Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24.s3.1

c24.s3.1

Merit lies in the abstention from evil, and the performance of good. True, both good and evil are ultimately unreal, like release and transmigration themselves,² but this consideration has no validity for practice, since practice itself is unreal in the same sense; granted evil be unreal, still the doer fetters himself in unreal chains and prolongs the misery of conscious existence unreal as it is. Good action is also unreal, but to practise it ends in aiding enlightenment. Experience shows, then, that to deal with illusion we must accept illusion and combat it by itself, not by the mere occasional introduction of recognition of its illusory nature.