Spiritual Virility in Buddhism

Author(s): Julius Evola

Source: East and West, Vol. 7, No. 4 (JANUARY 1957), pp. 319-327
Published by: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)
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 in Buddhism
Spiritual Virility

It is the fate of almost all religions to democracy and tolerance, to be admired also
become, so to say, denatured; as for its freedom from dogma, rites, sacraments:
they
spread and develop they gradually re? almost a sort of secular religion.
cede from their original spirit, and their more It is true that these distortions appeared
popular and spurious elements come to the quite early in the history of Buddhism. But
fore, their less severe and essential features, it may seem audacious on our
though part,
those furthest removed from the metaphysical we have no hesitation in saying that this is a
plane. While hardly any of the major his? falsification of the message of the Buddha,
torical religions have
escaped this destiny, it a deteriorated version suited not to virile men,
would seem that it is true of Bud?
particularly standing with head erect, but to men lying
dhism. We need only consider the prevalent in search of escape and spiritual al?
prostrate
notion of the teaching of the prince of the for whom the law and discipline of
leviation,
S?kyas that has been formed not only in the a positive religion are too severe.
West by those who profess admiration for If we accept the interpretations referred tt>,
Buddhism, but also for many centuries past Buddhism in its real essence would be a system
in many strata of the peoples of the East. of ethics rather than a religion in the strict
The terms in which the two thousand five of the term. This which
meaning character,
hundredth anniversary of the death of the some historians of religion had stressed in an
Buddha has been commemorated this year and to charge Buddhism with
attempt supposed
the way in which the message that the Bud? as compared to theistic and dog?
inferiority
dhist religion should have for the modern matic is to-day claimed by others as
religions,
world has been spoken of, afford evidence a merit, their claim being based on a misap?
of this. of a different but not less serious
prehension
While someone has to kind. If Buddhism, taken in its original forms
lately been able
say: ccThere is no other alternative : the world cannot be called a cc religion this depends
?,
to-day must choose between the H bomb and on the fact that it is not below but above the
?
the message of the Buddha ? thus iden?
plane of all that can be legitimately defined
tifying that message with pacifism and huma as (( religion ?,
especially theistic religion.
nitarianism *? the Western friends of Bud? The doctrine of awakening and enlightenment,
dhism have been almost unanimous in apprais? the essential core of Buddhism, has nothing
ing it as a sentimental doctrine of love and (( religious ? about it, because it is preemi?
universal compassion, a doctrine composed of of an (( initiatic ? or esoteric character,
nently

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 and as such is accessible to a few elect. teachings appears as the height of absurdity
only
not a to anyone who remembers the canonical
It therefore represents ccbroad way ? par?
open to all (as in more than one of its aspects, able of the raft. In no spiritual tradition more
almost in its very name, the Mah?y?na was) than in Buddhism is the purely instrumental
but a (( straight and narrow )) reserved and provisional character of morality, of sila,
path
for a minority. This is already made clear so stressed. As is known, the whole
strongly
by the accounts given in the canon of the first body of moral rules, with good and evil,
moment of the enlightenment of the Buddha. dramma and adhamma, was compared by the
When Prince Siddharta had the revelation of Buddha to a raft that is built for crossing a
the truth and of the dhamrna,
the way, he river, but which it would be ridiculous to dra^
resolved not to it, believing it to be along when the crossing has once been made
spread
inaccessible to the masses, to the natures no I (3). Contrary to the view, whether philoso?
noble, immersed in sams?ra. And so from the phical or religious, which ascribes to some

way the story is told it would seem that only moral rules an intrinsic autonomous value (a
the mythical intercession of certain typical instance of this is the so-called (( ab?
through
divinities the Buddha was induced to change solute morality ? of Kant's categorical impe?
his mind and to consent at last to commu? rative) the Buddha ascribed to the several at?
nicate and announce the possibility of the titudes of right conduct that he pointed out,
Great Liberation and the path to be followed a instrumental value, the value of
purely
to attain means a certain aim
it. justified only in view of
It is known that in the beginning the Order and therefore only sub conditione. But this
of the Ariya, the noble ? sons of the son of end, just as the higher grades of Buddhistic
the S?kyas ?, was restricted, even if not ascesis and
contemplation, is beyond morality,
by
nor can it be measured con?
extrinsic limits. Thus for instance, the Bud? by the religious
dha to the admission of women. And ception of ((holiness)). A Milarepa was to say:
objected
those who like to see in the attitude of the (( In my I committed some black deeds,
youth
Buddha towards the conception of caste and in my maturity some white ones; but now I
the exclusiveness of the Br?hm?nas, evidence have rejected all distinctions of black and
of an equalitarian and universalistic spirit, are
white )) (4).
much mistaken. Thus the fact that some of the rules of the
They confuse that which lies
beneath the differences and limits proper to slla may perhaps correspond to what the mo?
every sound (as is the case with de? ralist may desire, should deceive no one. The
hierarchy
?
mocratic equalitarianism, whether social or spirit inspiring the action in the two cases dif
with that which lies above such dif? fers fundamentally. This holds good also
spiritual)
ferentiated structures, as in the case of the for that which the (( spiritualists )) admire so
awakened buddhist and of the initiate much in Buddhism: the ethics of love, of
really
in general. The drawn between the compassion, of innocuousness. He who fol?
comparison
Awakened One and a flower that rises mira? lows the path of the awakening cultivates

