“It may be, my disciples, that your thought is: ‘The Word has lost its Master; we have no longer a Master.’ But this ye are not to think. The doctrine, my disciples, which I have taught you, that will be your Master, when I am gone. Therefore, cling to no external support. Hold fast to the doctrine as a support! Be your own light, your own support.”
Me also he noticed then—full of pity did the look of the All-Pitiful One rest on me, and I felt that my pilgrimage had not been in vain.
After a short time he spoke again—
“It might perhaps be, my disciples, that in some one of you a doubt should arise with regard to the Master or with regard to the doctrine. Ask freely, disciples, in order that ye may not have to reproach yourselves later, that ye may not say: ‘The Master was with us, face to face, and we did not ask him.’ ”
Thus he spoke, and gave to everyone the opportunity of speaking, but all remained silent.
How, indeed, could a doubt have remained in the presence of the parting Master? Lying there, with the gentle light of the moon flowing over him—as though heavenly genii were preparing his last bath; rained upon by the falling blossoms—as though earth were bewailing her loss; in the midst of the deeply moved band of disciples, himself unmoved, quiet, cheerful; who did not feel that this Perfectly Holy One had forever cast off all imperfections, had overcome all evil? What is called “the visible Nirvana,” that we saw before us, in the luminous features of the departing Buddha.
Ananda, stirred to the very depths of his soul, folded his hands and said—
“How wonderful, of a truth, O Master, is this. Verily, I believe, in this whole assembly, there is not even one in whom a doubt lives.”
And the Sublime One answered him—
“Out of the fullness of thine own faith hast thou spoken, Ananda. But I know that there is not a doubt in anyone. Even he, who was most backward, has been enlightened, and will finally reach the goal.”
As he uttered this promise, it assuredly seemed to each one of us as though a powerful hand were opening the Gateway of Eternity to him.
Once again the lips parted that had given to the world the highest—the final—truth.
“Hear then, O disciples! verily, I say unto you, fleeting is all form. Labour and rest not.”
These were the Master’s last words.
XLIV
Vasitthi’s Bequest
And they were the last I heard on earth.
My life-force was exhausted; fever held my senses in thrall. Like fleeting dream-pictures, I still saw figures round about me—Medini’s face often near to mine. Then everything became dark. Suddenly, however, it seemed as if a cool bath were extinguishing my burning fever. I felt as a traveller, standing on the brink of a pond in the blazing sun, may well imagine to himself the lotus feels when, wholly submerged in the cool water of the spring, it imbibes a refreshing draught through every fibre. At the same time it grew light overhead, and I saw there above me a great floating red lotus flower; and over its edge bent thy loved face. Then I ascended without effort and awoke beside thee in the Paradise of the West.
“And blessings on thee,” said Kamanita, “that led by thy love, thou didst take that way. Where should I have now been, if thou hadst not joined me there? True, I don’t know whether we shall be able to rescue ourselves out of the frightful wreckage of these ruined worlds—nevertheless, thou dost inspire me with confidence, for thou art seemingly as little disturbed by all these horrors as the sunbeam by the storm.”
“He who has seen the greater, my friend, is not moved by the less. And this, that thousands upon thousands of worlds should pass away, is of trifling import compared with the entering of a Perfected Buddha into Nirvana. For all this that we see around us is only a process of change, and all these beings will enter again into existence. Yonder hundred-thousandfold Brahma who, burning with rage, resists the inevitable and, in all probability, regards even us enviously because we quietly continue to shine, he will reappear on some lower plane, while some aspiring human spirit will arise as the Brahma. Each being will be where the deepest desire of his heart and his spiritual force guide him. On the whole, however, everything will be as it was, neither better nor worse; because it will be created, as it were, out of the same material. For which reason I call this a very small matter. And, for the same reason, I consider it not only not frightful, but a matter of rejoicing to live through this wreck of worlds. For if this Brahma world were eternal, there would be nothing higher.”
“Then thou knowest a higher than this Brahma world?”
“This Brahma world, as thou seest, passes away. But there is that which does not pass, which shall have no end, and which has had no beginning. ‘There is,’ says the Master, ‘a place where there is neither earth nor water, neither light nor air, neither infinitude of space nor infinitude of consciousness, neither perception nor the lack of perception. That I call, ye disciples, neither coming nor going, neither birth nor death; that is the end of suffering, the place of rest, the land of peace, the invisible Nirvana.’ ”
“Help me, thou sweet and holy one, in order that we may rise again there, in the land of peace!”
“ ‘That we shall rise again,’ the Master has said, ‘is not true of that land;’ and ‘That we shall not rise again’ is also not true. Any appellation by which thou dost make anything whatsoever tangible, and capable of being grasped, is untrue there.”
“But what is the value to me of that which I cannot
