The History of Buddhist Thought c14.14

c14.14

The conclusion of the dialogue is of peculiar interest. What did the compiler think was the right attitude to take with regard to these questions of moral action and reward, materialism and fatalism? They are not the "undetermined questions" which Buddha refused to answer, yet the rest of the dialogue ignores them. The Buddhist answer to the question of the fruits of samanaship is to ignore all these problems of morals and metaphysics, and to give a description of the career of the disciple—his course of moral training, the system of concentration, and the attainment of full knowledge. It maintains the same position as the previous discourse, the *Brahmajāla-sutta*, which concludes that beyond any speculations are "things profound, hard to see, hard to understand, calm and excellent, beyond the region of logic, subtle, comprehensible only to the wise, which the Tathāgata, having comprehended and realized, proclaims."