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　　PART II.

　　THE DHARMA OR DOCTRINE.

　　106. Q. What is the meaning of the word Buddha

　　A. The enlightened, or he who has the perfect wisdom.

　　107. Q. You have said that there were other Buddhas: before this one.

　　A. Yes; our belief is that, under the operation of eternal causation, a Buddha takes birth at intervals, when mankind have become plunged into misery through ignorance and need the wisdom which it is the function of a Buddha to teach (See also Q. 11).

　　108. Q. How is a Buddha developed

　　A. A person, hearing and seeing one of the Buddhas on earth, becomes seized with the determination to so live that at some future time, when he shall become-fitted for it, he also will be a Buddha for the guiding-of mankind out of the cycle of re-birth.

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　　109. Q. How does he proceed

　　A. Throughout that birth and every succeeding one, he strives to subdue his passions, to gain wisdom by experience, and to develop his higher faculties. He thus grows by degrees wiser, nobler in character, and stronger in virtue, until, finally, after numberless rebirths he reaches the state when he can become Perfected, Enlightened, All-wise, the ideal Teacher of the human race.

　　110. Q. While this gradual development is going on throughout all these births, by what name do we call him

　　A. Bodhisat, or Bodhisattva, Thus the Prince Siddhârtha Gautama was a Bodhisattva up to the moment when, under the blessed Bodhi tree at Gaya, he became Buddha.

　　111. Q. Have we any account of his various rebirths as a Bodhisattva

　　A. In the Jâtakatthakathâ, a book containing stories of the Bodhisattva”s re-incarnations, there are several hundred tales of that kind.

　　113. Q. What lesson do these stories teach

　　A. That a man can carry, throughout a long series of re-incarnations, one great, good purpose which enables

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　　him to conquer bad tendencies and develop virtuous ones.

　　113 Q. Can we fix the number of re-incarnations through which a Bodhisattva must pass before he can become a Buddha

　　A. Of course not: that depends upon his natural character, the state of development to which he has arrived when he forms the resolution to become a. Buddha, and other things.

　　114. Q. Have we a way of classifying Bodhisattvas

　　 If so, explain it.

　　A. Bodhisattvas—the future Buddhas—are pided into three classes.

　　115. Q. Proceed. How are these three kinds of Bodhisats called

　　A. Pannâdhika, or Udghatitagnya—"he who attains least quickly;" Saddhâdhika, or Vipachitagnya—"he who attains less quickly;" and Vîriyâdhika, or Gneyya—"he who attains quickly." The Pannâdhika Bodhisats take the course of Intelligence; the Saddhâdhika take the course of Faith; the Vîryâdhika take the course of energetic action. The first is guided by Intelligence and does not hasten; the second is full of Faith, and does not care to take the guidance

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　　of Wisdom; and the third never delays to do what is good. Regardless of the consequences to himself, he does it when he sees that it is best that it should be done.

　　116. Q. When our Bodhisattva became Buddha, what did he see was the cause of human misery

　　 Tell me in one word.

　　A. Ignorance (Avidyâ).

　　117. Q. Can you tell me the remedy

　　A To dispel Ignorance and become wise (Prajña).

　　118. Q. Why does ignorance cause suffering

　　A. Because it makes us prize what is not worth prizing, grieve for what we should not grieve, consider real what is not real but only illusionary, and pass our lives in the pursuit of worthless objects, neglecting what is in reality most valuable.

　　119. Q. And what is that which is most valuable

　　A. To know the whole secret of man”s existence and destiny, so that we may estimate at no more than their actual value this life and its relation…

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