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In the bazaars nothing was selling, and no man did anything but mumble or eat, save the few scholars who, cross-legged on their mats, read and laboured towards Nirvana. Priests in their yellow robes and with bare shoulders went by, oblivious of all things.
Each open lattice of hoary stone reveals an enthroned Buddha, mysteriously enclosed in his symbolical screen, for these triple terraces typify the higher circles of Nirvana. Each dreamy face turns towards the supreme Shrine of the glorious sanctuary, a domed dagoba fifty feet high, and once containing some authentic relic of the Buddha's sacred person.
The new Advent, as that at Bethlehem, is a turning-point of time; the gloomy winter of pessimism is turning to a hopeful spring. "The dew is on the lotus. Rise, good sun! And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave. The sunrise comes! The dewdrop slips into the shining sea. If any teach Nirvana is to cease, Say unto such they lie. If any teach Nirvana is to live, Say unto such they err."
At this time Anuruddha, "not stopped" by the world, "not stopped" from being delivered, the stream of birth and death forever "stopped," sighed forth the praises of Tathâgata's Nirvâna: "All living things completely blind and dark! the mass of deeds all perishing, even as the fleeting cloud-pile!
Would you have pleasure, or would you practise that which brings it near? then prepare yourself by deeds that bring the fourth birth: but still the five ways in the wheel of birth and death are like the uncertain wandering of the stars; for heavenly beings too must suffer change: how shall we find with men a hope of constancy; Nirvâna! that is the chief rest; composure! that the best of all enjoyments!
In the greater part of the Lotus he is the principal Bodhisattva and instructs Maitreya, because, though his youth is eternal, he has known many Buddhas through innumerable ages. The Lotus also recounts how he visited the depths of the sea and converted the inhabitants thereof and how the Lord taught him what are the duties of a Bodhisattva after the Buddha has entered finally into Nirvana.
In a word: a sinless life, attainable by man, through his own exertions in this world, above all the powers or beings of the universe, is the essence of original Buddhism. Original Nirvana meant death which ends all, extinction of existence. Gautama's immediate purpose was to emancipate himself and his followers from the fetters of Brahminism.
In normal saints both sides are developed: raptures and trances are their delight and luxury. But in some cases nirvana may be attained by insight only: in others meditation may lead to ecstasy and more than human powers of mind but yet stop short of nirvana.
All who have conformed their life activities to the divine law of action, which may be tersely stated as "Not mine, but thine, dear brother," will have achieved the goal of the soul's purpose will have found Nirvana. During what is historically known as the Dark Ages, the esoteric meaning of religious practices became obscured.
Long afterward, when Buddhist believers came to Japan, one of them, climbing Fuji, noticed that around its sunken crater were eight peaks, like the petals of their sacred lotus flower. Thus, it seemed to them, Great Buddha had honored Japan, by bestowing the sacred symbol of Nirvana, or Heaven, on the proudest and highest part of Japan.
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