Page:The Development of Mahayana Buddhism - The Monist 1914.pdf/9

Rh prajñā; that is, intellection must become intuition, which is after all the ultimate form of all religious discipline. Mysticism is the life of religion. Without it religion loses her reason of existence; all her warm vitality departs, all her inexpressible charm vanishes, and there remains nothing but the crumbling bones and the cold ashes of death. I have said before that the Mahāyāna is highly speculative, but I must add that it is also most deeply and thoroughly religious.

It is apparent that with the conception of suchness, the Mahāyāna speculations have reached the highest peak, and upon this summit stands the religious edifice of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Superficially, the Mahāyāna seems widely different from the Hinayāna; but when its development is traced along the lines indicated above, one will readily comprehend the fact that in spite of the disparity existing between the two yânas of Buddhism, the Mahāyāna which started intellectually and culminated in mysticism, as every religion should, is really no more than a continuation of the Hînayâna.

When the conception of suchness is established, the raison d'être of the Mahâyâna becomes manifest. Buddhism is not an agnostic system of philosophy, nor is it an atheistic ethics. For in suchness, or dharmakāya, it finds the reason of existence, the real reality, the norm of morality, the source of love and goodness, the fountainhead of righteousness, the absolute intelligence, and the starting point of karma, the law of deeds. For suchness, according to Mahāyāna thinkers, is not merely a state of being, but it is energy, intelligence, and love. But as suchness begins to assume these attributes, it ceases to be transcendental suchness, it is now conditional suchness. So long as it remains absolutely transcendental, in which neither negation nor affirmation is possible, it is beyond the comprehension of the human understanding; suchness can not