..续本文上一页posed in his heart to grant his request. [26]

　　The Bodhisatta”s Search

　　Alara and Uddaha were renowed as teachers among the Brahmans,

　　and there was no one in those days who surpassed them

　　in learning and philosophical knowledge. [1]

　　The Bodhisatta went to them and sat at their feet.

　　He listened to their doctrines of the atman or self,

　　which is the ego of the mind and the doer of all doings.

　　He learned their views of the transmigration of souls and the law of karma;

　　how the souls of bad men had to suffer

　　by being reborn in men of low caste, in animals, or in hell,

　　while those who purified themselves by libations, by sacrifices, and by self-mortification

　　would become kings, or Brahmans, or devas,

　　so as to rise higher in the grades of existence.

　　He studied their incantations and offerings

　　and the methods by which they attained deliverance of the ego

　　from material existence in states of ecstacy. [2]

　　Alara said:

　　"What is that self

　　which perceives the actions of the five roots of mind,

　　touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing

　　What is that which is active in the two ways of motion,

　　in the hands and in the feet

　　The problem of the soul appears in the expressions ”I say,”

　　”I know and perceive,”

　　”I come,” and ”I go”

　　or ”I will stay here.”

　　The soul is not thy body;

　　it is not thy eye, not thy ear, not thy nose,

　　not thy tongue, nor is it thy mind.

　　The I is the one who feels the touch in thy body.

　　The I is the smeller in the nose, the taster in the tongue,

　　the seer in the eye, the hearer in the ear, and the thinker in the mind.

　　The I moves thy hands and thy feet.

　　The I is thy soul.

　　Doubt in the existence of the soul is irreligious,

　　and without discerning this truth there is no way of salvation.

　　Deep speculation will easily involve the mind;

　　it leads to confusion and unbelief;

　　but a purification of the soul leads to the way of escape.

　　True deliverance is reached by removing from the croud and leading a hermit”s life,

　　depending entirely on alms for food.

　　Putting away all desire and clearly recognizing the non-existence of matter,

　　we reach a state of perfect emptiness.

　　Here we find the condition of immaterial life.

　　As the munja grass when freed from its horny case,

　　as a sword when drawn from its scabbard,

　　or as the wild bird escaped from its prison,

　　so the ego, liberating itself from all limitations, finds perfect release.

　　This is true deliverance, but those only who will have deep faith will learn." [3]

　　The Bodhisatta found no satisfaction in these teachings.

　　He replied: "People are in bondage,

　　because they have not yet removed the idea of the ego. [4]

　　"The thing and its quality are different in our thought, but not in reality.

　　Heat is different from fire in our thought,

　　but you cannot remove heat from fire in reality.

　　You say that you can remove the qualities and leave the thing,

　　but if you think your theory to the end,

　　you will find that this is not so. [5]

　　"Is not man an organism of many aggregates

　　Are we not composed of various attributes

　　Man consists of the material form, of sensation,

　　of thought, of dispositions, and, lastly, of understanding.

　　That which men call the ego when they say ”I am”

　　is not an entity behind the attributes;

　　it originates by their co-operation.

　　There is mind; there is sensation and thought,

　　and there is truth;

　　and truth is mind when it walks in the path of righteousness.

　　But there is no separate ego-soul outside of behind the thought of man.

　　He who believes that the ego is a distinct being has no correct conception of things.

　　The very search for the atman is wrong;

　　it is a wrong start and it will lead you in a false direction. [6]

　　"How much confusion of thought comes from our interest in self,

　　and from our vanity when thinking ”I am so great,” …

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