Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c8.s2.2.3

c8.s2.2.3

the merit which has won them their places will be exhausted and a new existence will begin for them. It is difficult to resist the impression created by the endless repetition of the idea of misery as dominant, expressed, frequently in beautiful form, in the stanzas of the Dhammapada and the Thera- and Therīgāthā, that the belief in the misery of existence was no product of dialectic, but was founded on the physical and social conditions of the time, acting on minds of special intellectual acumen and sensibility. Another factor, however, must be allowed for; the opposite side of the picture is the happiness which is the lot even in this earth of the disciples who follow the path laid down by the Buddha, and it is but natural that the dark side of life without this consolation and assurance should be depicted in vivid colours; it was natural for those who had abandoned the lusts of the senses to regard the world without them as blazing with fire and enveloped in the smoke of the burning. But it would nonetheless be contrary to all probability to minimize the reality of the empirical basis of the pessimism, which is an undeniable and essential feature of the world view of the Canon, although its darkness is mitigated by the fact that the teaching of the Buddha offers release from it. In the ultimate issue, it is true, the view of existence as a whole¹ cannot be deemed to be pessimistic, but all empirical existence falls under this ban.