THE
NATURAL
LAW
IN
THE
BUDDHIST
TRADITION
(The
Buddhist
View
of
the
World)
Daisetz
T.
Suzuki
(Visiting
Professor
of
Japanese
Culture,
Claremont
College,
Claremont, Calif.
Professor
Emeritus,
Otani
University,
Kyoto,
Japan;
Visiting
Professor
of
Buddhist
Philosophy,
University
of
Hawaii,
1949;
member
of
the
Japanese
Acad-
emy;
author
of
various
publications
on
Buddhist
philosophy
and
literature.)
THE
NATURAL
LAW
IN
THE
BUDDHIST
TRADITION
IN
Japan
soon
after
the
war,
I
chanced
to
speak
with
one
of
the
judges
of
the
War
Crimes
Tribunal
then
in
ses-
sion
in
Toyko.
He
asked
me
about
the
Buddhist
view
re-
garding
the
ultimate authority
of
ethical
laws.
When
I
asked
him
what
he
meant
by
“authority,”
he
replied
that
in
Christianity
ethical
laws
are
considered
as
issuing
from
God
and
therefore
the
violators
of
morality
are
sinners
against
God.
He
further
stated
that
if
we
did
not
derive
our ethical
values
from
God,
they would
have no
au-
thority,
no compelling power
over
human
affairs.
This
argument
struck
me
as
rather
strange,
for
I
had
thought
moral
laws
were
just
as
binding
even
when
we
regarded
them
as
human-made.
Inasmuch
as
our
human
society
cannot
exist
without
some system
of
regulations,
moral or
political,
economic
or
juridical,
they
are
all
to
be
observed
by
the individual
members who
compose
such
a
community.
The
question
is
not whether
such
regula-
tions
are
human-made
or
God-made.
As
long
as
they
are
laws
they
ought
to
be
binding
on
us,
and
we
ought
not
to
think
of
going
against
them
in any
way.
For
if
we
did,
that
would
surely
endanger the
very
existence
of
the
commun-
ity.
Whatever
we
may argue
about
politics
or
economics,
the moral
laws
being
more
fundamental,
we
cannot
disre-
gard
them and
live
at
peace
with our
neighbors.
If
we
want
to
live
at
all,
we
have
to
observe
them
by
all
means.
92
NATURAL
LAW
INSTITUTE
PROCEEDINGS
The
ultimate
source
of
moral
values
is
in
human
nature
it-
self.
Being
a
Christian,
my
judge-friend
was
not
convinced
by
my
presentation.
But
this
talk
made
me
think
anew
of
the
Buddhist
point
of
view
in
regard
to
morality
and
es-
pecially
of
the
Buddhist
view of
the
world
generally.
In
Christianity
there
are
the
Ten
Commandments
as
given
by
God,
while
in Buddhism
the
five
or
ten
or more
precepts
(‘sila)
were
given
by
Buddha
to
his
followers
as
principles
of
conduct.
And
they
observe
them not
neces-
sarily
because
they
are Buddha’s
injunctions
but
because
they
have
accepted
them
out
of
their
free
will,
firmly
be-
lieving
that
they
are
conducive
to
the
general
welfare
of
humanity
as
well
as
to
the
preservation
of
their human
dignity. No
external
authority
drives
them
to
the
moral
course
of
life.
It
is
their
own
moral
judgment
that
makes
them
accept
the
Precepts
and
the
Buddhist
community
which
they
have
chosen
to
join
because
of
their
spiritual
significance.
As
regards
the
first
moral injunction “not
to
kill,”-this
is
observed
by
everybody
belonging
to any
civilized
com-
munity.
One
who
violates
it
is
not
only
legally
punished
as
a
civil
criminal,
but
is
also
morally condemned
as
inhu-
manly-minded.
The
Christian
would
go
further
and
pro-
nounce
this
man
as
sinning
against
God,
as
a
violator
of
the
divine
commandment. To the
Buddhist mind the
mur-
derous
deed
is
not
connected
with
the
authority
of
any
outside
agent
who
commands
us
to
do
this
or
that,
or not
to
do
this
or
that.
Man
has
a
certain innate
feeling,
ac-
cording
to
Buddhism, which
makes him
refrain
from
com-
mitting
deeds
of
violence.
The
innate
feeling
is
rooted
in
THE
NATURAL LAW
IN
THE
BUDDHIST
TRADITION
93
human
nature
equally
shared
by
all
sentient
beings
who
live
in group-life.
In
the
Dhammapada
(verses
129
and
139)
we
read:
“All
shrink
from
violence,
All
fear
death.
Putting
oneself
in
another’s
position,
One
should
neither
kill
nor
cause
to
kill.
All
shrink
from
violence,
To
all
life
is
dear.
Putting
oneself
in
another’s
position,
One
should
neither
kill
nor
cause
to
kill.”
This
is
an
appeal
to
the
fellow-feeling
natural
to all
hu-
manity.
Buddhism
does
not
think
it
necessary
to
trace
this
feeling
to
an
external
source.
In
the
world
of
sentient
beings
other
than
human,
that
is,
in
the
animal
and
the
vegetable
kingdom,
not
to men-
tion
the
physical
world,
deeds of
mutual
destruction
go
on
without
calling
out
any
sense
of
compassion
among
those
actually
concerned.
It
is
only
with
us
humans
that
this
mutual
affectability takes
place
because
we
have
become
conscious of
the
common
ground out
of
which
we
rise.
And
this
common
ground,
we
notice,
extends
not
only
among
human
beings
themselves,
but
beyond
that,
even
into the
field
of
non-sentient
beings.
We often
hesitate
to
destroy
animals
or
insects, even
poisonous
ones,
as
well
as
plants.
