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Buddha replied : If your ears have a separate and distinct power of hearing, what need interpose the media of my mouth or your body; for example, why is your hearing dependent on the circumstance of your mouth asking for explanations, and my mouth answering your questions, and the general willingness of your body to allow your hearing to receive my words ? This dependence shows that there is no unity in the hearing itself, nor yet is there unity in the combination of the six senses. This belief is in direct con- tradiction of the usual and prevalent error. 88. " Just as you speak of space, when it is embraced by various vessels, as different and multiform; but when the vessels are removed, you say it is single and uniform ;— but then, what is this uniformity, in respect of you who speak of it as a unity — it is not the same as you who speak of it as a unity; it is not the same as you who speak of it as one or many: so also with respect to the six senses; they are opposed to any so-called unity of existence, equally with any supposed distinction of existence ' The Commentary explains this as referring to the forty-two con- ditions (p'hin) of Bodhi. These conditions are generally spoken of as thirty-seven. Vide Lotus, p. -ioO. 364 A CATENA OF BUDDHIST (i. e., there is a unity beyond them, either considered separately or in combination). 89. " And so, from the two conditions of light and darkness existing in the midst of the ever-excellent Perfection of the Divine Intelhgence, proceeded the invention and formation of all visual phsenomena. 90. " From motion and stillness, the invention of all audible phsenomena. 91. " From freedom of entrance and obstacles in the way of entrance, all the phenomena of smell. 92. " And from the uniformity or difference of flavour, all phsenomena of taste. 93. "And from the ideas of union and separation, all pheenomena of touch. 94. " And from birth and death, all phjsnomena of cognition. 95. "Ananda! thus, from the idea of the effulgence of the Divine Intelligence, comes the loss of the primitive and essential power and a false elucidation of the subject is adopted ; but now, get rid of all these false conditions, and you obtain a true basis of thought and rest. 98 and 99. " Ananda said: How, then, if there is no such thing as this heart, can I use it to get rid of these false conditions? 100. " Buddha replied : I will tell you. 101. " Then Buddha struck the Rahula gong (or the Rahu gong), and asked Ananda, Do you hear anything? Ananda said. Yes. When the gong had stopped sounding, Buddha said again. And now do you hear anything r Ananda said, No ! and then Buddha struck the gong again, and asked the same question, to which Ananda replied as before. Then Buddha said. What is the meaning of this expression, ' hearing' and ' not hearing'; to which Ananda replied, When there is a sound we hear it, and when no sound we do not hear it. 102. "Then again Buddha struck the gong and said, Is there a sound ? Yes, said Ananda. As it grew less and died away, 15uddha said, And now is there a sound ? Ananda said. No (and so again). And then Buddha said, What is this expression 'sound' and ' no sound ?' To which Ananda replied as before. To which Buddha said. What confusion and deception ! You say you hear not ; if so, then hearing is destroyed, just as de- cayed wood is destroyed. Then, when the gong is hit ag;iin. SCRIPTURES PROM THE CHINESE. 365 How can you hear it? for your hearing is destroyed! Who is it, I ask, tliat hears ? No, Ananda, it is no power resident in the hearing or in yourself that hears ; it is to be sought elsewhere. 104. " And you add still further to the confusion by saying that when there is a sound you hear, and when there is no sound you do not hear; but this dying and reviving of the sense — how strange is the deception ! — for how is it possible to detach the idea of continuance from a faculty of this sort. Even a man asleep — who confuses the sound of pounding rice with the beat of a drum, and who, on waking, tells his guest of it — even he, by thus recollecting the circumstance of his mistake, proves that the sense of hearing is not liable to such intermittent action. 105. " Bu-t so it is, from the beginning men have not distin- guished between that which is constant and abiding and that which is perishable and transient ; and so the confusion has arisen and continued. 106. " But if you will but dismiss all idea of production and destruction, and keep carefully to the true and permanent reality of Being — the permanent existing in every place, but the ideas of sense depending on knowledge — then you will understand that all results of intellectual discrimination are vain ; the only reality is that which the eyes of Religion (dharma) perceive: this is the true and unsurpassable Divine Intelligence. KlOUEN V, § 1. " Ananda said : Xotwithstandinar all the World-honoured one has said, I am still at a loss to know what is the bondage under which you say we all live, and what is the deliverance of which you speak. 2. "Then Buddha, touching the head of Ananda, forthwith the ten earths shook six times, and from each Buddha thi'ough- out the countless universe proceeded bright celestial rays, which all came and alighted on the head of Buddha in the garden of Jeta ; and at the same time Ananda and all the congregation heard these words proceeding from the different mouths of all the Buddhas : 366 A CATENA OP BUDDHIST " Well spoken, Ananda ! you are now desirous to know the character of that ignorance which is the origin of the per- petual succession of birth and death ; and, satisfied that your six senses have no power to free you from the bondage, you desire to find out the nature of the unsurpassable knowledge which alone can give you the freedom and rest which these six senses never can. 3. " Still Ananda was unsatisfied, and asked for explanation. 4. " Buddha said : Ananda ! the sense and the objects of sense are one at root — bondage and freedom are not two. The nature of knowledge (or knowledge and nature) is empty and vain, just as a sky-flower. 5. " Ananda ! from the objects of sense arises knowledge (of the possession of sense) ; from the senses themselves come qualities of objects : both qualities and sight (knowledge) are as the empty bubble. 6. " Wherefore we conclude that your method of establishing your knowledge by the exercise of the cognitions of sense, is false, and the same as the original ignorance ; whereas the con- viction that these cognitions bring you no real knowledge — this is Nirvana — pure truth without alloy. 7. " At this time the World-honoured one, wishing to give weight to the delivery of this system of truth, spoke the follow- ing gathas : — 8. " The Pure Nature, as to its substantial Being, is empty ; the influences, therefore, that produce birth are as a magical delusion. The absence of action, and the absence of beginning and end — these also are false ideas, like a sky-flower. The word ' false' does but originate (manifest) that which is true — false and true are together equally false ; and yet, again, the assertion that this or that is opposed to truth is itself opposed to truth. What, then, means this phrase of seeing and that which is seen ; for in the so-called world what true nature or power is there ? Are not all things around us but as a bubble :' 9. "The ground-cause of bondage and deliverance is the same; sages and philosophers walk not on different paths. Consider, then, and embrace the natui-e of this middle method : emptiness and reality ai^e both alike false ; deception and enlightenment are both alike founded on ignorance. Once dream of enlighten- SCRIPTURES FROM THE CHINESE. 367 ment (i. e., of making that which was ignorant wise), and you may foi'thwith bid adieu to all idea of release.^ 10. " Get rid of the idea of successive causes of thi-aldom ; forget also the idea of unity found by extirpating the six senses ; select only as a basis of all the perfect and all-pervading essence, and then, entei'ing the stream, you shall perfect in yourself the Divine Intelligence. 11. " But concerning the knowledge of remote causes, or the knowledge of past conditions of birth," whether true or whether not true, for fear of deception, of these things I never speak. 12.