The History of Buddhist Thought c10.9

c10.9

This is one of the reasons for the great success and long continuance of Buddhism. Its founder had the genius to establish a working system, not intended for all, but for those who realized that there was a life higher than “indulgence in the passions, low, vulgar, common, ignoble, and useless”, and who felt that it could not be attained under the limitations of the social conditions of the time.¹ It was a system, ascetic indeed in its rules of strict celibacy and restrictions on eating, but one in which practices of self-mortification were discouraged. The goal was Nirvāṇa, a state of the individual described as bliss and freedom from rebirth; and the course of training required to attain it was hindered both by self-torture and by indulgence in the passions.