Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24.s3.9

c24.s3.9

But these means are essentially negative, and the Mahāyāna has room for positive action. It is clear that neither intuition of vacuity nor charity or compassion (*karuṇā*) alone is sufficient to lead to the abandonment of existence (*sattva-tyāga*); without compassion vacuity is hard to comprehend; without intuition compassion may be carried too far by the force of passion. We have as emphatic an assertion as in the Hinayāna that intuition alone is not enough.¹ It is obvious that there is difficulty in demanding action from those aware of the vacuity of existence; the insensibility, the wooden immobility,² of the monk of the Hinayāna seems especially appropriate to the adept of the Mahāyāna, but this logical conclusion is not drawn. Instead, the resources of reason are used to establish the propriety of compassion and its efficacy; doubtless it was not by reasoning that the importance of compassion was arrived at; that was demanded by the needs of the heart, and the service rendered by reason was the adaptation of the conception to the system as a whole. Buddhist philosophy, like philosophy generally, exists not to create fundamental beliefs but to defend and explain them in systematic development. Nor pyschologically is it difficult to understand the combination of beliefs in the minds of Mahāyānists; to believe in the self is certainly a hindrance to love of one’s neighbour; to recognize the illusory character of all phenomena is no bad motive for compassion for all creatures