Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c8.s2.12

c8.s2.12

The process of impermanence is eternal, one might expect the Canon to say, but on this point we are confronted with the doctrine that it is not a matter for us to inquire into whether there is any beginning in time of the world or again any end, just as we may not know whether there are limits in space to the extension of the universe. We are reminded once more of the narrow and severely practical basis of the Buddhist outlook on existence; all that we know or are to be allowed to know is that we live in an existence of constant change which essentially brings with it misery, and the one path of liberation is to obtain freedom from any part or share in this existence of unrestful change. If ‘ultimate reality and “our supreme and vital need” is no fixed basis, nor moveless central stand, but throbbing energies whirling in ordered rhythm, whether of solar systems or of our own hearts and intelligences, the consciousness of a dynamical order replacing that of a statical order; a Way of life which like the spinning globe, bears us forward on its bosom, more swiftly than we can journey on it; so that beyond our best there ever rises a better hope’, then surely there is no greater travesty of facts than to say² that such seems to be the end and outcome of Buddhist philosophy.