FORMATIVE ELEMENTS OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM.

existence (the six paths of rebirth original: rokudō. These are the six realms into which a soul can be reborn: gods, humans, demi-gods, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell-dwellers.). A sentient being may be a god or celestial being, a human, a brute beast, a hungry beast, a ferocious beast, or a devil. If he is a celestial being, his home is heaven (of which there are many levels); if a devil, it is hell (of which there are also many varieties). If he is a hungry beast or a ferocious beast, he may take the form of a man—such as the cruel Roman Emperor Caligula or the monstrous character Caliban Caliban is a sub-human, "savage" character from William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest.—or he may take the form of an animal. If he is a man, he will always appear in human form. Humanity has one advantage over all other beings: only a human is capable of reaching Buddhahood original: "Buddhaship." This is the state of perfect enlightenment..

Besides possessing a body, every sentient being has a mind, which is identical with Buddha (or the Mind of the Universe) and is eternal. Gathered around this mind are certain faculties that form the connecting link between the mind, the material body, and the outside world. These faculties (aggregates original: skandhas. In Buddhist philosophy, these are the five components—form, sensations, perceptions, mental activity, and consciousness—that combine to create the illusion of a self.) include hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching, among others. Together, these "faculties" and the mind constitute the Self original: Ego. or the individual.

At death, the Self is separated from the body. Soon the "faculties" drift away, the Self is dissolved, and the Mind alone remains. But the Mind, though it is identical with the Buddha-Mind, has nevertheless received a certain impression—good or bad—from the associations it had with the body. It is therefore unfit to return to God (if we may use the Christian term) until it has been purified of the results of its previous existence. This purification can only be acquired by "deeds done in the flesh" A phrase likely borrowed from the Bible (2 Corinthians 5:10), used here to describe the consequences of one's actions while alive.. The mind, therefore, seeks a rebirth suitable to the character it acquired in previous lives. Thus, we get a cycle of death, birth, growth, maturity, decay, and death again, which may go on forever. This is not exactly "transmigration" The belief that a fixed, unchanging soul moves from one body to another.; for the Self, composed of the union of mind and faculties, is dissolved at each death and reconstructed at each birth. And yet, there is always a conditioning connection between this life and the past on one side, and the future on the other.

This wheel of life and death is, in its rotations, filled with misery—with pain, suffering, and sickness. The cause of