all is vanity and vexation of
spirit. He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. For what hath
man of all his labor and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath
laboured under the sun? For all his days are sorrows and his travail
grief. That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one
thing befalleth them: as the one dieth so dieth the other; yea, they
have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast:
for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all
turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth
upward? I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living
which are yet alive. The dead know not anything, their love and their
hatred and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a
portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun. The
wandering of the desire, this also is vanity."

The Preacher is a fairly good Buddhist.

If pessimism be the conviction that life on earth is not worth living,
this view is shared alike by the greatest of earth's religions. If
pessimism be the view that all beauty ends with life and that beyond
it there is nothing for which it is worth while to live, then India
has no parallel to this Homeric belief. If, however, pessimism mean
that to have done with existence on earth is the best that can happen
to a man, but that there is bliss beyond, then this is the opinion of
Brahmanism, Jainism, and Christianity. Buddhism alone teaches that to
live on earth is weariness, that there is no bliss beyond, and that
one should yet be calm, pure, loving, and wise.

How could such a religion inspire enthusiasm? How could it send forth
jubilant disciples to preach the gospel of joy? Yet did Buddhism do
even this. Not less happy and blissful than were they that received
the first comfort of pantheism were the apostles of Buddha. His
progress was a triumph of gladness. They that believed in him rejoiced
and hastened to their fellows with the good tidings. Was it then a new
morality, a new ethical code, that thus inspired them? Let one but
look at the vows and commandments respectively taken by and given to
the Buddhist monk, and he will see that in Buddhism there is no new
morality.

The Ten Vows are as follows:

I take the vow not to kill; not to steal; to abstain from
impurity; not to lie; to abstain from intoxicating drinks
which hinder progress and virtue; not to eat at for