The Savannah morning news., 1902-08-24

nave CalleQ themselves, after It's 1Oun-
der, Buddhists. Gaudama Buddha be-
lieved and taught that what we call
life is evil, that in this material ex-
istence of flesh and blood and bodily
desires there is nothing but misery,
trouble and disease. Were we, there
fore. to have eternal life in the body
we should but possess eternal writch-
eoneSs
Fortunately, there is hope Beyond
the gate of life is death, and by this
death comes freedom from all the mis-
cradle letters that chain a human be-
ing to earthly hell. This is Nirvana,
or the Great Peace, and to this pros
pect a weary soul may look forward
with infinite consolation. But this
Great Peace does not come to all when
the breath of the body expires. Only
the few Perfect Ones may enter Mir
vana at the end of one earthly exist
ence. The majority of mankind must
work their way forward to Nirvana
by slow and painful stages. One life
on earth in bodily form leads on to
another and vet another. and almost
countless tenufes of material existence.
That spirit, that indeinable essence
which Christians call a soul and
Buddhists consciousness passes out of
one body into another until, if in each
tenement its poSsessor reaches a high
er scale of moral attainment, he may
at last reach that perfection which
entities him to enter the Great Peace.
| Here there is no matter The spirit
shuff1es off this mortal coil. There is
| no taste, no touch, no smell, no sight
no sense of any kind. Consciousness
alone survives, and in Nirvana has
| eternal joy.
In Buddhism there is no God, no
| personal ALI Wise, and All-Benefcent
Spirit to control the destinies of man
kind. Matter has existed for all time,
and will exist forever, subject to con-
tinual change, to periodical destruc-
| ton and reconstruction. 1t is subject
only to the fixed and eternal law,
which is called Kharma, and which
| is the law of cause and result. A
human being must work out his own
salvation. He will get no help from
anything outside himself Prayer will
avail him nothing, for there is no one
to hear. In himself is his only way
| of escape from misery to eternal bliss.
| His sole endeavor must be to raise
| himself in the moral scale, so that in
| the next existence he may have reach
| ed a higher rung of that ladder which
| leads to Nirvana.
The Path to Pence.
The religion of Buddhism is self
| culture, for, says Buddha, SELF is the
lord of self; self is the refuge of self.
Therefore curb myself as the mer-
chant curbs a good horse" man
who seeks Nirvana must cultivate all
virtues that lift him above his brute
nature. He must crush out all the
passions that he shares with the
beasts. He must be kind and gen.
tie and courteous, honest, pure and
! generous. Then he will gain the re-
ward of a good life, and his conscious
ness in the next life will pass into
some body such as that of a monk, or
wealthy gentleman, who suffers less
of life's misery and is as much at
peace as possible, till if he perservere,
the Great Peace will at last come to
him.
If on the other hand he gives free
rein to the bad passions of his nature
he will drop in the scale of beings,
and perhaps in another life his con-
| seriousness will descend into some an
imal form till he gradually gets lower
and lower and countless lives must
be lived before he rises again to reach
the goal of Nirvana.
For what does Buddha say: 1.-THE
passions of thoughtless man grow
like creeper; he runs from life to
life like monkey seeking
fruit in the forest. And again:
LAS rain breaks through an ill-thatch-
ed house, so passion will break
through an unreflecting mind" But
"he who overcomes this fierce passion,
suffering falls off him like water drops
from lotus leaf" On the other hand,
says Buddha, the virtuous man re-
| joices in his virtue. 'If a man does
| what is good let him do it again; let
him delight in it. Happiness is the out
come of good" And this is the per-
feet life; mot to blame, not to strike,
to live restrained under the law, to be
moderate in eating, to sleep and sit
alone, and to dwell on the highest
thoughts-this is the teaching of the
awakened"
The Brotherhood.
Buddha formed in his lifetime a
brotherhood of men who believed in
his doctrine, who vowed to live &C.
cording to his rule, and who were to
| convert the world by missionary
preaching, and to hand down the truth
| to future general tons That brother
hood still exists. The Buddhist monks
| still keep the rules of their founder,
living lives of chastity and poverty
and meditation. They are the teachers
| of the people upon whose bounty they
live, and their monasteries are the
free schools of their country.
Though they are not priests in any
sense of the word, and have no au-
thority whatever over the conscience
of a layman, they consider it their duty
| to show their affection to a layman by
| dissuading him from vice, by exhort-
| ing him to virtue, by feeling kindly
| toward him, by instructing him in re-
| ligion, by clearing up his doubts, and
by pointing the way to Nirvana. The
Buddhists proclaim Four Virtues of
| surprising Mountaineering affabil-
| ity, kindness and loving others as our
selves. They also denounce Ten Sins
| taking life, theft, incontinence false
hood, SANDER, abusive language, vain
| conversation, covetousness, anger,
| skepticism.
The Soul of a People.
Such is a brief outline of the reli-
gion preached by Gaudama Buddha
and the religion which is the rule of
life of millions of human beings at the
present day. Though in many parts of
the East the teachings of it's founder
have been degenerated by the intro
dduction of superstition yet in Ber-
ma and Ceylon, in parts
of Japan and China it's beau
tiful moral code still has pro-
found influence upon the life of its be-
lieVers.
I cannot omit to recommend to my
and delightful books written during
1.-THE Soul of People," and describing
people of Burma. It's author, Henry
Burma and has a more intimate
Irra 1F Dr.