"My young friend," replied Acvaghosha, "the first great truth is truly obvious to any one who knows the nature of life. Life consists of separation and combination; it is a constant meeting and parting and has in store both pains and pleasures. Prove to me that life be possible without any change, and I will begin to doubt the first of the four great truths. But if life is suffering, no being has a right to blame Amitabha for existing. All beings exist by their own karma; they are the incarnation of deeds of their former existences; they are such as they are by their own determination,

having fashioned themselves under the influence of circumstances.

"By Amitabha all beings are merely educated in the school of life. Some have gained more insight than others. Some love the light, others hate it. Some rise to the pure heights of Buddhahood, and others grovel in the dust to take delight in badness and deeds of darkness. Amitabha is like the rain that falls upon the earth without discrimination. The seeds of herbs assimilate the water that falls from the clouds of heaven in a refreshing spring shower, and grow to be herbs each of its kind. Fernspores become ferns, acorns change the water into the leaves and wood and bark of oak trees, and the germs of fruit trees fashion it into fruit, each of its own kind, into mangoes, bananas, dates, figs, pomegranates, and other savory fruits. Amitabha is the same to all, as the water of the refreshing rain is the same: but diverse creatures make a different use of the benefits of truth, and each one is responsible for itself. Each one has originated in ignorance by its own blind impulses, each one, in its own field of experience, has learned the

lesson of life in its own way, and each one can blame no one but itself for what it is and has become--except that it ought to be grateful for the light that Amitabha sheds upon the course of its development.

"Amitabha is not a god that would assert himself or care for worship and adoration. He does not think and act and do deeds. He is not Ishvara, not Sakra, not Indra, not Brahma: He is the norm of all existence, the good law, the order and intrinsic harmony that shows itself in cause and effect, in the bliss of goodness, in the curse of evil-doing. He is above all the gods, and everything that is has been fashioned by him according to the eternal ordinances of his constitution.

"We are not creatures of Amitabha, we are creatures of our own making. Life starts in ignorance. It begins with blind impulses, and life's start is life's own doing. But as soon as an impulse acts and is reacted upon, it is encompassed by the good law and thus it is educated by Amitabha and raised by him as children are nourished by their mother and instructed

by their father. We are not the creatures of Amitabha, but his children.