the human mind. Of course, every religion must find its culmination in our practical life and not in our abstract speculation. Yet we must seek a philosophical basis of conduct. And Buddhism finds this in the second stanza cited at the beginning of this discourse.

At the first blush the gatha seems to smack not a little of nihilism, as it apparently denies the existence of individuality. But those who stop short at this negative interpretation of it are not likely to grasp the deep signification of Buddhism. For Buddhism teaches in this gatha the existence of the highest reality that transcends the duality of body and mind as well as the limitations of time and space. Though this highest reality is the source of life, the ultimate reason of existence, and the norm of things multifarious and multitudinous, it has nothing particular in it, it cannot be designated by any determinative terms, it refuses to be expressed in the phraseology we use in our common parlance. Why? For it is an absolute unity, and there is nothing individual, particular, dualistic, and conditional. It is a great mistake, an intellectual weakness, to suppose that there is such a thing as a personal God or an immortal soul which stands like a mirror bright and shining and which is susceptible of contamination or corruption. For practical purposes we may provisionally admit the existence of an entity which some people call God and which is independent of this

world; we may again admit the existence of the soul which is the master of this material phenomenon called body. But to understand these things as actually existing as our short-sighted intellect conceives them will be a fatal mistake.

We must first directly comprehend the spiritual reason of things, and then let us with this insight look upon things that are about us. It would be madness to deny the reality of the phenomenal world, but in the midst of these realities the enlightened see their non-reality. There towers a huge mountain, here lies a boundless ocean, birds are singing, trees are growing, and I sit here looking over the verdant meadow; yet, in spite of all these, nay, indeed by reason of these, I believe in the nothingness of existence, in the non-reality of realities, and in the absolute oneness of all things; and it is thereby that I gain my peace of mind and realize the sense of perfect freedom in my everyday life.

All those moral laws and religious regulations which I at first found unreasonably fettering my free activity are now blessings, for I am no more than those laws and rules themselves. I have become master of them. I am the maker of all those moral laws, and my existence consists in the execution of them. I say this, my dear Christian audience, and then ask you, "Does your God feel himself hampered in his activity when he has so many laws of nature to observe? Does he, for instance, complain of the law of