Rev. Danny Fisher

Today’s quote comes to us from Bhadantācariya Buddhaghosa, the great Indian Buddhist scholar of the fifth century, whom I first quoted and write a little biography for in this post.  Here’s the quote, from his Visuddhimagga as translated by Henry Clarke Warren and published in The Teachings of the Buddha, ed. Jack Kornfield, pg. 18:

When body and mind dissolve, they do not exist anywhere, any more than musical notes lay heaped up anywhere.  When a lute is played upon, there is no previous store of sound; and when the music ceases it does not go anywhere in space.  It came into existence on account of the structure and stem of the lute and the exertions of the performer; and as it came into existence so it passes away.

In exactly the same way, all the elements of being, both corporeal and non-corporeal, come into existence after having been non-existent; and having come into existence pass away.

There is no self residing in the body and mind, but the cooperation of the conformations produces what people call a person.  Paradoxical though it may seem: There is a path to walk on, there is walking being done, but there is no traveler.  There are deeds being done, but there is no doer.  There is blowing of the air, but there is no wind that does the blowing.  The thought of self is an error and all existences are as hollow as the plantain tree and as empty as twirling water bubbles.