BUDDHIST ESSAYS - PB

About the Book:-The author reveals that the following essays contain nothing new or original concerning Buddhism, but they may perhaps serve to render easier the understanding of some so-called obscure points in the teaching of the Buddha. What claim — if any — this work may have to superiority over many others upon the same subject, rests in this — that it is the outcome, not only of the study of books, but also of personal intercourse with native scholars both in Ceylon and Burma. Buddhism, that wonderful teaching which declares life to be sorrow and yet is free from pessimism; which apparently inculcates the profoundest egoism and yet is charged with the loftiest morality; which denies the " I," the soul, and yet teaches absolute responsibility for their own deeds through rebirth; which is without God or faith or prayer and yet offers the most certain salvation, — this wonderful teaching was founded by Gautama, of the aristocratic Sakya clan — the "proud Sakyas." He saw and felt that all life was sorrow, and, pained and disgusted, "black-haired, in the bloom of youth," he left his father's palace as a mendicant, in order that by religious exercises and mortifications he might find salvation from the universal sorrow.