Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ...Buddha, at least as he appears in some of the sacred literature, it is the change of things that seems the most pitiable feature of them: " Impermanence is the nature of all that exists, constant change and restlessness its conditions; unfixed, unprofitable, without the marks of long endurance."2 And again he says, apparently with pity: "All things around us bear the stamp of instant change; born, they perish; no self-sufficiency; those who would wish to keep them long, find in the end no room for doing so. If things around us could be kept for aye, and were not liable to change or separation, then this would be salvation." 3 We here have the thought--unusual, especially in a moralist--that it is the mere changefulness of the things about us, rather than any other quality or insufficiency in them that makes them unworthy of desire. If the one element, variation, could only be expelled, peace would be attained. And so the devotee must seek the changeless state. The wise man's learning, then, is " to acquire the changeless body; for where no change is, there is peace. Thus the possession of this changeful body is the foundation of all sorrow."4 And while at times there comes the passing thought of a changeless existence, of a mystical world that cannot be destroyed,5 yet the chief consolation, after all, isin the thought that complete destruction will bring complete rest. The disciples are told to give not way again to sorrow, because complete destruction of the universe must come.' And after the Nirvana of Buddha, a Devaputra 1 Diary 1895, p. 93. 1 Chuang TziS, tr. Giles, 1889, p. 155. Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King, V, 24, 1880 (XIX, 274). ' Ibid., 24, 1862 f. (XIX, 271). Ibid., IV, 20, 1654 (XIX, 238). Ibid., cf. V, 27, 2207 (XIX, 324). 2...