Buddhists would
even
offer
pious
prayers
for
the
spiritual
welfare,
whatever
that
may
mean,
of those de-
stroyed,
and
sometimes
perform
some
special
religious
rit-
uals
for
slaughtered
live-stock,
for
weeded-out
morning
glories,
and
for
those
human
beings
who
had
consented
94
NATURAL
LAW
INSTITUTE
PROCEEDINGS
to
have
their
bodies
submitted
to medical
studies.
This
human
consciousness
of
the
common
ground underlying
all
beings
who
are
constituent
units
of
the
Dharmadhdtu’
is
really
the
basis
of
our moral
values.
It
is
this
human
consciousness
that
makes
the
author
of
the
Dhammapada
(v.
5)
declare:
“Hatreds
never
cease
by
hatred
in
this
world.
By
love
2
alone they
cease.
This
is
an
eternal law.”
This
eternal law
grows
out
of
the
eternal
ground
where
we
all
stand.
Indeed,
we
can
stand
nowhere
else.
If
we
did
come
from
somewhere
else,
there
would
be
no
such
laws
that
could
be
called
eternal.
It
is
also
our
consciousness
of
this
eternal ground
that
establishes
the
inevitableness
of
karmic
relationships:
“Not
in
the
sky,
nor
in
mid-ocean,
Nor
in
entering
a
mountain
cave,
Is
found
that
place
on
earth,
Where
abiding
one
may
escape
from
the
consequences
of
an
evil
deed.”
3
1
This
Sanskrit
term
may be
taken
as
meaning
the
universe
generally,
but
in
some
Buddhist
sutras it
means
a
world
revealed
to
the enlightened
minds
such
as
those
of
the
Bodhisattvas.
It
is
not outside
the
world
in
which
we
common
mortals
find
ourselves
to
be
living,
nor
is
it
one
super-
imposed
upon
ours.
It
is
no
other
than
this
world of
ours,
but
one
gener-
ally
hidden
to those
whose
eyes
do
not
penetrate
beyond
the
world
of
sense-intellect.
The
Dharmadhitu
(hokkai
in
Japanese
and
fa-chieh
in
Chinese)
is
in
one
sense
this
material
world
and
at
the
same
time
the
spiritual
world.
This
will
become
clearer
as
we go
on.
2
“Hatred”
is
vera
in Pali
and
“love,”
avera,
that
is
“no-hatred.”
Vera
sometimes
is
better
rendered “enmity”
or
“hostility”
and aver&
“friendliness”
or
.’kindneu.”
8
The
Dhammapada,
127.
THE
NATURAL
LAW
IN
THE BUDDHIST
TRADITION
95
Not
only
the
consequences
of
an
evil
deed
but
also
those
of
a
good
deed
follow us
wherever
we
may
be.
Deeds
are
bad
when they
go
against
the
general
wel-
fare
of
the
community.
By
this
it
is
meant
that
bad
deeds
are
always
ego-centered;
they
grow
out
of selfishness,
they
tend to
sacrifice
the
general
welfare
to
the
interest
of
the
individual.
Good
deeds, on
the
other
hand,
grow
straight
out
of
the
common
good
and
go
back
to
it.
That
is
to
say,
the
general
stock
of
goodness
increases
that
much
by
each
individual
deed
of
goodness.
Buddhists
are
ever
reminded
of
cutting
asunder the
bondage
of
birth-and-death,
for
this
bondage
is
that
which
separates
one
individual
from
another,
making
him imagine
that
an individual
as such
is
everything.
He
thus
altogether
forgets
that
the
indivi-
dual
is
an
individual
because
of
the
ground
on
which
he
stands
and
that
when he
is
detached
from
this
ground
he
ceases
really
to
be
an individual
and
turns
into
a
non-
entity
and
to
this
non-entity,
his
misguided
way
of
think-
ing
makes
him
cling
with
all
his
might
as
if
it
were
the
last
reality.
He
is
now
a
constant
victim
of
greed,
anger,
and
folly-the
three
deadly
poisons
affecting
the
human
mind.
Such
a
one
would never
keep
the
ground
in
good
condition
and
on
such
the
ground never
fails
to
avenge
itself.
But
this
avenging
is
really
his
own
doing.
As
far
as
the ground
itself
is
concerned,
as
the
Dhammapada
an-
nounces
(v.
223),
it
goes
on
“conquering
anger
by
no-
anger,
evil
by
good,
the
greedy
by
giving,
liars
by
truth.”
For
this
is
the
way
the
ground
works
out
its
laws
of
karmic
relationship.
We
must
realize,
however,
that
evil
ever
threatens
to cloud
the
good,
and
against
this
we
must
be
on
constant
watch.
96
NATURAL LAW
INSTITUTE
PROCEEDINGS
II
The
question
now
is:
What
is
this
ground
from
which
we
all
rise
and
which
operates
its
own laws
with
no
outside
interference?
Buddhism
has
no
God
corresponding
to
the
Biblical
Creator
of
the
world.
According
to
Buddhists,
the
world
has
never
been
created
by
any
outside
agent.
It
has
always
been
here
in all
its
multitudinosity;
it
has
no
beginning,
no
ending.
It
is
self-operative
and
self-regulating.
The
world
is
its
own
originator,
preserver,
and
destroyer,
if
these
can
be
predicated
of
it.
According
to
the
Dhammapada
(v.
1):
“Mind
precedes
all,
mind
is
leader, and
all
is
mind-made.”
“To
precede”
may
suggest
time-sequence,
but
in
this
case
there
is
no
idea
of
priority
in
time.
“To
precede”
here
sim-
ply
means
“rooted
in,”
that
is
to
say,
all-
things
in
ex-
istence
are
rooted
in
the
mind
(manas)
.4
They
follow
the
Mind
as
it
moves
on;
they
are
