Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c7.s1.t3.26

c7.s1.t3.26

Here we stand wholly in those very ranges of thought with which Buddha’s teaching dealt. The question, which has suggested the Buddhist views on deliverance, is here already put exactly in the same form as afterwards, and the same two-fold answer is given to this question. What keeps the soul bound in the cycle of birth, death, and re-birth? Buddhism answers: desire and ignorance. Of the two, the greater evil is ignorance, the first link in the long chain of causes and effects, in which the sorrow-working destiny of the world is fulfilled. Is knowledge attained, then is all suffering at an end. Under the tree of knowledge, Buddha, when he has obtained the knowledge that gives deliverance, utters these words: