The Gospel of BuddhaBuddhismScripture SelectionEnglish (compiled from Pali and Sanskrit sources)ShareThe Gospel of Buddha 53Paul Carus (1894) - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availablePaul Carus (1894)LanguageEnglishEspañol‹The Gospel of Buddha 1The Gospel of Buddha 2The Gospel of Buddha 3The Gospel of Buddha 4The Gospel of Buddha 5The Gospel of Buddha 6The Gospel of Buddha 7The Gospel of Buddha 8The Gospel of Buddha 9The Gospel of Buddha 10The Gospel of Buddha 11The Gospel of Buddha 12The Gospel of Buddha 13The Gospel of Buddha 14The Gospel of Buddha 15The Gospel of Buddha 16The Gospel of Buddha 17The Gospel of Buddha 18The Gospel of Buddha 19The Gospel of Buddha 20The Gospel of Buddha 21The Gospel of Buddha 22The Gospel of Buddha 23The Gospel of Buddha 24The Gospel of Buddha 25The Gospel of Buddha 26The Gospel of Buddha 27The Gospel of Buddha 28The Gospel of Buddha 29The Gospel of Buddha 30The Gospel of Buddha 31The Gospel of Buddha 32The Gospel of Buddha 33The Gospel of Buddha 34The Gospel of Buddha 35The Gospel of Buddha 36The Gospel of Buddha 37The Gospel of Buddha 38The Gospel of Buddha 39The Gospel of Buddha 40The Gospel of Buddha 41The Gospel of Buddha 42The Gospel of Buddha 43The Gospel of Buddha 44The Gospel of Buddha 45The Gospel of Buddha 46The Gospel of Buddha 47The Gospel of Buddha 48The Gospel of Buddha 49The Gospel of Buddha 50The Gospel of Buddha 51The Gospel of Buddha 52The Gospel of Buddha 53The Gospel of Buddha 54The Gospel of Buddha 55The Gospel of Buddha 56The Gospel of Buddha 57The Gospel of Buddha 58The Gospel of Buddha 59The Gospel of Buddha 60The Gospel of Buddha 61The Gospel of Buddha 62The Gospel of Buddha 63The Gospel of Buddha 64The Gospel of Buddha 65The Gospel of Buddha 66The Gospel of Buddha 67The Gospel of Buddha 68The Gospel of Buddha 69The Gospel of Buddha 70The Gospel of Buddha 71The Gospel of Buddha 72The Gospel of Buddha 73The Gospel of Buddha 74The Gospel of Buddha 75The Gospel of Buddha 76The Gospel of Buddha 77The Gospel of Buddha 78The Gospel of Buddha 79The Gospel of Buddha 80The Gospel of Buddha 81The Gospel of Buddha 82The Gospel of Buddha 83The Gospel of Buddha 84The Gospel of Buddha 85The Gospel of Buddha 86The Gospel of Buddha 87The Gospel of Buddha 88The Gospel of Buddha 89The Gospel of Buddha 90The Gospel of Buddha 91The Gospel of Buddha 92The Gospel of Buddha 93The Gospel of Buddha 94The Gospel of Buddha 95The Gospel of Buddha 96The Gospel of Buddha 97The Gospel of Buddha 98The Gospel of Buddha 99The Gospel of Buddha 100›Chapter LIII: Identity And Non-IdentityThe Gospel of Buddha 53ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1Kūtadanta, the head of the Brahmans in the village of Dānamatī having approached the Blessed One respectfully, greeted him and said: "I am told, O samana, that thou art the Buddha, the Holy One, the Allknowing, the Lord of the world. But if thou wert the Buddha, wouldst thou not come like a king in all thy glory and power?" 2Said the Blessed One: "Thine eyes are holden. If the eye of thy mind were undimmed thou couldst see the glory and the power of truth." 3Said Kūtadanta: "Show me the truth and I shall see it. But thy doctrine is without consistency. If it were consistent, it would stand; but as it is not, it will pass away." 4The Blessed One replied: "The truth will never pass away." 5Kūtadanta said: "I am told that thou teachest the law, yet thou tearest down religion. Thy disciples despise rites and abandon immolation, but reverence for the gods can be shown only by sacrifices. The very nature of religion consists in worship and sacrifice." 6Said the Buddha: "Greater than the immolation of bullocks is the sacrifice of self. He who offers to the gods his evil desires will see the uselessness of slaughtering animals at the altar. Blood has no cleansing power, but the eradication of lust will make the heart pure. Better than worshiping gods is obedience to the laws of righteousness." 7Kūtadanta, being of a religious disposition and anxious about his fate after death, had sacrificed countless victims. Now he saw the folly of atonement by blood. Not yet satisfied, however, with the teachings of the Tathāgata, Kūtadanta continued: "Thou believest, O Master, that beings are reborn; that they migrate in the evolution of life; and that subject to the law of karma we must reap what we sow. Yet thou teachest the non-existence of the soul! Thy disciples praise utter self-extinction as the highest bliss of Nirvāna. If I am merely a combination of the sankhāras, my existence will cease when I die. If I am merely a compound of sensations and ideas and desires, wither can I go at the dissolution of the body?" 8Said the Blessed One: "O Brahman, thou art religious and earnest. Thou art seriously concerned about thy soul. Yet is thy work in vain because thou art lacking in the one thing that is needful. 9"There is rebirth of character, but no transmigration of a self. Thy thought-forms reappear, but there is no ego-entity transferred. The stanza uttered by a teacher is reborn in the scholar who repeats the words. 10"Only through ignorance and delusion do men indulge in the dream that their souls are separate and self-existent entities. 11"Thy heart, O Brahman, is cleaving still to self; thou art anxious about heaven but thou seekest the pleasures of self in heaven, and thus thou canst not see the bliss of truth and the immortality of truth. 12"Verily I say unto thee: The Blessed One has not come to teach death, but to teach life, and thou discernest not the nature of living and dying. 