The Reconciliation of Races and Religions — John Shaqi
The Reconciliation of Races and ReligionsCheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly)
Religion
The Reconciliation of Races and Religions
Cheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly)
Bahais
The second of the Buddhist brother's jewels is the Dharma, i.e.
the Law or Essential Rightness revealed by the Buddha. That the Master
laid a firm practical foundation for his religion cannot be denied,
and if Jews and Christians reverence the Ten Words given through
'Moses,' much more may Buddhists reverence the ten moral precepts of
Sakya Muni. Those, however, whose aim is Buddhaship (i.e. those
who propose to themselves the more richly developed ideal of northern
Buddhists) claim the right to modify those precepts just as Jesus
modified the Law of Moses. While, therefore, we recognize that good
has sometimes come even out of evil, we should also acknowledge the
superiority of Buddhist countries and of India in the treatment both
of other human beings and of the lower animals.
The Sangha, or Monastic Community, is the third treasure of Buddhism,
and the satisfaction of the Buddhist laity with the monastic body is
said to be very great. At any rate, the cause of education in Burma
owes much to the monks, but it is hard to realize how the Monastic
Community can be in the same sense a 'refuge' from the miseries of the
world as the Buddha or Dharmakâya.
The name Dharmakâya [Footnote: Johnston, _Buddhist China_,
p. 77.] (Body of Dharma, or system of rightness) may strike strangely
upon our ears, but northern Buddhism makes much of it, and even though
it may not go back to Sakya Muni himself, it is a development of germs
latent in his teaching; and to my own mind there is no more wonderful
conception in the great religions than that of Dharmakâya. If any one
attacks our Buddhist friends for atheism, they have only to refer (if
they can admit a synthesis of northern and southern doctrines) to the
conception of Dharmakâya, of Him who is 'for ever Divine and
Eternal,' who is 'the One, devoid of all determinations.' 'This Body
of Dharma,' we are told, 'has no boundary, no quarters, but is
embodied in all bodies.... All forms of corporeality are involved
therein; it is able to create all things. Assuming any concrete
material form, as required by the nature and condition of karma, it
illuminates all creations.... There is no place in the universe where
this Body does not prevail. The universe becomes dust; this Body for
ever remains. It is free from all opposites and contraries, yet it is
working in all things to lead them to Nirvana.' [Footnote: Suzuki,
_Outlines_, pp. 223-24.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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