Part 5
_Individual beginninglessness is the key-word, the guiding clue to the Buddha-thought._ In it is exhausted the teaching of Kamma. The _I_-process has its _in-force_, its Kamma from out a previous existence. Otherwise expressed: The _I_-process is not the result of an impact, has not been set going, but burns on from beginninglessness down to this present moment, itself ever and again _perpetuating itself_. Whenever an existence disintegrates, the Kamma in virtue of which it has been burning takes hold anew in a new location and there sets alight a new _I_-process that unfolds itself into a new personality. _The Buddha teaches re-births._
The self-perpetuation of the individual energies, the Kammas, in the formation of ever new individualities, is by the Buddha called “Samsāra.”
This word is most frequently translated, “the circling round of re-births,”--a rendering that may easily lead to a false conception. Where the entire universe is nothing but a huge summation of single combustion processes, there no circling round can be; there each moment of existence always and everywhere is something that never before has been and never again will be. With the translation “circling round of re-births,” one only works with physics and its reversible processes; one is in danger of apprehending life mechanically. As a matter of fact, “Samsāra” means nothing but the “together-wandering,” the ascent and descent of the beings in the universe, that ever and again, now here now there, come into manifestation anew, according as their Kamma here or there takes hold.
“Without beginning, without end is this Samsāra. A beginning of beings encompassed by nescience who, fettered by the thirst for life, pass on to ever new births, verily is not to be perceived.”
The thinking man naturally asks, “Is there any proof of such a teaching? or must it simply be believed?” In the latter case it were as worthless to the genuine thinker as is every religion of faith. Whether I call that on which I believe, force or energy, god or Kamma, makes no essential difference.
But to this question there are two answers--an answer of a real, and an answer of an abstract nature.
The answer of real nature is supplied by the Buddha when he affirms of himself that simultaneously with the attainment of his Buddha-knowledge, he acquired the faculty of remembering his previous forms of existence back into eras of time the most stupendously remote. He teaches, however, that every one who, like himself, has wrestled his way to the same knowledge, obtains this same capacity of calling to remembrance his previous states of existence.
Now the Buddha-knowledge is no supernatural illumination, but consists simply of a clear insight into the nature of my own existence--or rather, in the removal of a false conception as to myself, the conception of the “_I_” as an identity. To attain to this insight, all that is needed is reflection and instruction. This seemingly supernatural character of the faculty of remembering previous existences is thus “supernatural” only in the sense that the telephone or the Röntgen ray or wireless telegraphy is supernatural to untutored savages. We are merely lacking in the prerequisite conditions as respects cognition, and in the intellectual technique.
This much safely may be said, that the biological possibility of memory of the distant past can only be brought to bear upon the several existences in so far as these themselves have run their course in touch with the power of memory, in touch with consciousness. To try to make this faculty extend over the embryonal periods also, would be absurd, since here the organic possibilities of such memory--the sense-organs, namely--are not developed, and so there is nothing there for one to remember. Hence, when he speaks of his previous existences the Buddha says, not, “I remember having left such and such a womb,” but, “I remember having been of such a name, such a family, such a rank, such a calling; having experienced such and such weal and woe, and such a departure from life.” Here what is meant by the constantly recurring phrase “_evam āyupariyanto_”--“thus was the term, the end of my life”--is not physical death, but the ending of that section of the individuality which runs its course self-illuminated, under the designation of consciousness. This end may indeed synchronize with the physical end, death, but it may also precede it by a longer or shorter period of time.
In corresponding terms the Buddha goes on to say, “Departing thence, elsewhere I appeared anew. There now I was, bore such a name,” and so on. The memories of the past adhere only to those phases of existence that are illumined by consciousness.
It may be asked, “By what means is it possible to acquire such a faculty of remembering the distant past?”
I reply, “I do not know.” I can only suggest an analogy. One must extinguish one’s own light in order to see the light that shines through the chink in a neighbouring room. In somewhat the same fashion, a man must have extinguished his own light--the notion of an _I_-identity--and won to the Buddha-knowledge, in order to see himself emerge recurrently as a something luminous in consciousness further and yet further away in the “dark backward and abysm of time,”--one lucent phase, ever and again revealing itself, anterior to the other, until the last faint glimmer is lost in the dim dusk teeming with life, of the beginningless infinitudes.
The Buddha himself instances a definite limit to the capacity to recall to memory past existences, up to which limit he himself attained. Here we have the best possible proof that we have to do, not with a supernatural enlightenment, a species of omniscience, but simply with an intellectual technique which as being purely intellectual, presupposes a certain grade of cognition. If we may put any confidence in the texts, there were in the days of the Buddha, and in those days of which the “Chants of the monks and nuns” tell us, quite a large number of persons who had acquired this faculty. If some one here interjects, “Such a thing is impossible!” he resembles a man at the foot of a hill to whom another standing on the top has described what he sees from that point of vantage, and who retorts, “It is quite impossible that you should see all this. I have eyes in my head as well as you. I look upon the same world as you do and I perceive nothing whatever of all this. Consequently your imagination must be playing tricks with you.”