13"This body will be dissolved and no amount of sacrifice will save it. Therefore, seek thou the life that is of the mind. Where self is, truth cannot be; yet when truth comes, self will disappear. Therefore, let thy mind rest in the truth; propagate the truth, put thy whole will in it, and let it spread. In the truth thou shalt live forever. 14"Self is death and truth is life. The cleaving to self is a perpetual dying, while moving in the truth is partaking of Nirvāna which is life everlasting." 15Kūtadanta said: "Where, O venerable Master, is Nirvāna?" 16"Nirvāna is wherever the precepts are obeyed," replied the Blessed One. 17"Do I understand thee aright," rejoined the Brahman, "that Nirvāna is not a place, and being nowhere it is without reality?" 18"Thou dost not understand me aright," said the Blessed One, "Now listen and answer these questions: Where does the wind dwell?" 20Buddha retorted: "Then, sir, there is no such thing as wind." 21Kūtadanta made no reply; and the Blessed One asked again: "Answer me, O Brahman, where does wisdom dwell? Is wisdom a locality?" 22"Wisdom has no allotted dwelling-place," replied Kūtadanta. 23Said the Blessed One: "Meanest thou that there is no wisdom, no enlightenment, no righteousness, and no salvation, because Nirvāna is not a locality? As a great and mighty wind which passeth over the world in the heat of the day, so the Tathāgata comes to blow over the minds of mankind with the breath of his love, so cool, so sweet, so calm, so delicate; and those tormented by fever assuage their suffering and rejoice at the refreshing breeze." 24Said Kūtadanta: "I feel, O Lord, that thou proclaimest a great doctrine, but I cannot grasp it. Forbear with me that I ask again: Tell me, O Lord, if there be no ātman, how can there be immortality? The activity of the mind passeth, and our thoughts are gone when we have done thinking." 25Buddha replied: "Our thinking is gone, but our thoughts continue. Reasoning ceases, but knowledge remains." 26Said Kūtadanta: "How is that? Is not reasoning and knowledge the same?" 27The Blessed One explained the distinction by an illustration: "It is as when a man wants, during the night, to send a letter, and, after having Ids clerk called, has a lamp lit, and gets the letter written. Then, when that has been done, he extinguishes the lamp. But though the writing has been finished and the light has been put out the letter is still there. Thus does reasoning cease and knowledge remain; and in the same way mental activity ceases, but experience, wisdom, and all the fruits of our acts endure." 28Kūtadanta continued: "Tell me, O Lord, pray tell me, where, if the sankhāras are dissolved, is the identity of my self. If my thoughts are propagated, and if my soul migrates, my thoughts cease to be my thoughts and my soul ceases to be my soul. Give me an illustration, but pray, O Lord, tell me, where is the identity of my self?" 29Said the Blessed One: "Suppose a man were to light a lamp; would it burn the night through?" 31"Now, is it the same flame that burns in the first watch of the night as in the second?" 32Kūtadanta hesitated. He thought "Yes, it is the same flame," but fearing the complications of a hidden meaning, and trying to be exact, he said: "No, it is not." 33"Then," continued the Blessed One, "there are flames, one in the first watch and the other in the second watch." 34"No, sir," said Kūtadanta. "In one sense it is not the same flame, but in another sense it is the same flame. It burns the same kind of oil, it emits the same land of light, and it serves the same purpose." 35"Very well," said the Buddha, "and would you call those flames the same that have burned yesterday and are burning now in the same lamp, filled with the same kind of oil, illuminating the same room?" 36"They may have been extinguished during the day," suggested Kūtadanta. 37Said the Blessed One: "Suppose the flame of the first watch had been extinguished during the second watch, would you call it the same if it burns again in the third watch?" 38Replied Kūtadanta: "In one sense it is a different flame, in another it is not." 39The Tathāgata asked again: "Has the time that elapsed during the extinction of the flame anything to do with its identity or non-identity?" 40"No, sir," said the Brahman, "it has not. There is a difference and an identity, whether many years elapsed or only one second, and also whether the lamp has been extinguished in the meantime or not." 41"Well, then, we agree that the flame of to-day is in a certain sense the same as the flame of yesterday, and in another sense it is different at every moment. Moreover, the flames of the same kind, illuminating with equal power the same land of rooms, are in a certain sense the same." 43The Blessed One continued: "Now, suppose there is a man who feels like thyself, thinks like thyself, and acts like thyself, is he not the same man as thou?" 45Said the Buddha: "Dost thou deny that the same logic holds good for thyself that holds good for the things of the world?" 46Kūtadanta bethought himself and rejoined slowly: "No, I do not. The same logic holds good universally; but there is a peculiarity about my self which renders it altogether different from everything else and also from other selves. There may be another man who feels exactly like me, thinks like me, and acts like me; suppose even he had the same name and the same kind of possessions, he would not be myself." 