“Does the perfect Buddha live on beyond death, or does he not?  It pleases me not that all this should remain unanswered, and I do not think it right.  May it please the Master to answer me if he can.  But when anyone does not understand a matter, then a straightforward man says, ’I do not know that.’” The Buddha replies somewhat evasively that he has not undertaken to decide such questions, because they are not for spiritual edification.

The question, What is Nirvana? has been the object of more extensive discussion than its importance demands.  Practically, the millions of Buddhists are not concerned with the question.  They find no attraction in either view.  They desire neither extinction nor unconscious absorption into the Boddhi essence (or Brahm).  What they anticipate is an improved transmigration, a better birth.  The more devout may indulge the hope that their next life will be spent in one of the Buddhist heavens; others may aspire to be men of high position and influence.  The real heaven to which the average Buddhist looks forward is apt to be something very much after his own heart, or at least something indicated by the estimate which he himself places upon his own character and life.  There may be many transmigrations awaiting him, but he is chiefly concerned for the next in order.  The very last object to excite his interest is that far-off shadow called Nirvana.

In estimating the conflict of Christianity with Buddhism we must not take counsel merely of our own sense of the absurdity of Gautama’s teachings; we are to remember that in Christian lands society is made up of all kinds of people; that outside of the Christian Church there are thousands, and even millions, who, with respect to faith, are in utter chaos and darkness.  The Church therefore cannot view this subject from its own stand-point merely.  Let us glance at certain features of Buddhism which render it welcome to various classes of men who dwell among us in Western lands.  First of all, the system commends itself to many by its intense individualism.  Paul’s figure of the various parts of the human frame as illustrating the body of Christ, mutual in the interdependence of all its members, would be wholly out of place in Buddhism.  Even the Buddhist monks are so many units of introverted self-righteousness.  And individualism differently applied is the characteristic of our age, and therefore a bond of sympathy is supplied.  “Every man for himself,” appeals to modern society in many ways.

Again, Gautama magnified the human intellect and the power of the human will.  “O Ananda,” he said, “be lamps unto yourselves; depend upon no other.”  He claimed to have thought out, and thought through every problem of existence, to have penetrated every secret of human nature in the present, and in the life to come, and his example was commended to all, that they might follow in their measure.  So also our transcendental philosophers have glorified the powers and possibilities of humanity, and have made genius superior to saintliness.[87] There are tens of thousands who in this respect believe in a religion of humanity, and who worship, if they worship at all, the goddess of reason.  All such have a natural affinity for Buddhism.