Part 4

But whilst faith makes every living being exist in virtue of a universal force, and thereby assumes an “adequate cause in itself”--as a transcendent, an absolute, a god--which means “believing,” thus landing itself in the predicament of having to interpret the re-actual side of the world also by this “force”; the Buddha on his part teaches:--

_Every living being is here in virtue of individual force peculiar to him alone._ This force hereby in quite a literal sense becomes an _in-force_, an _en-ergy_. The Buddha teaches the existence of _actual energies_, in contradistinction to faith’s universal force.

This _in-force_ peculiar to every living being, and thereby _unique_, is called by the Buddha _the Kamma_ (Sanskrit, Karma) of such a living being.

Kamma means nothing but “_the working_.” Kamma is that in virtue of which a living being manifests activity after its own unique fashion--in its own unique way reacts upon the external world; it is that which makes a living being to be an individuality, a personality.

Every living being is a thing unique, and as such incapable of being compared, incapable of being repeated, as re-actual processes are not, since in them no actual forces are active. Though I see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and think the same thing, it is yet my own, a something unique that I see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and think.

I am a thing unique, a personality in virtue of my _in-force_, of my Kamma.

The distinction between an _in-force_ and a universal force is this:--

The latter is a something existing of itself, a something existing of its own authority, _i.e._ a creation of faith; _whilst an in-force has being solely in dependence upon its material_, only with the help of the material worked up by it. As “heat,” “light,” “electricity,” and so forth, are words of no meaning in the absence of a material in which to manifest themselves, so _in-force_ Kamma, is a word of no meaning in the absence of its material.

This material of Kamma is by the Buddha called the _Khandhas_.

They are five in number, these namely:--

Corporeality, Sensation, Perception, Discriminations, and Consciousness.

The word Khandha may be variously translated as group, aggregation, coagulation, formation.

The Khandhas do not represent _parts, pieces_ of the _I_-process, but _phases, forms of development_, something like the shape, colour and odour in a flower. An actual process, a proceeding of the nature of combustion or alimentation, never can have any parts. It is only in connection with dead products like a table, a chair, and so forth, that one can speak of such; as also where one intentionally conceives of things after this fashion with a definite end in view. From the purely anatomical standpoint, the eye, the brain, the lungs, the liver, and so forth in a corpse, are parts of the body. Truly speaking, in the living person they are forms of development, since all have come forth from one common root. One must keep firm hold of this if one makes claim to think in terms of _actuality_.

“_Material_,” in contradistinction to matter, is that which is specially worked up by an energy. “Matter in itself” is all as hollow a figment of thought, projecting like a blind end out of actuality, as is “force in itself.” Both are products of faith: the one pertaining to science, the other to religions. _Actuality has no “substance,” no “matter,” but only material_, _i.e._ matter worked up by energies; it has no “force,” but only energies, _i.e._ forces apparelled, substantialized, so to speak. Actuality always and everywhere is only the unity of opposites--a process.

To allow one’s thought to occupy itself with a “force by itself,” or a “substance by itself,” means to work with half actualities possessing as much content of actuality as one side of a sheet of paper imagined by itself. I assert that to think thus is an intellectual _breach of discipline_.

Now the manner in which I represent myself corporeally, receive sensations, acquire perceptions, exercise discriminations, become conscious of things, is one peculiar to me and to me alone, a thing unique. This means:--

_In every motion, corporeal as mental, physical as psychical, I am the form of Kamma itself._

This fact, that every living being is wholly and entirely the embodiment of his Kamma, is expressed by the Buddha in the word “anattā,” not-self. All beings are “anattā,” but this does not in any way mean, as science would fain make out, that they are all of a purely re-actual nature. It only means that they do not conceal within them a “force in itself,” a “constant in itself,” but are _out and out processes of combustion, of alimentation_, such as cannot conceal any “constant in itself,” since at every moment of their existence they represent a fresh biological value, and hence hold nothing that could possibly justify the notion of an _I_-identity, a genuine self.

“The body, O monks, is ‘anattā.’ If the body were the self (_attā_), then this corporeal frame could not go to decay, and in this corporeal frame, this wish of mine would find fulfilment: ‘Let my corporeal part be thus! Let not my corporeal part be so!’ But, O monks, because the corporeal is anattā, therefore does the corporeal go to decay, and the wish, ‘Let my corporeal part be thus! Let not my corporeal part be so!’ does not find fulfilment.”[1]

Following the like scheme, the remaining four Khandhas are then dealt with; and so, step by step, the idea of an _I_-identity is banished.

The Buddha conceives of the entire _actual_ world, _i.e._ the world of self-sustaining processes as an infinitely large number of combustion processes. Every being burns in virtue of a purely individual _in-force_, Kamma.

