The Equinox (Volume I, Number III)

THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING gutless; puritanic, pharisaical and “suburban” as any seven- teenth century presbyter, as biliously narrow-minded as any of the present day Bethelites, Baptists, and Bible-beer brewers.* The dogmatism of literal Buddhism appalled him. The Five Precepts, which are the Yama and Niyama of Buddhism, he at once saw, in spite of Nagasena and prig Milinda, must be broken by every Arahat each time he inhaled a breath of air. They were as absurd as they were valueless. But behind all this tantalizing frou-frou, this lingerie de cocotte, beautifully designed to cover the narded limbs of foolish virgins, sits the Buddha in silent meditation; so that P. soon discovered that by stripping his body of all these tawdry trappings, this feminine under-wear, and by utterly discarding the copy-book precepts of Baptistical Buddhists, the Four Noble Truths were none other than the complete Yoga, and that in The Three Characteristics + the summit of philosophy (The Ruach) had been reached. The terrific strain of Asana and Pranayama, the two chief exercises of Hathavidya, P., by months of trial proved to be * Buddhism as a schism from the Brahminical religion may in many respects be compared with Lutheranism as a schism from the Catholic Church, Both Buddha and Luther set aside the authority of miracles, and appealed to the reason of the middle classes of their day. The Vedas were the outcome of aristocratic thought; and so in truth was the Christianity of Constantine and the Popes, that full-blooded Christianity which so soon swallowed the mystical Christ and the anaemic communism of the canazlle which followed him. Conven- tional Buddhism is pre-eminently the “nice” religion of the bourgeoisie; it neither panders to the superstition of the masses nor palliates the gallantries of the aristocracy; it is essentially middle-class; and this no doubt is the chief reason why it has met with a kindly reception by this nation of shop-walkers. t+ Anikka, Change; Dukka, Sorrow; Anatta, Absence of an Ego. IV N 193