[FN#336] The states of—­(1) heavenly beings, (2) men, (3) beings in hell, (4) hungry spirits, (5) beasts.

If it be said that it is the mind that produces Karma (I ask), what is the mind?  If you mean the heart, the heart is a material thing, and is located within the body.  How can it, by coming quickly into the eyes and ears, distinguish the pleasing from the disgusting in external objects?  If there be no distinction between the pleasing and the disgusting, why does it accept the one or reject the other?

Besides, the heart is as much material and impenetrable as the eyes, ears, hands, and feet.  How, then, can the heart within freely pass to the organs of sense without?  How can this one put the others in motion, or communicate with them, in order to co-operate in producing Karma?  If it be said that only such passions as joy, anger, love, and hatred act through the body and the mouth and enable them to produce Karma, (I should say) those passions—­joy, anger, and the rest—­are too transitory, and come and go in a moment.  They have no Substance (behind their appearances).  What, then, is the chief agent that produces Karma?

It might be said that we should not seek after (the author of Karma) by taking mind and body separately (as we have just done), because body and mind, as a whole, conjointly produce Karma.  Who, then, after the destruction of body by death, would receive the retribution (in the form) of pain or of pleasure?

If it be assumed that another body is to come into existence after death, then the body and mind of the present life, committing sins or cultivating virtues, would cause another body and mind in the future which would suffer from the pains or enjoy the pleasures.  Accordingly, those who cultivate virtues would be extremely unlucky, while those who commit sins very lucky.  How can the divine law of causality be so unreasonable?  Therefore we (must) acknowledge that those who merely follow this doctrine are far from a thorough understanding of the origin of life, though they believe in the theory of Karma.

2.  The Doctrine of the Hinayanists.

This doctrine tells us that (both) the body, that is formed of matter, and the mind, that thinks and reflects, continually exist from eternity to eternity, being destroyed and recreated by means of direct or indirect causes, just as the water of a river glides continually, or the flame of a lamp keeps burning constantly.  Mind and body unite themselves temporarily, and seem to be one and changeless.  The common people, ignorant of all this, are attached to (the two combined) as being Atman.[FN#337]

[FN#337] Atman means ego, or self, on which individuality is based.

For the sake of this Atman, which they hold to be the most precious thing (in the world), they are subject to the Three Poisons Of lust,[FN#338] anger,[FN#339] and folly,[FN#340] which (in their turn) give impulse to the will and bring forth Karma of all kinds through speech and action.  Karma being thus produced, no one can evade its effects.  Consequently all must be born[FN#341] in the Five States of Existence either to suffer pain or to enjoy pleasure; some are born in the higher places, while others in the lower of the Three Worlds.[FN#342]