NAGARJUNA'S PHILOSOPHY of the old In this the Mahasanghikas must nave worked closely on the materials provided by the Sarvastivadins who had much to contribute to this development of Buddhist philosophy 207 If the farer on the Great Way is asked to offer a basic point of dis tinction between the two ways, the "Great" and the "Small, " he will no doubt point to all-comprehensiveness more than any other as charac teristic of his way Comprehension has its dimensions of depth and width and to the farer on the Great Way this means, on the one hand, the penetration into the deeper nature of things which culminates in the realization that the ultimate nature of the conditioned is itself the unconditioned reality On the other hand, comprehension stands also for the realization of the essential relatedness of determinate entities This is the mundane truth, and with regard to the human individual it has the all-important bearing of one's essential relatedness with the rest of the world It is this insight of the true nature of things that is the basis of the universal compassion of the wise In practical religious life the most frequent and the most common criticism in regard to the farers on the Small Way is that they lack wisdom, lack compassion and lack · skilfulness 208 The farers on the Small Way are intent on seeking their own good, working for their own salvation.209 Their wayfaring is conditioned by fear and not in spired by compassion They seek to enter Nirvat;ta only too hurriedly.21O They not have the necessary patic;nce, the capacity for forbearance (k�anti} 211 They are only too anxious to away with their individu ality , for they not see that individuality, when righdy understood and ri ghtly lived, can itself become the channel for unbounded love and unsu rpassed joy with which to elevate and gladden the entire world They not have sarvakarajiiatii, the knowledge of all forms, which is the knowledge of all things from all standpoints at all levels m They not need it as they are not interested tel know the unique way of every individual and to help everyone to attain to perfection in one's own way, for this is the work only of the bodhisattvas and the Buddhas The hearers (Jriivaka) are not interested t.J1 the extraordinary powers (rddhi) that are an aid to convert the minds of the common people and to turn them away from ignorance and passion and towards the ulti68 INTRODUcrION mate good 11 In their estimation of the nature of the Buddha they hardly get beyond His physical form.2 J & They consider Him as only an ordinary being, subject to birth and de ath and not rise to see the transmundane nature, the transcendental essence of Buddhahood They not have any idea as to how the Buddha, being Himself free from ignorance and passion, can yet function as an individual To live in the world and yet be free from defilements, to retain individuality and yet be free from the false sense of self, to work for the wo rld and yet be free from pride and passion this is the skilfulness of the Buddha, and the Srtlvakas, the hearers, not rise to this level because they lack the deeper understanding of the true nature of things In their anxiety to get away from the situation of contiict and pain, they fail to see that the course they adopt, viz., the course of fear and escape, is precisely the one that is condemned by the Buddha They torget that if the atti tude that they adopt were the only attitude possible, then even the B uddha, in whom they take refuge and whom they accept as their leader, would not have been there, for it is from the prajiiaparamita that the Buddha is boml16 and the prajiiaptlramita is the very principle of comprehension, comprehensive understanding and all-embracing com passion The farer on the Great Way would add that if the Srtlvakas would only deepen their understanding and widen their oudook, they could also tread the path of the bodhisattva.1I18 The way of the Buddha is the wide way ; it is non-exclusive, open to all lIl? It is always possible for one to deepen one's understanding Truly, they would add, there is no rigid division between the careers of the Sravakas and the bodhisattvas and between the analysis of elements and the philo sophy of the ab solute It is the mission of those who have the deeper understanding of things to enliven a spirit of further enquiry in the minds of those whose understanding has suffered a setb ack This is the mission of criticism, which is to lay bare the inherent inconsistencies in the positions of those who cling and hold fast to the relative as absolute - CHAP TER " CO N C E P T S A N D C O N VENTI O NAL ENTITI E S (Nama and �) Section N A T U R E O F C O NVE NTI O N The thirst for the reql as the urge to build: The thirst for the real in man1 i s the starting p oint as well as the foundation of the philo�ophy of the Middle Way It is a basic fact about human thinking that it confronts eve rywhere an "other" to itself, w�ch it endeavours to subsume into its own being Growth in knowledge consists in a progressive assimila tion of the object and ali establishment 6f a unity' with it.2 The progres sive extension of acquaintance as well as the progressive deepening of comprehension are ways in which man responds to the urge in him for the limitless, an urge which is basic to all his activities The intuit;ion of sense, the synthesis of imagination and understanding and �en the appropriation of the different kinds of experience to oneself by which the otherwise mute becoines meaningful, all these are different ways in which the self-consdous person gives vent on the' cognitive plane to his deepest urge, the thirst for the real And man's accomplishment in the sphere of theoretic understanding cannot be sharply divided trom his functi on as a person on the plane of action In fact knowledge is inefficient without action and action is blind without knowledge They flow into each other and are essentially different ph� of one and the same b asic urge.3 70 CONCEPTS AND ENTITIE� The self as the builder of the world: The person is a unity, an integrated reality He is not a collocation of several otherwis.: separate elements, as the analysts would imagine The elements found in personality are what the person himself gives rise to as his self-expression in response to the urge in him The thirst for the real is the basic fact about man What we are and what we depends on the way we respond to and interpret to ourselves this deepest urge Thus says the Siistra, The bodhisattva constantly loves and delights in meditating on the Buddha and therefore while leaving the body and while assuming the body, he constantly realizes the presence of the Buddha This is like the beings that constantly cultivate the sense of passion and in whom there fore the sense of passion is intense (Ji), taking up the body of a passion ate bird like a peacock, and those in whom anger is intense taking birth among poisonous insects (The bodhisattva) takes on the bodily (existence) according to what his mind intensely thinks �d esteems high (1!M,c.,mJi).4 (276a) The bodhisattva meditating on the Buddha realizes everywhere the presence of the Buddha as he is collected and pure in his thought This is like the person (standing before) a mirror (7J