But, how this too place, how the craving desire
produced this effect, was acknowledged to be a mystery patent only to
a Buddha." (Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, P. 95.)
Among the many parallelisms of Stoicism and Buddhism, it is curious to
find one for this Tanha, "thirst," or "craving desire" for life.
Seneca writes (Epist. lxxvi. 18): "Si enim ullum aliud est bonum quam
honestum, sequetur nos aviditas vitae aviditas rerum vitam
instruentium: quod est intolerabile infinitum, vagum."
Note 8 (P. 66).
"The distinguishing characteristic of Buddhism was that it started a
new line, that it looked upon the deepest questions men have to solve
from an entirely different standpoint. It swept away from the field of
its vision the whole of the great soul theory which had hitherto so
completely filled and dominated the minds of the superstitious and the
thoughtful alike. For the first time in the history of the world, it
proclaimed a salvation which each man could gain for himself and by
himself, in this world, during this life, without any the least
reference to God, or to Gods, either great or small. Like the
Upanishads, it placed the first importance on knowledge; but it was no
longer a knowledge of God, it was a clear perception of the real
nature, as [97] they supposed it to be, of men and things.
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