Towards the Truth

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38 tions, acting as conditions, that would not give any absolute or independent state to either cause or effect, as both remain mere aspects of the entire process. And as aspects they are necessarily incomplete. An aspect, therefore, will appear to have a beginning, while a process has no beginning, because it is always beginning. It was a rather unfortunate choice that made my reverend opponent quote Descartes: “Faith” going for support to “Doubt”. For Descartes’ greatness lies in his position that everything that can be doubted must be doubted. His famous “I think therefore I am” was also the outcome of his doubt. For, Descartes felt the need to doubt, and therefore to prove, his own existence. But to doubt one’s own existence, is a thought of doubt. And one must exist in order to think such a doubt. Hence from the premise “I think” he drew the conclusion “I am”: “Cogito ergo sum”. But this is an unpardonable faux pas in a philosopher: to beg the question (petitio principii). What he doubted, and what he had to prove, therefore, was the fact of his existence, the fact “I am”. And it is exactly that unproven fact, which he assumed in his premise “I think”; for when saying “I think”, it is already implicitly stated that “I am” namely: I am thinking. In the fact of doubting and thinking he has introduced the I-actor and then finds the ‘I’ back in his conclusion. It is begging the question under the influence of wishful thinking. His mistake lies in the introduction of the conclusion into the premise. The given fact was not “I think”, but the fact of thought: “Here is thinking”; and from that premise one can never conclude to “I am”; Moreover, if the fact that I think would give the proof that I am, then it ought to follow that I do not think, I am not. Thus we see that Descartes, if he had been a little more logical, would in his doubt not, have given any support to faith, but to the only possible conclusion of the non-existence of an ‘I’, where there is only the act of thinking. And that would have been the Buddha’s teaching of no-self (anatta).
39 “I know that I am here”, my reverend opponent said. It is the very thing we do not know. We know actions which are reactions, speaking, hearing, standing, sitting; and beyond those actions nothing is known. As I said in my first address: “Without action the ‘I’ cannot be conceived even, and there is nothing else which deserves the designation of ‘I’.” It is the productive action which constitutes the actor; and apart from that action there is none. An actor without action is as unthinkable as a flame without burning. The confusion of intellect and will, of which Buddhism was accused last time, does not exist except in the minds of those who believe in thinking and willing not as actions, but as faculties of a soul. There is no mind apart from a thought as it arises and passes. There is no will apart from the volitional activity arising and passing in dependence on conditions. As we do not postulate a principle of walking in the person who walks, and as that person cannot be separated from his action—for walking makes him a walker—so we need not postulate a principle of thinking apart from the act of thought, or a faculty of will apart from the act of willing, as all these actions cannot be separated from the person who walks, thinks or wills. It is the action which makes the persons, and apart from that there is none. An action thus arising in dependence on conditions cannot be free. And hence we denied the existence of a free will. We go even further; we deny the existence of any will, because we maintain that will is a volitional activity, which arises when objects are placed before us to choose from. When there is no chance of a choice, there can be no will, either free or otherwise. But will arises conditioned by the attraction or repulsion of objects of choice, conditioned also by dispositions and tendencies made by earlier volitional activity. How can that which arises thus conditioned, be said to be free? “Free will”, we were told, “is moral choice”. But if there is the possibility of a choice there must be at least two objects to
Page 3: Copyright Notice This work is licen
Page 7 and 8: Foreword In the 1940’s the studen
Page 9 and 10: Outlines of Buddhism Notes of the f
Page 11 and 12: 9 Buddhism does not become supernat
Page 13 and 14: 11 doctrine of action (kamma), on w
Page 15 and 16: a soul for its continuous process.
Page 17 and 18: 15 ferently, it would not be that a
Page 19 and 20: The Inconsistence of Christianity B
Page 21 and 22: 19 else can be admitted, because it
Page 23 and 24: 21 as Mahātma Gandhi has done all
Page 25 and 26: 23 basis of Christian Religions? It
Page 27 and 28: 25 daughter against her mother ...
Page 29 and 30: 27 contemplating purpose in nature.
Page 31 and 32: 29 make matters unnecessarily compl
Page 33: 31 I will conclude with a note of h
Page 36 and 37: 34 under the influence of grace, fi
Page 38 and 39: 36 For us life means a certain prop
Page 42 and 43: 40 choose from. Both will influence
Page 44 and 45: 42 sidered as moral. Thus not God f
Page 46 and 47: 44 for that is craving. The motive
Page 48 and 49: 46 derstanding of that delusion is
Page 51: About the Author Henri van Zeyst wa

Towards the Truth

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