Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-12-14
"BUDDHA'S SERMON ON MOUNT"
Allen Sargree Inspired by Telegraph Editorial to Review
Career and Teachings of Great Indian Thinker

TO say the craving either for sensual
sratlflcations, for continued existence.
or for the cessation of existence. This
Is the Noble Truth concerning the ori-
gin of sorrow
"Deliverance from sorrow is the
complete destruction, the laying aside,
the getting rid of, the being free from,
the harboring no longer of, this pas
Slonate craving. This is the Noble
truth concerning the destruction
sorrow.
The path which leads to the de-
struction OF sorrow is this noble
eight-fold path alone-that is to say,
right views, etc. This is the Noble
Truth OF the path which leads to the
destruction of sorrow"
From this it is evident that, ac-
cord1ng to Buddha, the effort. the
struggle, to maintain individuality is
the essence of human sorrow. In it
course from birth to death the in
dividuality. the separateness. when
ever 1t is brought most distinctly in
10 play (as for example in the sever
ance from what it loves, or in the
union with what it hates) produces
pain.
Next then. what is the cause, and
he takes that up in the second para
graph, namely the thirst or craving for
renewal of individual existence. If
this causes sorrow then who wants a
future life, say the Buddhists, because
what can future life be but q con-
tinuation of individuality, and that
means sorrow. Hence it is that Bud
dhlsm is entirely Independent of the
belief in soul. OF the belief in God,
and of the belief in a future life.
Warns Against Bascncss
But in the third paragraph Buddha
also protests against the doctrine.
Let us eat and drink, for to-mor-
row we die. Even though there is
no God, no future, no soul, he warns
against the qualification of ones baser
capabilities. 1t is only the base and
cowardly whom the struggle against
the lust of life, or the sense of the
evils of existence, can drive to suicide
or despair. You must conquer the
evils of life, which are due to this
strange but up6 enable craving from
which they spring. And this is to be
done in no other way than that laid
down by the fourth Truth--the cuIti-
vauon, namely, of the opposite con-
dltlons of mind, of the equanimity
that will result from kindness. from
self-culture and from self-controL
Buddhism. it will rightly be con-
eluded is philosophy, rather than a
religion. That it is on the wane and
cannot take the place of a religion is
evidenced at present in Japan. There.
IN the last two years has been an in
crease of S9S Christian Sunday
schools, with an added enrolment of
41,753 students This has so aroused
the Buddhists that. they are initiating
the Christian methods, as one mis-
sionary reports ito a shocking de-
gree" They have issued books for
the arousing of Buddhists quoting
such Christian authors as Professor
Butler, Bishop Atkins, Lesky, Luther
and others. They have adopted Chris
tan hymns wholesale, substituting the
name of Buddha for that OF Jesus. But
the story of Buddhism's decline can
be read in remark of a Buddhist
priest to an American missionary.
we have no love in our religion.
Christianity has. You will therefore
succeed"
ALLEN SANGREE.