tman_and_moksa

SR No.: 020053
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G N Joshi
Publisher: Gujarat University
Publication Year: 1965
Total Pages: 901
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 12 MB

Page 190

Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
158
Ātmap and Moksa
ontological and metaphysical inquiries of Buddhism were subservient to the primary end of them, which was attainment of perfection of life in the form of Nirvāņa. Buddha's mission of life was not to reveal truth but to help men to free themselves from the all-pervading sorrow and pain of life. His preaching appears, therefore, to possess more moral fervour than epistomological and logical approach to problems of life. He says "The best refuge is to understand pain, the origin of pain, the destruction of pain and the eightfold holy way that leads to the quieting of pain."
It is necessary to understand properly the nature of sorrow. Buddhism believes in the universal impermanence of things. It is possible to infer the evanescence of things as the cause of sorrow. But Paul Dahlke makes them synonymous. He writes - “The sorrow of the Buddha is nothing else but the perception of the transiency of all that has arisen. Life and transiency become synonymous ideas; whether he life an earthly or a heavenly one makes no
ifference whatever; life and transiency are one and the same.”? Thus sorrow is another word for transiency of life. Every human experience is only a passing phase of human life and possesses only a limited duration. The duration of the lives of things may change, but nothing remains for ever. One's mind attaches itself to pleasurable things and avoids all unpleasant and painful objects and experiences.
1 Max Müller (Tr.): Dhammapada, 191, p. 52. 2 Dahlke Paul : Buddhist Essays, pp. 68-69.
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