Page:Henry Mulford Tichenor - The Buddhist Philosophy of Life.djvu/34

 32 The Teacher said: "Greater than the sacrifice of bullocks is the sacrifice of self. Blood has no cleansing power. Better than worshipping the gods is righteousness among men."

Kutadanta said: "Thou believest that beings are reborn; that they migrate in the evolution of life; and that subject to the law of karma we reap what we have sown. Yet thou teachest self-extinction as the highest happiness of Nirvana."

The Teacher said: "Thou art concerned about thy soul. Yet is thy work in vain, because thou art lacking in the one thing needful. There is rebirth of character, but no transmigration of self. The thought-forms reappear, but there is no ego transferred. Only through delusion do men dream that their souls are self. Thy heart is cleaving to self. Thou art anxious about heaven, and therefore canst not discern the happiness of truth and the immortality of truth. The Buddha has not come to teach death, but to teach life; and thou seest not the nature of living and dying.

"This body will be dissolved, and no amount of worship and sacrifice will save it. Therefore seek thou the life that is of the mind. Where self is, truth cannot be; when truth comes, self disappears. Let thy mind rest in the truth; propagate the truth; put thy whole will in it, and let it spread. For in the truth thou shalt live forever. Self is death and truth is life. The cleaving to self is continual dying, while abiding in the truth leads to Nirvana, which is life everlasting."

Kutadanta said: "Where is Nirvana?"