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] [2 Any orthodox Christian catechism would here present a very differ- ent answer to such a question, giving a list of evil passions and wrong tendencies under the name of “sins,” classified as “deadly,” “ venial,” etc., much as offences! against human laws might be graded. The Bud- dhistic seems much more radical, natural, and consonant with the facts of human existence. Categorical sins and crimes are mere offshoots from the main trunk of the misery, and therefore the undesirability, of the | 30 A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 60. Q. Are these individual peculiarities ? A. Yes, and they differ with each individual; but all men have them in degree, and suffer from them. 61. Q. How can we escape the sufferings which result from unsatisfied desires and tgnorant cravings ? A. By complete conquest over, and destruction of, this eager thirst for life and its pleasures, which cause sorrow. contact of matter with spirit, by which association the trembling soul is put in an uncertain balance between forces which tend to its destruction and those which tend to its conservation. Yet in such conflict is igno- rance dispelled, and the knowledge of good and evil attained. The most deadly —in a sense, the “unpardonable” —sin is not ordinarily .enu- merated. It subsists in the soul’s deliberate choice of evil instead of good, after it has acquired knowledge of both. —C.] {1 Again deeper, clearer, and stronger than the reasons we usually hear. for the cultivation of virtue and the practice of morality. Esoteric phi- losophy may usually be relied upon to ring clearer than exoteric religion. Says Socrates on this subject: “And is not purification the very thing of which we spoke before, —the separating, as far as possible, the soul from the body, and the accustoming it to gather itself together out of every quarter, apart from the body, and to reunite itself, and to dwell, so far as it is able, both now and hereafter, freed from the shackles of the body?” (Phedo.) Hear also Plotinus: “ Purify your soul from aJ] undue hope and fear about earthly things, mortify the body, deny self, — affections as well as appetites; and the inner eye will begin to exercise its clear and solemn vision” (Zfistle to Flaccus). Ignorance of what a human being really is, on the part of most religionists of the Western churches, and ignoring of that which he chiefly is, on the part of most materialistic A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 31 62. O. How may we gain such a conquest ? A. By following in the Noble Eightfold Path which Buddha discovered and pointed out. 63. QO. What is this Noble Eightfold Path ? A. The eight parts of this Path are called angas. They are, | —1. Right Belief; 2. Right “Thought; 3. Right Speech; - 4. Right Doctrine; 5. Right Means of Livelihood; 6. Right Endeavor ; 7. Right Memory; 8. Right Meditation. The man who keeps these azgas in mind and follows them will be free from sorrow and may reach salvation. 64. Q. Salvation from what? A. Salvation from the miseries of existence and of re-births, all of which are due to ignorance and impure lusts and cravings.? scientists of the present day, conspire to produce in the former the credu- lousness of superstition, and in the latter the superstitions of incredulity, better known as “rational agnosticism.” — C.] [1 Children, both grown and ungrown, are differently taught in Chris- tian countries. For a cruel example, — “ 0. Will Christ come again ? “A. Christ will come down from heaven at the last day to judge all men. “0. What are the things Christ will judge ? “ A. Christ will judge at the last day all our thoughts, words, works, and omissions. “0. What will Christ say to the wicked ? i / 32 A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 65. Q. And when this salvation is attained, what do we reach ? A. Nirvana. 66. QO. What is Nirvana? A. A condition of total cessation of changes ; of perfect rest ; of the absence of desire, and illusion, and sorrow; of the total obliteration of everything that goes to make up the physical man. Before reaching Nirvana man is constantly being re-born ; when he reaches Nirvana he is re-born no more. “A. On the judgment day Christ will say to the wicked, ‘ Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.’” — Archbishop Spalding’s Roman Catholic Catechism, p. 19. The revolt of the soul which has attained self-knowledge, against any such monstrous untruth, is prompt, decisive, and final. The appeal of such souls from self-sufficient authority to the facts of Nature and Natu- ral Law —an appeal for which modern science has prepared the way — may yet develop the individual rebellions of. such souls into an organized and effectual spiritual revolution. — C.] [! Nothing seems more incredible to an orthodox Christian, of