So much for the real answer. The abstract answer presents itself in the light of an intellectual necessity.
Kamma is that which gives continuity to the _I_-process. As such it presents itself to me the individual immediately as consciousness. Consciousness, rightly comprehended, tells me that the _I_-process gives to itself its own coherence; which means that it is self-acting; which in turn means that it is beginningless. I experience the self-perpetuation, the burning of the _I_-process in consciousness. But just as Kamma conducts from one moment of existence to the next, so does it conduct from one existence to the next.
Should one wish to render this procedure in comprehensible language, one can come at it no otherwise than simply by saying, “Consciousness passes over from existence to existence.” “Kamma” in itself conveys no more meaning than, for example, the word _I_, which indicates anybody and everybody without distinction, and only acquires _actual_ significance with reference to myself. In exactly the same way “Kamma,” the force in virtue of which every single living creature has being, acquires _actual_ significance only as my own consciousness. Kamma _as such_ has being only as consciousness.
It is in this sense that those passages are to be understood, so obscure to our scholars, in which the Buddha speaks of _viññāṇa_ (consciousness) as that which plants itself in the new womb. Addressing his disciple Ānanda, he says, “If, Ānanda, consciousness did not pass into the womb, would it then be possible for the (new) individuality to differentiate itself?”[6]
Among the Theras of Ceylon the established expression for the Kamma that passes over from one existence to the next is _paṭisandhiviññāṇa_, a word which means “the again-linking-up consciousness,” the consciousness that ever and again supplies the bond between existence and existence.
That there is here no thought of consciousness as “something in itself,” as soul, as an identity, is made abundantly clear in the following passage:--
A monk named Sati, as the outcome of his own cogitations, arrives at the conclusion that “consciousness” is something that in the progress of re-births passes over as _anaññaŋ_, as “not-other”--that is, as an identity, as a spiritual substance. He is reprimanded by the Buddha in these words: “Have not I in many and diverse ways expounded consciousness as something arising always in dependence upon somewhat? Without adequate cause there is no coming to be of consciousness.”[7]
To much the same effect runs a passage in the _Visuddhi Magga_:--
“But it is to be understood that this latter consciousness (that of the new existence is meant) did not come to the present existence from the previous one, and also that it is only to causes contained in the old existence that its present appearance is due.”[8]
Only when one understands that _Viññāṇa_ (consciousness) is Kamma itself, does a “consciousness” that passes over from existence to existence become divested of its seeming senselessness.
When, for example, I say, “The American heat-wave has passed over to Europe,” this does not mean that an absolutely definite something called “heat-wave” has set out on a journey. It only means that certain pulses of energy which manifest themselves to sense under the form of a wave of heat are making their presence known in a new locality. In just the same way, when I say, “Consciousness passes over from one existence to another,” this does not mean that an absolutely definite something called “consciousness” goes forth upon its travels, but that the pulse of energy of the _I_-process which, wherever it is present at all _as such_ manifests itself as consciousness, makes its presence known in a new location. Should any one insist upon conceiving of the heat-wave as a something travelling, he would rightly become the butt of ridicule. In similar wise, the scholars of the west with their profound researches into this “consciousness” that passes over from existence to existence, make fair marks for jest and laughter. Here, of course, they are only working further along in the tracks of physiology and biology, both of which so long as they seek for a “seat” of consciousness, labour under a like tragi-comic misconception.
No good purpose is to be served by instancing here in detail all the crass misconceptions of which our western scholars are guilty in the interpretation of this point. That would only be to burden this book on its way with quite unnecessary ballast. Wherever the reader meets with such misconceptions, he can correct them for himself on the lines of the foregoing explanations. In passing, however, it may be mentioned that he will meet with such misconceptions in pretty nearly every book about Buddhism.
And now we stand confronted by the question:--
“After what fashion is one to picture to oneself the passing over of Kamma from one existence to another?”
To us in the West who have been reared in the mechanistic views of science and admit of the inductive method alone in argument, this seems the point most obscure among all the obscurities we find in the Buddha-thought. In the Buddha’s days, however, this point seems to have been so completely free from anything savouring of the problematical that the Buddha himself would seem never to have found it necessary to express himself categorically upon it.
If to-day one asks the Theras in Ceylon or Burma how one ought to think of this passing over, one receives the unfailing reply, “It is not the case that ‘something’ passes over.”
Here one must fall back upon the works of the commentators for fuller information.