This his world-conception is given by the Buddha in that famous “Fire Sermon” which, shortly after the inauguration of his career of

## activity as a teacher, he delivered to his followers on a hill in the

neighbourhood of Gayā. It is the “Sermon on the Mount” of Buddhism.

“All things, O monks, is a burning. And why, O monks, is all a burning? The eye, O monks, is a burning. Visual consciousness [that is, the conscious representation that results in virtue of visual impressions] is a burning. Visual contact [_i.e._ the act of the encountering of eye and objects] is a burning. That which arises in virtue of visual contact, be it a pleasant, be it an unpleasant sensation, be it a neither pleasant nor unpleasant sensation, is a burning.”[2]

Following the like scheme, the ear and the audible, the nose and the olfactory, the tongue and the gustatory, the body and the tangible, thought and concepts are then dealt with.

The place of the Buddha between and above the opposites, faith and science, may be briefly formulated as follows:--

Faith says, “_Everything stands_,”--namely, in the place in which it has been set by that “force in itself,” God. Science says, “_Everything falls_,” which means that she neglects actual forces in general. The _Buddha_ says, “_Everything burns_,” meaning that every process exists in virtue of a single _in-force_, peculiar to itself.

And now as a consequence there follows this question:--

“If through and through, without residue, I am a form of Kamma, where is to be found the position from which I can comprehend myself _as such_?” For every position, without exception, of sheer necessity must itself again be a form of Kamma.

Kamma, the _in-force_, is that which gives to the process concerned, to the living being, _foothold, coherence, continuity_.

As such it presents itself to me the individual _immediately as consciousness_. In consciousness I comprehend myself as a something existing in virtue of an _in-force_, inasmuch as consciousness on one hand is that which gives continuity to the _I_-process; on the other hand, however, at every moment presents a fresh biological, Kammic value, even as cannot be otherwise in any combustion process.

Be it well noted, however, Consciousness is not the Kamma. That would give us Kamma as an identity. But Kamma in the course of its self-acting development _becomes_ consciousness. Consciousness is the _ultimate value_ (_Grenzwert_), in which at every moment of its existence the form of the energy and the energy itself merge and mingle, and consequently that which gives to the _I_-process not only _conceptual_, but also _actual_ continuity.

Faith adopts as adequate cause a transcendent force, an imperceptible to sense in itself. Science rejects all that is imperceptible to sense and adopts as the adequate cause of one occurrence other occurrences. The Buddha teaches that the actual processes have being in virtue of an _in-force_, _i.e._ an imperceptible to sense; but this imperceptible to sense is so, _not “in itself,”_ as a transcendent in itself, but in the course of its automatic development, _for the individual becomes perceptible to sense as consciousness_.

It is in this sense that we are to understand the matter when the Buddha, having specified consciousness as one of the five Khandhas, thus making it a _form_ of Kamma, upon another occasion says, “_It is Cetana (thinking) that I call Kamma._” In a Burmese school I once listened to the following questions and answers: _Teacher_, “What is Kamma?” _Pupil_, “Cetana.” _Teacher_, “What is Cetana?” _Pupil_, “Kamma.”

In this sense is to be understood the frequently recurring formula: “In dependence upon individuality (_nāma-rūpa_) arises consciousness (_viññāṇa_); in dependence upon consciousness arises individuality.” For _in-force_, in contradistinction to a transcendent universal force, is something that only exists in dependence upon its material.

The understanding of this point will be rendered much easier by a comparison with a flame.

In a flame each moment of its existence represents a specific degree of heat which, as such, _is the power_ to set up a succeeding moment of ignition. This power is actualized wherever and for as long as inflammable matter, fuel, is present. The inflammable matter, so to say, is the liberating provocation that causes this power, this potential energy which the flame every moment represents in virtue of its heat to enter into life, and shows it the way into living energy.

But with this conversion into living energy, _i.e._ with the fact that a new ignition moment is called into life, a new degree of heat, a new value in potential energy also is produced, which, as the succeeding ignition moment, anew passes over into living energy, thus forming a repetition of the whole proceeding. It is a process which may be briefly designated as a self-charging. The self-discharging, the act of the passage of potential into living energy, is simultaneously the charging anew with potential energy. Precisely in this consists the nature of the self-active. The self-active is that which possesses the faculty, the power to sustain itself; and this self-sustaining, when analyzed, exhibits itself in the form of self-charging. If potential energy has passed over into living energy, there is here no need of an accession of foreign energy to fashion a new store of potential energy. This new store is implied in the discharge itself. Energy, actual energy, is not something that must receive an impetus from without in order to come into activity, it is activity, action itself, and proves itself such by itself; and all that is necessary is to comprehend, to comprise it in this its characteristic quality.

