personality to its core.

XXXII

IS BUDDHISM IMPERSONAL?

Advocates of Japanese "impersonality" call attention to the phenomena
of self-suppression in religion. It seems strange, however, that they
who present this argument fail to see how "self-suppression"
undermines their main contention. If "self-suppression" be actually
attained, it can only be by a people advanced so far as to have passed
through and beyond the "personal" stage of existence.
"Self-suppression" cannot be a characteristic of a primitive people, a
people that has not yet reached the stage of consciousness of self. If
the alleged "impersonality" of the Orient is that of a primitive
people that has not yet reached the stage of self-consciousness, then
it cannot have the characteristic of "self-suppression." If, on the
other hand, it is the "impersonality" of "self-suppression," then it
is radically different from that of a primitive people. Advocates of
"impersonality" present both conceptions, quite unconscious apparently
that they are mutually exclusive. If either conception is true, the
other is false.

Furthermore, if self-suppression is a marked characteristic of
Japanese politeness and altruism (as it undoubtedly is when these
qualities are real expressions of the heart and of the general
character), it is a still more characteristic feature of the higher
religious life of the people, which certainly does not tend to
"impersonality." The ascription of esoteric Buddhism to the common
people by advocates of the "impersonal" theory is quite a mistake, and
the argument for the "impersonality" of the race on this ground is
without foundation, for the masses of the people are grossly
polytheistic, wholly unable to understand Buddhistic metaphysics, or
to conceive of the nebulous, impersonal Absolute of Buddhism. Now if
consciousness of the unity of nature, and especially of the unity of
the individual soul with the Absolute, were a characteristic of
undeveloped, that is, of undifferentiated mind, then all primitive
peoples should display it in a superlative degree. It should show
itself in every phase of their life. The more primitive the people,
the more divine their life--because the less differentiated from the
original divine mind! Such are the requirements of this theory. But
what are the facts? The primitive undeveloped mind is relatively
unconscious of self; it is wholly objective; it is childlike; it does
not even know that there