any Protestant sect or of more Catholic creed, and nothing can be more repugnant to most Western minds, than the idea of re-birth, re-incarnation, metempsychosis, or “transmigration of soul” in any way. But on this point the Western world is for the most part as far from understanding the Oriental conception as it is in mistaking Nirvana for “ annihilation.” See the author’s own remarks, beyond. This is no place to go far into such deep questions; but I may say that much of the Western miscon- ception is due to ignorance of the difference between the “spirit” and A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 33 67. QO. What causes us to be re-born? A. The unsatisfied desire for things that belong to the state of personal existence in the material world. This unquenched thirst for physical existence is a force, and has a creative power in itself so strong that it draws the being back into mundane life. the “soul” of a human being, and between his individuality and his personality at any given period. These two are only temporarily co- incident and conjoined. The physical personality is very fugitive, its duration averaging only about thirty-five years. Individuality may be protracted for a much greater or an indefinite period, its character and condition and the personality it eventually acquires being determined according to the law of Karma. in a next “world of effects,” where are experienced the results of the life in this present phenomenal “ world of causes.” But the soul, as a thing having form, as the “spiritual body,” sooner or later perishes, like the physical body. Only the spirit is imperishable, being co-eternal with God, and formless like Him. A spirit in a state of conscious formlessness, subject to no further modifi- cation by embodiment, yet in full knowledge of its experiences, is Nirvanic. To the above statement of the non-acceptance by Western minds of the idea of re-incarnation must be excepted the school of the French Spiritists, to which the teachings of “Allan Kardec” have given a stability and coherency which contrast favorably with the present un- organized and almost chaotic state of American Spiritualism. One of the most striking differences between the orthodox French Spzritiste and the usual American Spiritualist is this very point. It is to be hoped that the progress of psychic research may throw needed light upon this and many other matters of vital interest to humanity. Neither the Christian church nor the science of the day has done so in a way 3 34 A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 68. Q. Are our re-births in any way affected by the nature of our unsatisfied desires ? A. Yes; and by our individual merits or demerits. 69. Q. Does our merit or our demerit control the state, con- dition, or form in which we shall be re-born ? A. It does. The broad rule is, that if we have an excess of merit, we shall be well and happily born the next time; if an excess of demerit, our next birth will be wretched and full of suffering. 70. Q. Ls this Buddhistic doctrine supported or denied by the teachings of modern science ? A. It is in reconciliation with science, since it is the doc- trine of cause and effect. Science teaches that man is the satisfactory to the tendencies of current thought. On the whole, it may be said that, in the West, French Spiritism is most progressive, most enlightened, and most in accord with ideas that have for many thousand years ruled a majority of the human race; that American Spiritualism is next most so; that both these systems avail themselves of many important facts and demonstrable phenomena which orthodox religions decry or deny, and which orthodox science scouts and ignores. Religious as well as scientific extremists may yet find a better than either of their respective ways. — C.] [} “The Karma, —all that total of a soul Which is the things. it did, the thoughts it had, The ‘self’ it wove, with woof of viewless time, Crossed on the warp invisible of acts.” — Arnold.] A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 35 result of a law of development from an imperfect and lower to a higher and more perfect condition. 71. Q. What ts this doctrine of science called ? A. Evolution.’ It is sometimes called “ Darwinism.” 72. Q. Can you show any further indorsement of Buddhism by science ? ‘ A. Buddha’s doctrine teaches that there were many progen- itors of the human race ; also, that there is a principle of differ- entiation among men, certain individuals having a greater capacity for the rapid attainment of wisdom, and arrival at Nirvana, than others. Of Bddhisats there are three kinds — 73. Q. Stop: what ts a Bodhisat? A. A being who has outstripped other men in moral develop- ment, and who in some future birth is sure to appear upon earth as a Buddha. He will thus appear because his pity for [?