That this perfectly natural conception to us has become so unnatural, must be laid to the charge of our habits of thought, trained one-sidedly as we have been, along the lines of mechanical views. Where something happens, we look for some impulse from without; but we ought never to forget that science does not give the actual world at all, but only a re-actual world; in which world, to be sure, impulses must be given if anything is to happen at all. The mechanical world-theory is simply a “reading” of the play of world-events in order to give computation and determination in advance; never under any circumstances does it furnish an insight into actuality itself. Actuality is action out of itself; it is the self-active. And all the insoluble problems in which science loses her way when she seeks to carry the mechanical comprehension of the play of world-events from the reversible processes where it is possible and legitimate, over to the non-reversible processes, all in the last analysis amount to this, that one is trying to demonstrate something--_i.e._ the biological process--from external preconditions, which along such lines can never be demonstrated, not because in itself incapable of demonstration, but because it is demonstrating itself through itself.

This the genuine thinker must absolutely hold to. Actuality is action itself, not something that first must be acted upon. Everything re-actual is thinkable only as the sequel of a push requires a push for its explanation. Everything that is actual burns.

After this, what takes place in the _I_-process becomes comprehensible.

Here the passing over from potential to living energy has its counterpart in the _volitional movements_. At every moment of its existence the _I_-process represents a specific value in potential energy which there where the external world enters with its “liberating” provocations, ever and again passes over into living energy as volitional movement. Every discharge in the form of a volitional movement is a charging afresh with potential energy. It is a self-sustaining proceeding in the fullest sense of the words. The volitional movements are the ever repeated new foothold which the _I_ fashions for itself, the ever repeated “sustenance” wherewith it provides itself afresh.

The all-important point about this conception is that one should clearly see that Kamma _does not, like a cord of some sort of solid material_, thread itself through the _I_-process, as would be bound to be the case with an _I_-force, whether dubbed soul, or life-force, or whatever else; but that in every volitional movement it ever and again springs up anew out of a material to which it itself, in the first place, ever and again lends the power to this end. The material has to be _Kammatized_ so as to be able to give Kamma the opportunity to spring up anew. As in the friction of one piece of wood with another, heat springs up, and ever and again springs up with each repetition of the friction, so in the friction of the _I_-process with the external world, with things, ever and again new volitional movements spring up. “Somewhat, O monk, as when two pieces of wood are laid one upon the other, are rubbed one against the other, heat arises, fire springs up; and when these two pieces of wood are parted, are separated, the heat that has arisen, disappears, ceases; even so, O monk, by reason of a contact of a pleasurable nature, a pleasurable sensation springs up.”[3]

This the reply, the reaction peculiar to itself of the _I_-process to the external world, a reply, a reaction that takes the form of volitional movements, this is Kamma, the action of this _I_-process. That which as regards all the rest of the world is imperceptible to sense, here in the self-acting, the spontaneous development of the individual, _becomes_ perceptible to sense. Nothing else whatever is concealed within the _I_-process: itself has disclosed itself. As in a flame there is nothing hidden and concealed, its activity constituting its entire being, so in the _I_-process there is nothing hidden and concealed. Its activity constitutes its entire being, and this activity _in full entirety_ is disclosed in consciousness to the individual himself, and to him only. And nothing more is needed than to comprehend actuality simply as that which it is.

This insight into the _I_ as a pure combustion process places the whole problem of existence upon an entirely new foundation.

In a combustion process every moment of its existence is a _setting-up-of-life_ just as much as an _entering-into-life_. The _I_-process in all its activities, whether of the corporeal or of the mental variety, is a constant growing up of life itself, an arising, a perpetual refashioning, setting up anew, inasmuch as the energy perpetually works up, assimilates fresh material. Here is no _I_ that experiences; no _I_ that thinks, speaks, does. I do not _have_ all this as my functions, but this doing, speaking, thinking--this itself I _am_. In all this I ever and again am being built anew, just as in the assimilating of the nourishment of which I partake, I ever and again am built anew,--it is all the one same process of combustion, differing only in the surrounding circumstances and antecedent conditions.

“What, O monks, is the arising of the world? By reason of the eye and of forms there arises visual consciousness. The conjunction of the three constitutes contact. In dependence upon contact arises sensation. In dependence upon sensation arises the thirst for life. In dependence upon the thirst for life arises clinging. In dependence upon clinging arises becoming. In dependence upon becoming arises birth (as the birth of a fresh biological impulsion). In dependence upon birth arises old age and death.”

This passage recurs with great frequency in the Scriptures. Following the same scheme there are next dealt with--hearing and sounds, smell and odours, taste and flavours, the body and contacts, thinking and concepts.

In every one of its activities, at every moment of its existence, the _I_-process is not something that possesses arising as a function, but it _is_ the arising itself, as the flame _is_ the arising itself. And it _is_ the arising itself because it burns, because it exists in virtue of an individual energy. It is the thirst for life, the impulsion towards life, which _upholds life_, causes it ever and again to spring up anew, and _is life itself_; in exactly the same way that the heat of a flame upholds the flame and is the flame itself. We do not _have_ the impulse to life--that calls for a _conscious_ impulse--but we _are_ the life-impulse itself.

