SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM
259
The mind is a machine that reasons: here
are its results. Very good; can it do any-
thing else? This is the question not only
of the Buddhist; but of the Hindu, of the
Mohammedan, of the Mystic. All try their
various methods ; all attain results of sorts ;
none have had the genuine training which
would have enabled them to record those
results in an intelligible, orderly form.
Others deliberately set their face against
such an attempt. I am not of them;
humanity has grown up; if the knowledge
be dangerous in unsuspected ways, what of
bacteriology? I have obtained one result;
a result striking “at the very condition of
consciousness; which I may formulate as
follows:
‘‘Tf a single state of consciousness persist
unchanged
for a period exceeding a very few
seconds, its duality is annihilated ; its nature
is violently overthrown ; this phenomenon is
accompanied by an indescribable sensation
of bliss.”
Very well! but I want this formula verified
a hundred times, a thousand times, by in-
dependent investigators. I want it better
stated; its conditions modified, defined ex-
actly. I want it to leave its humble station
as my observation, and put into the class of
regular phenomena.
But I am verging back towards Hindu
philosophy, and it is a reminder well needed
at this moment. For this experience of the
destruction of duality, this first phenomenon
in the series, has, in all its illusory beauty,
been seized upon, generalised from, by philo-
sophers, and it is to this basis of partial and
therefore deceptive fact that we owe the
systems of Vedanta and Idealism, with
their grotesque assumptions and muddle-
headed ‘‘ reconcilements ”’ all complete.
One fact, O Sri Cankaracharya, does not
make a theory; let us remember your fate,
and avoid generalising on insufficient evi-
dence. With this word of warning, I leave
the metaphysician to wallow in his mire,
and look toward better times for the great
problems of philosophy. Remember that
when the solution is attained it is not the
solution of one learned man for his fellows,
but one realised and assimilated by every
man in his own consciousness.
And what the solution may be none of us
can foreshadow. To hoist the problem on
to the horns of a dilemma will avail nothing
when A=A may be no longer true ; and this
by no Hegelian word-juggle ; but by direct
apperception as clear as the sun at noon.
Therefore ; no word more, but—to the
work !
XII.
THE THREE REFUGES,
Buddham Saranangachami.
Dhammam Saranangachami.
Sangham Saranangachami.
I take my refuge in the Buddha.
I take my refuge in the Dhamma.
I take my refuge in the Sangha.
This formula of adhesion to Buddhism
is daily repeated by countless millions of
humanity; what does it mean? It is no vain
profession of reliance on others ; no cowardly
shirking of burdens—burdens which cannot
be shirked. It is a plain estimate of our
auxiliaries in the battle; the cosmic facts on
which we may rely, just as a scientist “relies ”
on the conservation of energy in making an
experiment. .
Were that principle of uncertain applica-
tion, the simplest quantitative experiment
would break hopelessly down.
So for the Buddhist.
I take my refuge in the Buddha, That
there was once a man who found the Way
is my encouragement.
I take my refuge inthe Dhamma. The Law
underlying phenomena and its unchanging
certainty ; the Law given by the Buddha to
show us the Way, the inevitable tendency to
Persistence in Motion or Rest—and Persist-
ence, even in Motion, negates | change in
consciousness—these observed orders of fact
are our bases.