In the _Milinda Pañha_ (the _Questions of King Milinda_), a work that in Ceylon is held in the highest esteem, there occurs the following passage:--
(The King says): “Bhante (Reverend Sir) Nagasena, does the connection (with the next existence) take place without anything passing over?” (The Monk Nagasena replies): “Yes, great King, the connection takes place without anything passing over.” “Give me an example of connection taking place without anything passing over!” “Suppose a man to light one lamp at another, does one light here pass over to the other?” “No, bhante.” “In just the same way the connection takes place without anything passing over.”[9]
Hereupon the question arises:--
“This previous existence of which I am the immediate continuation--am I this itself or am I another?”
A further passage in the same book, the _Milinda Pañha_, runs:--
“He who is born--is he the same or is he another?” “Neither the same, neither another.”
“Give me an illustration!” “Suppose a man to light a lamp: would it burn the whole night through?” “Yes, it would burn the whole night through.” “Now, is the flame of the first watch the same with the flame of the middle watch?” “No, indeed!” “Or is the flame of the middle watch the same with the flame of the last watch?” “No, indeed!” “Then is the lamp of the first watch one, the lamp of the middle watch another, and the lamp of the last watch yet another?” “No, indeed! In dependence upon one and the same (lamp) the light burns all the night through.” “Even so does the continuity of men and things come about. One arises, another passes away. On the instant, as it were, without before or after, the linking up is effected. Thus it is not oneself, nor yet is it another, that passes on (and constitutes) each last present phase of consciousness.”
With this we arrive at the crucial point. _The passing over ensues on the instant, immediately, not in space and time._
Buddhism, if it is to satisfy the thinker, here will have to come to an understanding with modern physics. In a succeeding essay this will be attempted. For the present, as preliminary, we hold fast only to the fact.
The _I_-process as being the form of an _in-force_, at every moment of its existence represents a certain value in potential energy, a certain unique state of tension, an individual tendency. This tendency it is which at the breaking up of the old form immediately establishes itself in the new location.
But where? Is this new location always ready waiting to take up the new Kamma?
A universe that consists of nothing but a huge summation of combustion processes, finds itself, so to speak, in a perpetual _status nascens_. Here every fresh moment represents a new, unique, biological, Kammic value, which as such never before has been and never again will be.
Now all actual happenings come to pass in virtue of peculiar attunements--in the language of chemistry, specific affinities. A body, a process, acts upon another because in virtue of its peculiar attunement it can and must act on that other. But where the entire universe is a something existing in a perpetual _status nascens_, there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as a _being attuned_, but only an _each-after-other self-attuning_, taking place anew with each new moment. The entire actual happenings of a world from this point of view become something that does not _have laws_, but _is law itself_; a thought as sublime as it is terrible. The significance of Buddhism for a morality is completely dominated by it.
Hence, where the actual play of world-events alone is in question, the same is indicated by the word “Dhamma” (law or norm). All beings, even as they are Sankhāra, are also Dhamma.[10] Kamma, the individual _in-force_, at the break up of the form, will “take hold” anew there where in the beginningless each-after-other self-attunement of the play of world-events, it can take hold--indeed, _must_ take hold. This “taking hold” anew is not something that _has_ law, that runs its appointed course according to definite laws, but it _is_ law itself.
Now Kamma, as individual _in-force_, is a something unique. It is _itself_ and nothing else besides, as it manifests itself in me the individual; for my consciousness tells me that I am a something unique, that I am myself and nothing else besides.
As a something unique, it must also be uniquely attuned to its new location. There will be one single location which, out of the endless host of world-events, will correspond to the Kamma of the disintegrating existence, will answer to it. _We all eat out of the one dish--every one eater for himself._
_This unique attunement, however, implies immediate passing over as a logical necessity._ If Kamma passed over in space and time, this passing over would be a new self-attunement at innumerable points. Immediate passing over and unique attunement are two different expressions for one and the same event.
We shall have to dwell upon this idea at greater length in another place. Here I conclude with the caution that the Kamma-teaching of the Buddha is not to be confounded with the teaching of the transmigration of the soul found in pantheistic systems. The two have nothing, absolutely nothing, in common with one another except the words “Samsāra” and “re-births.” Language is no more than a servant. It serves one master just as well as another. To seek to deduce community of essence from similarities in terminology is a piece of idle trifling of which many an expositor of Buddhism is most unwarrantably guilty. It is no very difficult matter to “support” the words of the Buddha with quite a host of sayings culled from the works of mystics and pantheists--and scientists also, if one so chooses. But in good sooth, to him who understands, all this only makes needless ballast, and to him who does not understand, needless perplexity.
