..续本文上一页 this life.”

　　Then truly it may be said: “Oh death! Where is thy sting

　　 Oh grave, where is thy victory

　　” Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. xv 55). Not because this corruptible shall have put on incorruptibility, not because this mortal shall have put on immortality, but because no death can sadden, where no more birth occurs.

　　Thus set the Master rolling the Wheel of Righteousness “excellent in the beginning through its foundation on morality, excellent in the middle through its development of calm and insight, excellent in the end through its termination in Nibbaana” (Vism II 7–2).

　　“Well-proclaimed is the Teaching of the Blessed One to be realized in this life, yielding fruit immediately, inviting investigation, leading up to Nibbaana, to be attained to by the wise, each one for himself.”

　　(svaakkhaato bhagavataa dhammo, sandi.t.thiko, akaaliko, ehipassiko, opanayiko, paccatta.m veditabbo vi.t.tuuhii).

　　As one with might

　　could set aright

　　what had been overturned,

　　As one has shown

　　what was unknown,

　　(what still had to be learned)

　　To men astray

　　he told the way,

　　(to truth he gave the key;)

　　Into the night

　　he brought a light,

　　so that all men could see.

　　Seyyathaapi bho Gotamo nikkujjita.m vaa ukkujjeyya,

　　pa.ticchanna.m vaa vivareyya,

　　muu.lhassa vaa magga.m aacikkheyya,

　　andhakaare vaa telapajjota.m dhaareyya

　　cakkhumanto ruupaani dakkhinti

　　Like these waves of sound spread and roll on and contact you all, may thus the thoughts of loving-kindness which permeated these words reach you too and set vibrating in your hearts and minds similar thoughts, so that there may be peace even in war, love amidst hate, freedom from lust in a world of craving, freedom from suffering in an ocean of misery!

　　May all living beings be happy!

　　Soullessness

　　“Neta.m mama, nesoha.m asmi, na meso attaa”

　　“This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.”

　　Anattalakkha.na Sutta (Mv I 6, 38–47)

　　There are some great primary questions that lie at the bottom of every religious system and which form the seed of religious development, upon the answer to which, depends the nature of any religious philosophy. These questions have been puzzling mankind from time immemorial and they will be troubling him for ever more to come, because, though the answers to those weighty questions have been as numerous as there are different religions, they have been unable to satisfy the thinking mind.

　　The reason for the “unsatisfactoriness” of all these answers—and we may safely predict that any future trial to find a new solution to those problems will be equally unsuccessful—lies in the fact of the intrinsic impossibility to formulate an answer. Any answer is beside the point because those “weighty” questions are based upon misun­derstanding. All of them begin to assume the existence of the very thing they want to prove; in other words they beg the question, or in more philosophical terminology they are guilty of the sophism called “petitio principii.”

　　Some of those questions are: Whence am I

　　 Whither do I go

　　 How do I know myself

　　 What happens to me after death

　　 How came I (or life) into this world

　　 How does this world enter into me, into my con­sciousness

　　 Is the soul the same as the body or not

　　These and similar questions are sometimes said to be of vital importance, but then only to those who choose to enquire into them, like children will make a vital problem of the discovery, that a round peg does not go into a square hole. But a person with reason and insight will see at once that it does not fit. Not the peg or the hole, but the child is wrong here. So also not the play of world-events, but only those who put such questions are to blame.

　　It will be seen that there…

《Touching the Essence - Six Lectures on Buddhism》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…