“He who is born--is he the same or is he another?” “Neither the same,
neither another.”
“Give me an illustration!” “Suppose a man to light a lamp: would it
burn the whole night through?” “Yes, it would burn the whole night
through.” “Now, is the flame of the first watch the same with the
flame of the middle watch?” “No, indeed!” “Or is the flame of the
middle watch the same with the flame of the last watch?” “No, indeed!”
“Then is the lamp of the first watch one, the lamp of the middle watch
another, and the lamp of the last watch yet another?” “No, indeed! In
dependence upon one and the same (lamp) the light burns all the night
through.” “Even so does the continuity of men and things come about.
One arises, another passes away. On the instant, as it were, without
before or after, the linking up is effected. Thus it is not oneself,
nor yet is it another, that passes on (and constitutes) each last
present phase of consciousness.”
With this we arrive at the crucial point. _The passing over ensues on
the instant, immediately, not in space and time._
Buddhism, if it is to satisfy the thinker, here will have to come to an
understanding with modern physics. In a succeeding essay this will be
attempted. For the present, as preliminary, we hold fast only to the
fact.
The _I_-process as being the form of an _in-force_, at every moment of
its existence represents a certain value in potential energy, a certain
unique state of tension, an individual tendency. This tendency it is
which at the breaking up of the old form immediately establishes itself
in the new location.
But where? Is this new location always ready waiting to take up the new
Kamma?
A universe that consists of nothing but a huge summation of combustion
processes, finds itself, so to speak, in a perpetual _status nascens_.
Here every fresh moment represents a new, unique, biological, Kammic
value, which as such never before has been and never again will be.
Now all actual happenings come to pass in virtue of peculiar
attunements--in the language of chemistry, specific affinities. A
body, a process, acts upon another because in virtue of its peculiar
attunement it can and must act on that other. But where the entire
universe is a something existing in a perpetual _status nascens_, there
is, strictly speaking, no such thing as a _being attuned_, but only
an _each-after-other self-attuning_, taking place anew with each new
moment. The entire actual happenings of a world from this point of view
become something that does not _have laws_, but _is law itself_; a
thought as sublime as it is terrible. The significance of Buddhism for
a morality is completely dominated by it.
Hence, where the actual play of world-events alone is in question,
the same is indicated by the word “Dhamma” (law or norm). All beings,
even as they are Sankhāra, are also Dhamma.[10] Kamma, the individual
_in-force_, at the break up of the form, will “take hold” anew there
where in the beginningless each-after-other self-attunement of the
play of world-events, it can take hold--indeed, _must_ take hold. This
“taking hold” anew is not something that _has_ law, that runs its
appointed course according to definite laws, but it _is_ law itself.
Now Kamma, as individual _in-force_, is a something unique. It is
_itself_ and nothing else besides, as it manifests itself in me the
individual; for my consciousness tells me that I am a something unique,
that I am myself and nothing else besides.
As a something unique, it must also be uniquely attuned to its
new location. There will be one single location which, out of the
endless host of world-events, will correspond to the Kamma of the
disintegrating existence, will answer to it. _We all eat out of the one
dish--every one eater for himself._
_This unique attunement, however, implies immediate passing over as
a logical necessity._ If Kamma passed over in space and time, this
passing over would be a new self-attunement at innumerable points.
Immediate passing over and unique attunement are two different
expressions for one and the same event.
We shall have to dwell upon this idea at greater length in another
place. Here I conclude with the caution that the Kamma-teaching
of the Buddha is not to be confounded with the teaching of the
transmigration of the soul found in pantheistic systems. The two have
nothing, absolutely nothing, in common with one another except the
words “Samsāra” and “re-births.” Language is no more than a servant. It
serves one master just as well as another. To seek to deduce community
of essence from similarities in terminology is a piece of idle trifling
of which many an expositor of Buddhism is most unwarrantably guilty.
It is no very difficult matter to “support” the words of the Buddha
with quite a host of sayings culled from the works of mystics and
pantheists--and scientists also, if one so chooses. But in good sooth,
to him who understands, all this only makes needless ballast, and to
him who does not understand, needless perplexity.
A transmigration of the soul requires something persistent, something
eternal, a unity in itself. “As the worm from leaf to leaf”--runs the
illustration in the Upanishads--“so goes the soul (the Atman, the true
Self) from existence to existence.”
For the Buddha there is no such “something in itself.” For the real,
genuine thinker life is a thing that at every moment wholly and
completely arises anew. Life is this arising itself, just as a flame
is the arising itself. _Any kind of persisting something here is not
to be found._ Every moment of existence is a new, biological, Kammic
value, whereof the prerequisite condition, the adequate cause, resides
solely in the previous moment, while itself is prerequisite condition,
adequate cause to the moment succeeding. _No continuity_ is present,
as a Being, as a true _I_, a something identical with itself, _but
with each new moment the continuity is formed anew_; every moment is
the last link in a beginningless series; every _now_ the final result
of an individual combustion process that, hither descended from past
beginninglessness, continues to burn on through future endlessness; the
Kamma whereof, as oft as one form falls to pieces, without break seizes
hold of a new raw-material. It is no persisting something in itself
that passes over; it is the individual tendency, the predispositions,
the character, the consciousness, or whatever else one has a mind to
call the value in potential energy represented by the _I_-process at
its disintegration, that passes over, by _immediately_ taking effect,
striking in, imparting the new impulse to the material to which it is
uniquely attuned--the material that appeals to it alone of all that is
present, and to which it alone of all that is present, answers.