47"True, Kūtadanta," answered Buddha, "he would not be thyself. Now, tell me, is the person who goes to school one, and that same person when he has finished his schooling another? Is it one who commits a crime, another who is punished by having his hands and feet cut off?" 49"Then sameness is constituted by continuity only?" asked the Tathāgata. 50"Not only by continuity," said Kūtadanta, "but also and mainly by identity of character." 51"Very well," concluded the Buddha, "then thou agreest that persons can be the same, in the same sense as two flames of the same kind are called the same; and thou must recognize that in this sense another man of the same character and product of the same karma is the same as thou." 53The Buddha continued: "And in this same sense alone art thou the same to-day as yesterday. Thy nature is not constituted by the matter of which thy body consists, but by thy sankhāras, the forms of the body, of sensations, of thoughts. Thy person is the combination of the sankhāras. Wherever they are, thou art. Whithersoever they go, thou goest. Thus thou wilt recognize in a certain sense an identity of thy self, and in another sense a difference. But he who does not recognize the identity should deny all identity, and should say that the questioner is no longer the same person as he who a minute after receives the answer. Now consider the continuation of thy personality, which is preserved in thy karma. Dost thou call it death and annihilation, or fife and continued life?" 54"I call it life and continued life," rejoined Kūtadanta, "for it is the continuation of my existence, but I do not care for that kind of continuation. All I care for is the continuation of self in the other sense, which makes of every man, whether identical with me or not, an altogether different person." 55"Very well," said Buddha. "This is what thou desirest and this is the cleaving to self. This is thy error. All compound things are transitory: they grow and they decay. All compound things are subject to pain: they will be separated from what they love and be joined to what they abhor. All compound things lack a self, an ātman, an ego." 57"Where is thy self?" asked the Buddha. And when Kūtadanta made no reply, he continued: "Thy self to which thou cleavest is a constant change. Years ago thou wast a small babe; then, thou wast a boy; then a youth, and now, thou art a man. Is there any identity of the babe and the man? There is an identity in a certain sense only. Indeed there is more identity between the flames of the first and the third watch, even though the lamp might have been extinguished during the second watch. Now which is thy true self, that of yesterday, that of to-day, or that of to-morrow, for the preservation of which thou clamorest?" 58Kūtadanta was bewildered. "Lord of the world," he said, "I see my error, but I am still confused." 59The Tathāgata continued: "It is by a process of evolution that sankhāras come to be. There is no sankhāra which has sprung into being without a gradual becoming. Thy sankhāras are the product of thy deeds in former existences. The combination of thy sankhāras is thy self. Wheresoever they are impressed thither thy self migrates. In thy sankhāras thou wilt continue to live and thou wilt reap in future existences the harvest sown now and in the past." 60"Verily, O Lord," rejoined Kūtadanta, "this is not a fair retribution. I cannot recognize the justice that others after me will reap what I am sowing now." 61The Blessed One waited a moment and then replied: "Is all teaching in vain? Dost thou not understand that those others are thou thyself? Thou thyself wilt reap what thou sowest, not others. 62"Think of a man who is ill-bred and destitute, suffering from the wretchedness of his condition. As a boy he was slothful and indolent, and when he grew up he had not learned a craft to earn a living. Wouldst thou say his misery is not the product of his own action, because the adult is no longer the same person as was the boy? 63"Verily, I say unto thee: Not in the heavens, not in the midst of the sea, not if thou hidest thyself away in the clefts of the mountains, wilt thou find a place where thou canst escape the fruit of thine evil actions. 64"At the same time thou art sure to receive the blessings of thy good actions. 65"The man who has long been traveling and who returns home in safety, the welcome of kinsfolk, friends, and acquaintances awaits. So, the fruits of his good works bid him welcome who has walked in the path of righteousness, when he passes over from the present life into the hereafter." 66Kūtadanta said: "I have faith in the glory and excellency of thy doctrines. My eye cannot as yet endure the light; but I now understand that there is no self, and the truth dawns upon me. Sacrifices cannot save, and invocations are idle talk. But how shall I find the path to life everlasting? I know all the Vedas by heart and have not found the truth." Said the Buddha: "Learning is a good thing; but it availeth not. True wisdom can be acquired by practice only. Practise the truth that thy brother is the same as thou. Walk in the noble path of righteousness and thou wilt understand that while there is death in self, there is immortality in truth." 67 68Said Kūtadanta: "Let me take my refuge in the Blessed One, in the Dharma, and in the brotherhood. Accept me as thy disciple and let me partake of the bliss of immortality." ‹Previous chapterThe Gospel of Buddha 52Next chapterThe Gospel of Buddha 54›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain