There is no exception to this rigorous law of retribution, and we take it as the will of Buddha to leave no action without being retributed.  Thus it is Buddha himself who kindles our inward fire to save ourselves from sin and crimes.  We must purge out all the stains in our hearts, obeying Buddha’s command audible in the innermost self of ours.  It is the great mercy of His that, however sinful, superstitious, wayward, and thoughtless, we have still a light within us which is divine in its nature.  When that light shines forth, all sorts of sin are destroyed at once.  What is our sin, after all?  It is nothing but illusion or error originating in ignorance and folly.  How true it is, as an Indian Mahayanist declares, that ’all frost and the dewdrops of sin disappear in the sunshine of wisdom!’[FN#221] Even if we might be imprisoned in the bottomless bell, yet let once the Light of Buddha shine upon us, it would be changed into heaven.  Therefore the author of Mahakarunika-sutra[FN#222] says:  “When I climb the mountain planted with swords, they would break under my tread.  When I sail on the sea of blood, it will be dried up.  When I arrive at Hades, they will be ruined at once.”

[FN#220] The retribution cannot be explained by the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul, for it is incompatible with the fundamental doctrine of non-soul.  See Abhidharmamahavibhasa-castra, vol. cxiv.

[FN#221] Samantabhadra-dhyana-sutra.

[FN#222] Nanjo’s Catalogue, No. 117.

10.  The Eternal Life as taught by Professor Munsterberg.

Some philosophical pessimists undervalue life simply because it is subject to limitation.  They ascribe all evils to that condition, forgetting that without limitation life is a mere blank.  Suppose our sight could see all things at once, then sight has no value nor use for us, because it is life’s purpose to choose to see one thing or another out of many; and if all things be present at once before us through sight, it is of no purpose.  The same is true of intellect, bearing, smell, touch, feeling, and will.  If they be limitless, they cease to be useful for us.  Individuality necessarily implies limitation, hence if there be no limitation in the world, then there is no room for individuality.  Life without death is no life at all.

Professor Hugo Munsterberg finds no value, so it seems to me, in ‘such life as beginning with birth and ending with death.’  He says:[FN#223] “My life as a causal system of physical and psychological processes, which lies spread out in time between the dates of my birth and of my death, will come to an end with my last breath; to continue it, to make it go on till the earth falls into the sun, or a billion times longer, would be without any value, as that kind of life which is nothing but the mechanical occurrence of physiological and psychological phenomena had as such no ultimate value for me or for you, or for anyone, at any time.  But my real life, as a system of interrelated-will-attitudes, has nothing before or after because it is beyond time.  It is independent of birth and death because it cannot be related to biological events; it is not born, and will not die; it is immortal; all possible thinkable time is enclosed in it; it is eternal.”