The History of Buddhist Thought c25.50

c25.50

Those who say, “ I shall attain Nirvāṇa when I am without grasping, and Nirvāṇa will be mine,” hold a great false notion, the belief in a real self (*satkāyadrṣṭi*). Here the doctrine of non-self is turned against the whole Hīnayāna scheme of salvation. The commentator quotes a long passage from a Mahāyāna sūtra, the *Dhyāyitamuṣṭi-sūtra*. In a conversation with Mañjuśrī the Lord describes the whole career of the disciple who enters the Order, keeps the moral laws, thinks that all compounds are transitory, feels revulsion, practises the path, and realizes tranquillity. He thinks, “ I am released from all pains, there is nothing more for me to do, I am an arhat.” Thus he forms the idea of a self, and at the time of death he is convinced of the rebirth (*utpatti*) of the self, so that doubt and uncertainty arise, and uncertainty about the enlightenment of an enlightened one. When he dies, he falls into the great hell, because although all things are unoriginated he imagines them as real.