INTRODUCTION

is essential for our intellectual development, that we focus our thoughts upon the things which are Unseen and Eternal. Many minds are susceptible of deception by the fleeting phenomena of life; but behind these phenomena there is an essential element, entirely spiritual Some modern Japanese Buddhists appear to regard this purely spiritual element as the "essence of mind.", uninfluenced by arbitrary ideas or changeful conditions, which "pervades all things," and is "pure" and "unchanging."

Perhaps it might prove of interest to quote the following outline of the Great Vehicle Sanskrit: Mahāyāna; the branch of Buddhism concerned with the salvation of all beings and the concept of emptiness doctrine This excerpt is from the preface to The Diamond Cutter (Sanskrit: Vajracchedikā). prepared by Mr. S. Kuroda, which was approved by several influential Buddhist communions in Japan, "and published with authority at Tokyo in 1893":—

"All things that are produced by causes and conditions are inevitably destined to extinction. There is nothing that has any reality; when conditions come things begin to appear, when conditions cease these things likewise cease to exist. Like the foam of the water, like the lightning flash Compare to the similar metaphor found on page 110., and like the floating, swiftly vanishing clouds, they are only of momentary duration. As all things have no constant nature of their own, so there is no actuality in pure and impure, rough and fine, large and small, far and near, knowable and unknowable, etc. On this account it is sometimes said that all things are nothing. The apparent phenomena around us are, however, produced by mental operations within us, and thus distinctions are established. . . .

"All things are included under subject and object. The