Towards the Truth

11
doctrine of action (kamma), on which two fundamentals are based
the whole system of ethics and the teaching of rebirth.
What is conventionally called the mind is nothing but mental activity,
i.e. sensations, perceptions, differentiations, and ideas. Apart
from these mental factors there is no mental entity, as there is no
river apart from the flowing water. The continuity of action deceives
many into the belief in an underlying substance, called soul.
It is, of course, impossible for a Buddhist to prove the non-existence
of a delusion.—The only thing we can do is to challenge all proofs
advanced in favour of the soul-idea.
Buddhism admits only the knowledge of phenomena which constantly
change; and it denies the necessity of a substance underlying
those phenomenal changes. Whatever there may appear as identical
in this process of change, is always identified with action. Without
action the ‘I’ cannot be conceived even, and there is nothing else
which deserves the designation ‘I’. In the same way as the matter
of the body is reduced to relative qualities without substantiality:
extension, cohesion, caloricity, oscillation—so the mind is even less
substantial as a process of thought, constantly arising and ceasing
with every new precept and concept. With all this change and nothing
but change, it is impossible to admit anything of a permanent
nature, for an actor without action is as unthinkable as a father
without a child, as a flame without burning. It is the productive
action which constitutes the actor, and apart from that action there
is none. It is the continuity of the process of action which brings
about in many the delusion of an entity.
If the soul is believed to be a substratum which remains the
same, while it supports changing phenomena which cannot exist
in themselves, it may be asked, what is it then that changes? If
the soul itself is subject to change, it cannot be distinguished from
phenomena, and its existence becomes entirely superfluous.
Thus the Buddhist doctrine of soullessness denies the existence
of an individual entity, but does not reject individuality of action.