self-erasure

Updated: May 4, 2025

For the chief of these he went to that system of philosophy which rests on the idea that the world is to be redeemed by negation of the will to live, the conquering of all desire that the highest happiness is the achievement of nirvana, nothingness. In the reformed Brahmanism called Buddhism, there appeared along with the old principle of self-erasure a compassionate sympathy for others.

Henry Edward Krehbiel - A Book of Operas : Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music