in the blissful quiescence of Nirvana” [p. 186].  “In desire alone lies all the ill.  Quench the desire, and the deeds [sins of the flesh] will die of inanition.  Get rid, then, said Buddha, of these passions, these strivings, for the sake of self.  As a man becomes conscious that he himself is something distinct from his body, so if he reflect and ponder, he will come to see that in like manner, his appetites, ambitions, hopes, are really extrinsic to the spirit proper....  Behind desire, behind even the will, lies the soul, the same for all men, one with the soul of the universe.  When he has once realized this eternal truth, the man has entered Nirvana....  It [Nirvana] is simply the recognition of the eternal oneness of the two [the individual and the universal soul]” [p. 189].

Accepting this description of philosophic Buddhism as fairly accurate, it is plain that the attainment of this consciousness of the unity of the individual self with the universal is the result, according to Buddha, and also according to the advocates of “impersonality,” of a highly developed consciousness of self.  It is not a simple state of undifferentiated mind, but a complex and derivative one—­absolutely incomprehensible to a primitive people.  The means for this suppression of self depends entirely on the development of the consciousness of self.  The self is the means for casting out the self, and it is done by that introspection which ultimately leads to the realization of the unity.  If, then, Japanese Buddhism seeks to suppress the self, this very effort is the most conclusive proof we could demand of the possession by this people of a highly developed consciousness of self.

It is one of the boasts of Buddhism that a man’s saviour is himself; no other helper, human or divine, can do aught for him.  Those who reject Christianity in Christian lands are quite apt to praise Buddhism for this rejection of all external help.  They urge that by the very nature of the case salvation is no external thing; each one must work out his own salvation.  It cannot be given by another.  Salvation through an external Christ who lived 1900 years ago is an impossibility.  Such a criticism of Christianity shows real misunderstanding of the Christian doctrine and method of salvation.  Yet the point to which attention is here directed is not the correctness or incorrectness of these characterizations of Christianity, but rather to the fact that “ji-riki,” salvation through self-exertion, which is the boast of Buddhism, is but another proof of the essentially self-conscious character of Buddhism.  It aims at Nirvana, it is true, at self-suppression, but it depends on the attainment of clear self-consciousness in the first place, and then on prolonged self-exertion for the attainment of that end.  In proportion as Buddhism is esoteric is it self-conscious.