Kamma is no cord binding the existences together--as little so as the
lightning of the firmament is a cord. The notion of a persisting “self”
or “soul” is repeatedly and emphatically repudiated.
“Further, one may entertain the notion: ‘This identical self of mine,
I maintain, is veritably to be found now here, now there, reaping the
fruits of its good and of its evil deeds; and this my self is a thing
permanent, constant, eternal, not subject to change, and so abides for
ever.’ But this, monks, is a walking in mere opinion, a resorting to
mere notions, a barren waste of views, an empty display of views; this
is merely to writhe, caught in the toils of views”; runs a passage in
the second Sutta of the _Majjhima Nikāya_. While we find Buddhaghosa’s
great commentary, the _Visuddhi Magga_, saying: “There is no entity,
no living principle, no elements of being, transmigrated from the last
existence into the present one.”
* * * * *