The Lord Buddha said unto Subhuti: “If you think thus within yourself ‘The Lord Buddha did not, by means of his perfect bodily distinctions, obtain supreme spiritual wisdom,’ Subhuti, have no such deceptive thought! Or if you think thus within yourself, ‘In obtaining supreme spiritual wisdom, the Lord Buddha declared the abrogation of every Law,’ Subhuti, have no such delusive thought! And why? Because, those disciples who obtain supreme spiritual wisdom, neither affirm the abrogation of any Law, nor the destruction of any distinctive quality of phenomena.”[1] [1] “What do you think then, O Subhuti, has the highest perfect knowledge been known by the Tathagata by the possession of signs? You should not think so, O Subhuti. And why? Because, the highest perfect knowledge will not be known by the Tathagata through the possession of signs. Nor should anybody, O Subhuti, say to you that the destruction or annihilation of anything is proclaimed by those who have entered on the path of the Bodhisattvas.”—_The Vagrakkhedika_. Max Müller. “Subhuti, if you should think thus, ‘Tathagata, by means of his personal distinctions has attained to the unsurpassable condition,’ you would be wrong.... But, Subhuti, do not come to such an opinion as this, viz., ‘that what is called the unsurpassed, just, and enlightened heart is nothing more than the mere neglect and destruction of all rules and conditions.’ Think not so, for why? the exhibition of this perfect and unsurpassed heart is not the consequence of having disregarded and destroyed all rules, in the active discharge of duty.”—_Kin-Kong-King_. Beal. Concerning the phenomena of Law, if these were abrogated and entirely discarded, where would the mind receive its guiding light, or the human spirit its power of discernment? To attempt a process of reasoning apart from such necessary postulates as the distinctive qualities of Law and phenomena, would prove to be as futile as an effort to cross a river without a raft, and would inevitably end in oblivion.—_Chinese Annotation_. [Chapter 28] The Lord Buddha addressed Subhuti, saying: “If an enlightened disciple, in the exercise of charity, bestowed as considerable an amount of the seven treasures as might fill worlds numerous as the sands of the Ganges; and if a disciple, realising that within the meaning and purport of the Law, there is no abstract individual existence,[1] perfects himself in the virtue of endurance, this latter disciple will have a cumulative merit, relatively greater than the other. And why? Because, enlightened disciples are entirely unaffected by considerations of ‘reward or merit.’”