceive that our individual existences are like bubbles and lightnings, but that they obtain reality in their oneness with the Body of Dharma. This conviction compels us to eternally abandon our old egoistic conception of life. The ego finds its significance only when it is conceived in relation to the not-ego, that is, to the _alter_; in other words, self-love has no meaning whatever unless it is purified by love for others. But this love for others must not remain blind and unenlightened, it must be in harmony with the will of the Dharmakâya which is the norm of existence and the reason of being. The mission of love is ennobled and fulfilled in its true sense when we come to the faith that says “thy will be done.” Love without this resignation to the divine ordinance is merely another form of egoism: the root is already rotten, how can its trunk, stems, leaves, and flowers make a veritable growth? Let us then conclude with the following reflections of the Bodhisattva, in which we read the whole signification of Buddhism. {370} “Having practised all the six virtues of perfection (_pâramitâ_) and innumerable other meritorious deeds, the Bodhisattva reflects in this wise: