Another basis of Buddhism is the assumption that human existence is on the whole miserable, and a curse rather than a blessing. This notion, or rather feeling, is, like transmigration, common to Buddhism and Brahmanism, and is even more prominent in Buddhism than in the old faith. It is difficult for a European to conceive this state of mind, or to believe that it can be habitual in a whole people; and many signal errors in dealing with the Indian nations have arisen from overlooking the fact. The cause would seem to lie chiefly in the comparatively feeble physical organization of easterns in general. With a vigorous animal vitality, there is a massive enjoyment in mere bodily existence sufficient to drown a large amount of irritation and suffering, leaving life still sweet and desirable; while the spontaneous activity attending this vigor. makes it a pleasure instead of a pain to contend with and conquer difficulties. The Indian, on the contrary, even when he looks robust, has little intensity of animal vitality; and therefore, bodily existence, in itself, has to him little relish. Tedium of life, it is well known, arises more from negative than positive sources; and it requires but little bitter added to make his cup disgusting. So far, again, from finding activity a source of enjoyment, exertion is painful, and entire quiescence is, in his eyes, the highest state of conceivable enjoyment. When to this we add that want of security and peace, and that habitual oppression of the many by the few, with all the attendant degradation and positive suffering, which may be considered the normal state of things in the east, need we wonder that to men so constituted and so circumstanced, life should seem a burden. a thing rather to be feared than otherwise? The little value that Bindus set upon their lives is manifested in many ways. The punishment of death, again, has little or no terror for them, and is even sometimes coveted as an honor. For, in addition to the little value of their present existence, they have the most undoubting assurance that their soul, if dislodged from its present tenement, will forthwith find another, with a chance, at least, of its being a better one In the eyes, then, of Sakya-muni and his followers, sentient existence was hopelessly miserable. _Misery was not a mere taint in it, the removal of which would make it happy; misery was its very essence. Death was no escape from this inevitable lot; for, according to the doctrine of transmigration, death was only a passage into some other form of existence equally doomed. 'Even the heaven and the state of godhead which form part of the cycle of changes in this system, were not final; and this thought poisoned what happiness they might be capable of yielding. Brahman philosophers had sought escape front this endless cycle of unsatisfying changes, by making the individual soul be absorhed in the universal spirit (Braltm); Gautama had the same object in view —viz., exemption from being horn again; but he had not the same means of reaching it. His philosophy was utterly atheistic, like that of the original Sannya school of phi losopy, whose views he chiefly borrowed, and ignored a supreme God or Creator; it did not leave even an of the universe into which the human soul could be Lbsorbed. Gautama sees no escape but in what he calls NIRVANA, the exact nature of which has been matter of dispute. According to its etymology, the word means " extinction," "blowing out," as of a candle; and most orientalists are agreed that in the Buddhist scriptures generally it is equivalent to annihilation Even in those schools which attempt to draw a distinction, the distinction is of the most evanescent kind. See NIRVANA.
The key of the whole scheme of Buddhist salvation lies in what Gautama called his four sublime verities. The first asserts that pain exists; the second, that the cause of pain is desire or attachment—the meaning of which will appear further on; the third, that pain can be ended by Nirvana; and the fourth shows the way that leads to Nirvana This way to Nirvana consists in eight things: right faith, right judgment, right language right purpose, right practice, right obedience, right memory, and right meditation. In order to understand how this method is to lead to the proposed end, we must turn to the metaphysical part of the system contained in the "concatenation of causes," which may be looked upon its .development ref the second " verity '!---namely, that the cause of pain is desire—or rather, as the analysis upon which that verity is founded. The immediate cause of pain is birth, for if we were not born, we should not be exposed to death or any of the ills of life. Birth, again, is caused by previous existence; it is only
a transition from one state of existence into another. All the actions and affections of a being throughout his migrations leave their impressions, stains, attachments adhering to him, and the accumulation of these determines at each stage the peculiar modification of existence he must next assume. But for these adhesions, the soul would be free; not being bound down to migrate into any determinate condition of life, it would follow that it need not migrate at all. These adhesions or attachments, good and bad, depend upon desire, or rather, upon affection of any kind in the soul towards the objects; as if only what moved the soul to desire or avoidance could leave its impress upon it. We thus arrive at desire—including both the desire to possess, and the desire to avoid—as one link in the chain of causes of continued existence and pain. Beyond this the dependence of the links is very difficult to trace; for desire is said to be caused by perception, perception by contact, and so on, until we come to ideas. Ideas, however, are mere illusions, the results of ignorance or error, attributing durability and reality to that which is transitory and imaginary. Cut off this ignorance, bring the mind into a state in which it can see and feel the illusory nature of things, and forthwith the whole train vanishes; illusory ideas, distinction of forms, senses, contact, perception, desire, attachment, existence, birth, misery, old age, death! Morality and Religious eight parts or particulars constituting the theoretical " way" (to Nirvana), was developed by Gautama into a set of practical pre cepts enjoining the various duties of common life and of religion. They are all ostensi bly intended as means of counteracting or destroying the chain of causes that tie men to existence and necessitate being born again, especially that most important link in the chain constituted by the attachments or desires resulting from former actions; although the special fitness of sonic of the precepts for that end is far from being apparent. It is easy to understand how the austerities that are prescribed might subdue the passions and affections, and lessen the attachment to existence; but how the exercise of benevo lence, of meekness, of regard to truth, of respect to parents, etc., on which Gautama laid so much stress, should have this effect, it is difficult to conceive. Luckily for the Buddhist world, Gautama's moral nature was better than his logic, or rather than the perverse assumptions from which his logic starts; and as he felt strongly—what all men have felt more or less—that these things are essentially right and good, he takes it for granted that they must contribute to what was in his eyes the chief good—escape from existence, or Nirvana. In delivering his precepts, the Buddha considers men as divided into two classes—those who have embraced the religious life (Srainanas), and those who continue in the world, or are laymen. These last are considered as too much attached to existence to feel any desire or have any hope of emancipation, at least at this stage. But there are certain precepts which it is necessary for all to obey, that they may not bring greater misery upon themselves in their next births, and rivet the bonds of exist ence more indissolubly. There are ten moral precepts or "precepts of aversion." Five of these are of universal obligation—viz., not to kill; not to steal; not to commit adul tery; not to lie; not to be drunken. Other five are for those entering on the direct pursuit of Nirvana by embracing the religious life: to abstain from food out of season —that is, after midday; to abstain from dances, theatrical representations, songs, and music; to abstain from personal ornaments and perfumes; to abstain from a lofty and luxurious couch; to abstain from taking gold and silver. For the regular ascetics or monks, there are a number of special observances of a very severe kind. They are to dress only in rags, sewed together with their own hands, and to have a yellow cloak thrown over the rags. They are to eat only the simplest food, and to possess nothing except what they get by collecting alms from door to door in their wooden bowl. They are allowed only one meal, and that must be eaten before midday. For a part of the year, they are to live in forests, with no other shelter except the shadow of a tree, and there they must sit on their carpet even during sleep, to lie down being forbidden. They are allowed to enter the nearest village or town to be food, but they must return to their forests before night.