The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana c8.26

c8.26

A personality (pudgala), in which other systems imagine the presence of a permanent spiritual principle a soul (ātmā) is in reality a bundle of elements or forces (saṃskāra-samūha) and a stream of thought (santāna). It contains nothing permanent or substantial, it is anātma. This means that according to the general idea of radical pluralism, the spiritual part of an individual consists of separate elements (dharma). Just as its physical frame consists of atoms. Although separate, these elements are linked together by causal laws (hetu-pratyaya). Some of them always appear simultaneously, they are satellites (sahabhū). Or they follow one another in consecutive moments, they are then homogeneous (niṣyanda-phala); they constitute chains of moments (kṣaṇa-santāna). The law of causation is therefore called the law of dependently-together-origination (pratītya-sam-utpāda). The number of psychical elements (arūpino-dharmāḥ) at every given moment of an individual life is variable. It may be very considerable, because undeveloped; dormant faculties are also reckoned as actually present. This circumstance has even provoked gibes from the side of Sautrāntikas in regard to the impossibility of an actual co-existence of so huge a quantity of separate elements at a single moment. However some of them are constant, always present every moment, others appear only under certain conditions. Faculties of ten different kinds¹ are supposed always to be present. They are termed the general faculties (citta-mahā-bhūmika). Among them we find the faculty of concentration samādhi or yoga. They are morally indifferent. To them are added either a certain number of faculties morally good, or a certain number of faculties morally bad. But not only do the elements which combine in one moment vary in number, they can vary also in intensity (*utkarsa*). In a certain individual¹, at a certain time, a certain element may predominate, while in another individual or at another time in the same individual another element may reach prominence².