A lay adherent upon one occasion inquires of the nun Dhammadinna:--

“Personality, personality, they say, O venerable One. But what does the Exalted One say is the personality?”

To which the nun replies:--

“The five forms of clinging (_upādānakkhandhā_) is the personality, the Exalted One has said; these namely: the form of clinging that refers to body, the form of clinging that refers to sensation, the form of clinging that refers to perception, the form of clinging that refers to discriminations, the form of clinging that refers to consciousness....”

“The arising of personality, the arising of personality, they say, O venerable One. But what, O venerable One, does the Exalted One say is the arising of personality?”

“This thirst for life (_taṇhā_) that leads to re-birth, bound up with lust and craving, now here, now there, revelling in delight--namely, the impulse towards sensuality, the impulse towards existence, the impulse towards present well-being (without regard to any possible future). This, friend, so the Exalted One has said, is the arising of personality.”[4]

The distinction between faith and science on the one hand and the Buddha on the other, may be formulated thus:--

According to faith, living beings all possess as adequate cause for their existence a transcendent force, usually called “soul.” According to science, living beings as well as all re-actual processes, have their adequate cause entirely in what is perceptible to sense; which means that science derives living beings simply and solely from their begetters--mother and father--thus entangling herself in her insoluble problem of heredity. The Buddha on his part teaches _that every being is adequate cause to itself_. As a flame maintains itself by its own heat, so every _I_-process maintains itself by its volitional movements.

Now it is an incontestable biological fact that man, and along with him a considerable proportion of the animal world, originate in the union of a maternal ovum-cell with a paternal sperm-cell. How can the teaching of the Buddha that beings are their own adequate causes be brought into line with this fact?

It is just here that the Buddha breaks with vulgar thinking in a manner that at first sight seems out of all reason.

He teaches that that which mother and father furnish in the act of union is only, so to speak, the material of the new living being, only represents the _possibility_ of a new individuality; that this material is developed into an individuality only through the advent of an individual energy. “By the conjunction of three things, O monks, does the formation of a germ of life come about. If mother and father come together, but it is not the mother’s proper period, and the exciting impulse does not present itself, a germ of life is not planted. If mother and father come together and it is the mother’s proper period, but the exciting impulse does not present itself, a germ of life is not planted. If, however, O monks, mother and father come together and it is the mother’s proper period, and the exciting impulse presents itself, then a germ of life is there planted.”[5]

As the igniting spark catches, breaks in, and, taking the kindling wood and the oxygen of the atmosphere which, but for its advent, would have lain beside one another for long enough without any reaction, fuses them together into the individuality, “flame,” so does the individual energy joining up with the material of procreation, fuse ovum- and sperm-cell together into the new personality.

This “in-breaking” energy that joins up with the raw material of procreation,--this is the Kamma of some other existence which has been unable any longer to maintain its form against the pressure of the external world, an occurrence which we usually denominate “death.” The Kamma of the disintegrating existence--so the Buddha teaches--at the moment of death passes over into a new abode, plants itself, breaks in here in new inflammable material, kindles a new _I_-process, fashions a new _I_-sayer. And as the igniting spark _becomes_ the flame by developing itself, growing, unfolding along with the material of which it has taken hold, so does Kamma _become_ the new form of existence by developing itself, growing, unfolding along with the material of which it has taken hold. In other words, _I am the form of my Kamma. I am my Kamma corporealised._

This Kamma series it is which constitutes the _actual_ genealogical tree of a living being. As the genealogical tree of a fire does not lead in the direction of the forest or the coal-mine whence its material was derived, but back to the flame from out of which the kindling spark took hold, so the genealogical tree of living beings does not run back in the direction of progenitors but in the direction of the Kamma, the direction of a disintegrating existence. “Heirs of deeds,” therefore, the Buddha calls living beings, not heirs of mother and father; and, “springing from the womb of Kamma (_kammayonī_).” The Kamma, in virtue of which I now say “_I_,” derives from a previous existence; the “_I_-sayer” of this previous existence, on his part again, derives from a previous existence, and so on further and further back in a series that never has had a beginning. _At every moment of my existence I am the final member of a beginningless series of “I-sayers.”_ The Kamma at this moment active in me--it has never not existed, never not been active. This is what means a self-sustaining process. Such a process can never have had a beginning; for then it would be no self-sustaining thing, it would have been created, either by a god, or by external circumstances and antecedent conditions. It would be no actual process but a product. As soon as clear cognition brings me the insight that I am a pure process of combustion, _i.e._ sustain myself, along with that insight is given as a logical necessity beginninglessness.