Three kinds of books there are. First, those that give nothing and from which we demand nothing. These constitute the greater portion of the book-world; empty entertainment for the idle. Secondly, those books that give the unfamiliar and are unfamiliar to us—that is, demand only our memory. These are manuals of instruction presenting facts. And thirdly, those books that give themselves and demand ourselves. These are the books that are mental nutriment in the real sense of the words, and impart to the entire process of mental development a stimulus which, like the stimulus imparted to a growing tree, never again can be lost. The present book makes claim to belong to the last category. As something experienced by myself, it is meant to become such an experience to others.
The mental poverty of our time finds its most accurate expression in the prevalent lack of individual experience. We are not impressed where we ought to be impressed, because we allow ourselves to be impressed where in truth there is nothing impressive. We mistake our true interests. The interesting is something in which we have an interest, in which we have a share. But there has been such a derangement of positions that in presence of our true interests we stand stupid spectators, whilst for the interesting in the banal sense, we are ready to go through fire and flood. To the average man of to-day it is far more interesting to read hair-splitting investigations into the question as to whether Christianity is a branch of Buddhism or Buddhism of Christianity, than to think out and live that which both have taught and continue to teach.
All this is inherent in the conditions under which we live at the present time.
Thought is ever confronted by life as by a question—a question that of necessity becomes actual in me, the thinker. For as a candle illuminates a certain portion of space and thereby first calls forth question-raising objects, so does thought itself illuminate these stellar spaces and thereby first calls forth question-raising objects. The I is the natural point of departure of every view of the world, being the objective as well as the subjective point of departure. Now that philosophy, in the endeavour to construct a world-conception out of pure thought alone, has come to ruin on her own nothingness, natural science has constituted itself the emissary of the world-conception idea, and in contradistinction to philosophy has sought to realize it over the head of the I, so to speak—an attempt which, despite all its grandeur, is forever doomed to failure, seeing that, as the last to include the I itself in this world-theory, the problem is insoluble. Hence the fact that we no longer possess a philosophy such as the ancients and the schoolmen possessed; and do not yet possess a natural science that can give us any genuine aid.
Every thinker, every seeker—and every thinker is a seeker—is to-day in a state of mental interregnum. And it is the hope of this book that, as masses of atmosphere in labile equilibrium frequently at the slightest impulse break into whirling motion, so also the minds of our time that are in this state of labile equilibrium may prove themselves still more susceptible to stimuli, and respond, if not exactly with a mental typhoon, at least with a gentle zephyr.
Three kinds of men there are. First, the indifferent, comparable to the inert bodies of chemistry. To them applies the saying of Confucius, “Rotten wood cannot be turned.” Secondly, the believers, comparable to those chemical bodies whose affinities are satisfied. In so far as their faith is genuine, to these applies already during their lifetime, the parable of beggar Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom. And thirdly there is the thinking class, destitute of faith, corresponding to chemical bodies in the nascent state. To them applies that word of the Buddha, “Painful is all life.”
Our book has value only for this third, last kind. The indifferent, however highly educated he may be, will never give himself the trouble to think it out; and with the believer it will only provoke contradiction.
A thinker destitute of faith I call him who at the idea of endlessness, which none who thinks at all can escape, reacts with that psychic uneasiness which may be compared with the purely intellectual uneasiness one experiences in presence of the irrational in mathematics, both, as a matter of fact, being also analogues.
The circle of readers of this book is thus circumscribed in advance. But the few for whom it is written, they are the few that count.
Three questions there are that before all else occupy every thinking man, and always have occupied him. The question, “What am I?” The question, “How must I comport myself?” The question, “To what end am I here?” This “what,” this “how,” this “to what end,”—these are the subjects of contention in all mental life. It is not every one who, like Emperor Augustus of old, can withdraw from this scene of things with a plaudite amici. There are minds to whom life is more than a play, and all that is transient more than a symbol.
It is the negative task of this book to show that neither faith nor science supply such an answer to these questions as can satisfy the thinking man. It is the positive task of this book to show that a solution of these three questions is furnished in the Buddha-thought, but in a form so strange at first sight, that until now it has achieved no practical importance. Trained one-sidedly to inductive attempts at concepts, we know not how to translate into modern prose these enigmatic formulas of thought. We know not what to make of a Nirvana—the epitome of all blessedness and yet no heaven. We know not what to make of a Karma that from beginninglessness binds existence to existence and yet is no soul. And so the truest of all teachings, uncomprehended by philosophy, unheeded by natural science, is lost to us and to the needs of our time.
The question arises, How comes it that Buddhism has always remained essentially alien to us, a sort of mental curiosity?
To this I give the answer, brief and blunt, It is not understood. That is only too painfully evident from the literature published about it. Here I do not at all refer to those commonplace compilations that simply swarm with misconceptions. It is just the best books on the subject which reveal how far removed it is beyond our powers of apprehension.
I am prepared to have reproach brought against me; first, that in many places I have become polemical, and secondly, that I have not sufficiently studied that tone of affected diffidence such as has become the fashion in our books, just in so far as they deal with the theme of a world-conception.
As to the first point, I can bear witness that nowhere have I indulged in polemics for polemics’ sake. It is with the Buddha-thought as with many a colossal edifice, whereof the greatness only becomes apparent by comparison with ordinary erections. As in the case of the pyramids of Gizeh, the endless background of the desert offers no fitting standard of measurement for their greatness, so the Buddha-thought, when projected upon beginninglessness alone, offers nothing by which its greatness can be measured. One must place by its side other mental structures if one is ever to be able to reveal it in all its stupendous proportions. It is easy to understand that in this case simple comparison must already amount to polemics.
As to the second point, my opinion is this: Either one has something useful to contribute, in which case one does not need to practise this affected diffidence, or else one has nothing useful to contribute, in which case one does not need to write at all. I dare speak thus because I bring nothing of my own, but only speak in the place of a Greater. “We do not know, but there is no sound reason for doubting that so-and-so,” and all such phrases, howsoever couched, by means of which an endlessly considerable probability is intended to be smuggled into the ranks of truth, are quite uncalled for in a teaching like that of the Buddha. Whoso knows, “Thus it is,” simply says, “Thus it is.”