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7. Hinayanism and its
Doctrine.
The doctrine of Transience
was the first entrance gate of Hinayanism. Transience never fails to deprive us
of what is dear and near to us. It disappoints us in our expectation and hope.
It brings out grief, fear, anguish, and lamentation. It spreads terror and
destruction among families, communities, nations, mankind. It threatens with
perdition the whole earth, the whole universe. Therefore it follows that life
is full of disappointment, sufferings, and miseries, and that man is like 'a
frog in a dry well.' This is the doctrine called by the Hinayanists the Holy
Truth of Suffering.
Again, when Transcience
once gets hold of our imagination, we can easily foresee ruins and disasters in
the very midst of prosperity and happiness, and also old age and ugliness in
the prime and youth of beauty. It gives rise quite naturally to the thought
that body is a bag full of pus and blood, a mere heap of rotten flesh and
broken pieces of bone, a decaying corpse inhabited by innumerable maggots. This
is the doctrine called by the Hinayanists the Holy Truth of Impurity.1
And, again, Transience
holds its tyrannical sway not only over the material but over the spiritual
world. At its touch Atman, or soul, is brought to nothing. By its call Devas,
or celestial beings, are made to succumb to death. It follows, therefore, that
to believe in Atman, eternal and
unchanging, would be a whim
of the ignorant. This is the doctrine called by the Hinayanists the Holy Truth
of No-atman.
If, as said, there could be
nothing free from Transience, Constancy should be a gross mistake of the
ignorant; if even gods have to die, Eternity should be no more than a stupid
dream of the vulgar; if all phenomena be flowing and changing, there could be no
constant noumena underlying them. It therefore follows that all things in the
universe are empty and unreal. This is the doctrine called by the Hinayanists
the Holy Truth of Unreality. Thus Hinayana Buddhism, starting from the doctrine
of Transience, arrived at the pessimistic view of life in its extreme form.
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