A transmigration of the soul requires something persistent, something eternal, a unity in itself. “As the worm from leaf to leaf”--runs the illustration in the Upanishads--“so goes the soul (the Atman, the true Self) from existence to existence.”
For the Buddha there is no such “something in itself.” For the real, genuine thinker life is a thing that at every moment wholly and completely arises anew. Life is this arising itself, just as a flame is the arising itself. _Any kind of persisting something here is not to be found._ Every moment of existence is a new, biological, Kammic value, whereof the prerequisite condition, the adequate cause, resides solely in the previous moment, while itself is prerequisite condition, adequate cause to the moment succeeding. _No continuity_ is present, as a Being, as a true _I_, a something identical with itself, _but with each new moment the continuity is formed anew_; every moment is the last link in a beginningless series; every _now_ the final result of an individual combustion process that, hither descended from past beginninglessness, continues to burn on through future endlessness; the Kamma whereof, as oft as one form falls to pieces, without break seizes hold of a new raw-material. It is no persisting something in itself that passes over; it is the individual tendency, the predispositions, the character, the consciousness, or whatever else one has a mind to call the value in potential energy represented by the _I_-process at its disintegration, that passes over, by _immediately_ taking effect, striking in, imparting the new impulse to the material to which it is uniquely attuned--the material that appeals to it alone of all that is present, and to which it alone of all that is present, answers.
Yet once more:--
Kamma is no cord binding the existences together--as little so as the lightning of the firmament is a cord. The notion of a persisting “self” or “soul” is repeatedly and emphatically repudiated.
“Further, one may entertain the notion: ‘This identical self of mine, I maintain, is veritably to be found now here, now there, reaping the fruits of its good and of its evil deeds; and this my self is a thing permanent, constant, eternal, not subject to change, and so abides for ever.’ But this, monks, is a walking in mere opinion, a resorting to mere notions, a barren waste of views, an empty display of views; this is merely to writhe, caught in the toils of views”; runs a passage in the second Sutta of the _Majjhima Nikāya_. While we find Buddhaghosa’s great commentary, the _Visuddhi Magga_, saying: “There is no entity, no living principle, no elements of being, transmigrated from the last existence into the present one.”
* * * * *
I sum up in brief what has gone before.
The Buddha teaches:--
All actual processes are combustion processes.
They burn in virtue of purely individual _in-forces_ (Kammas).
As such they are self-sustaining processes.
As such they are beginningless.
They have sustained themselves from beginninglessness down to the present by volitional activities.
With the Kamma-teaching the significance of Buddhism for a world-conception is given in all its amplitude.
To possess a world-conception means to comprehend the play of world-events.
To comprehend means to comprehend adequate causes.
Adequate causes must be forces.
Forces of necessity must be something imperceptible to sense.
As such they must lie beyond the reach of all comprehension.
An exception to this is constituted by one single process--the _I_, the individual himself; inasmuch as the _in-force_, in virtue of which I have my being, _becomes_ perceptible to sense in consciousness.
This given, the whole problem here focuses itself, as it were automatically, into one point, forth from which every genuine view of the world must necessarily proceed--_one’s own I_.
Whilst faith conceives of the _I_ from a transcendental standpoint, _i.e._ believes; whilst science strains itself to conceive of the _I_ from the standpoint of the material world, _i.e._ inductively; _the Buddha conceives of it from the standpoint of itself_, i.e. _intuitively_.
Along with my comprehension of myself is comprehended the entire residue of the world. If I myself have being in virtue of a purely individual _in-force_, then all remaining actual processes also have being in virtue of purely individual _in-forces_, and I comprehend them all--_i.e._ the world--as thereby beyond being comprehended; not as being incomprehensible in themselves--that were a self-evident contradiction--but as so fashioned that each of them can only comprehend itself.
Here it may be objected:--
A world-conception that teaches me to comprehend the world as being incomprehensible--is it not just as much of the nature of a paradox as the world-conception of faith?
To this the answer is:--
The demand for a view of the world is not to be taken literally as such. If a freezing man says, “I much need a coat,” it is not the coat in itself of which he has need, but the warmth that the coat will procure him. In the selfsame way, when an uninstructed person says, “I much need a view of the world,” what he would fain comprehend is not the world in itself, but that which furnishes internal support, coherence, to the play of world-events. In reality, every world-conception means nothing else but a comprehension of the something that persists throughout the play of world-events, that remains constant through all vicissitude,--hence, a satisfaction _of the idea of conservation_.
This idea of conservation religious faith endeavours to satisfy with its “force in itself,” God. Scientific faith endeavours to satisfy it with “matter,” which is just as much a thing of faith as is “force.” Actuality knows neither force by itself nor matter by itself; it only knows the unity of both: processes. One is just “believing” when one operates abstractly with either of these two opposites; and to operate with them other than abstractly is quite impossible.