culously from a heap of dung (1) is pretty these mental attitudes only
as the means for

eloquent on this point, even if it be not edi? freeing himself from the bonds of ignorance,

fying to those who in a democratic of the sams?ric ego; not out of sentimental
indulge
and humanitarian interpretation of Buddhism. altruism. A
conception such as the Western
Considered in the framework of the Hindu one, expressed by the words: (( God is love )),
of his was a revo? with the consequent absolutisation of this sen?
situation day, the Buddha
lutionist in so much as he to timent, would be for the authentic Buddhist
only opposed
the fictitious and obsolete corres? doctrine an absurdity. Love and compassion
dignities,
no longer to real qualifications, true are mere details of the opus remotionis, whose
ponding
to be shown in each case by works aim is a liberation, an enlargement or opening
dignity,
and effective superiority. Thus, for instance, of the soul which can favor, in some cases,
he maintained the designation of Br?hm?na, the (( rupture of the level )) and the sudden
but opposed the type of the real br?hm?na to flash of illumination. Thus not
only is the
that of the false one (2). If in the case of famous series of the four br?hmavik?ra-bh?
one can this van? or appamanna, which includes love and
Buddhism speak of universalism,
is the universalism of the summits, not the compassion, technically and practically equi?
promiscuous one at the base. valent to the several states of a purely ((
dry
?
The reduction of Buddhism to mere moral intellectual leading to the same
contemplation,

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goal (the four jh?na and the ar?pa-jh?na), that of making this notion the object of a
but even in the series of br?hmavih?ra-bh? paradoxical philosophical elaboration (para
van?, the last stage, upekk?, is impassibility, doxical because this idea corresponds to an
the disincarnate of a soul that has absolutely super-rational level detached from
neutrality
got free from all sentimentality, from both philosophy) to which Mah?y?na added a po?
the bonds of the ccI ? and the ccyou ? and pular soteriological religion which carried the
shines as a pure light in an ontological misdirected interpretation of the precept of
super
individual also in the to a form that, inter alia, leads to
essentiality expressed compassion
of the (( void ?, suiina or a flagrant contradiction in the system of this
symbol sunnyat?
We are not the only ones who have noted form of later Buddhism. In fact on the one
that this notion of the void is not affirmed hand the precept of compassion and love for
a degree
only by theMah?y?na, but is found already all beings is announced to such that

clearly stated in the

canon of early Buddhism. theMah?y?nic Bodhisattva vows that he will
The work proper to Mah?y?na has been rather not enter nirvana until all living creatures

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 have been
redeemed; while on the other hand, nitarian, pacifist, vegetarian figurine of the
according to the Mah?y?na doctrine of the Buddhist is a distortion, and in any case its
universal (( void ?, all these beings would be acceptance is not compulsory . A Samurai and
so a Kamikaze
non-existent, would be many illusions, may equally well be a Buddhist.
mere
apparitions of the cosmic dream gene? From a book in which a Buddhist chaplain
rated by ignorance. This contradiction and describes the days of the Japanese put to death
non-sense alone should
suggest that the to the Americans we see how these men
by (6)
precept spoken of and also to the doctrine of died withoutconversions or repentence, in a
universal illusion must be given a meaning perfect state
of Buddhist grace; men who if
that differs widely from the exoteric, literal they were not (( war criminals ? as the victors
and popular one attributed to them. Both the claimed, were as generals, officials and politi?
one and the other should be understood on a cians certainly not delicate
shy flowers of the
purely pragmatic plane. field.
Both in some aspects of the Mah?y?na, in Those who have that funda?
experienced
which alone the esoteric doctrine of the cc awa? mental inner
transformation, that co rupture
kening ? has been replaced by
a (( religion ?, of the level ? which is the essential feature of
and in other currents, the essential core of Buddhist realisation, are in possession of an
Buddhism has been enveloped by philoso? unshakeable calm, an ((incomparable certainty))
phical, mythological and ritualistic dross and which not even the age of the H bomb and
superstructures. When considered in relation of all the other devilries of the modern world
to them, the so-called ccZen?-Buddhism stands can which can be above
disturb; preserved
for a return to the a reaction in all all tragedies and all destructions, even when
origins,
similar to that of Buddhism man's human and
respects early illusory part is involved.
itself to degraded Br?hmanism. Now the Zen Now, it is in this direction rather than in
throws into clear relief the essential value of any other that lies the message that Buddhism
illumination, its transcendency in respect of may have for our At the conclusion
days.
all that which, in the several cases, may favor of one of our works (7) in which we tried to
it, and at the same time its immanency, that reconstruct the essence of the Buddhist doc?
is to say the fact that the state of trine, we to the dual it
enlighten? pointed possibility
ment and nirv?na does not mean a state of offers. The first is that of a clear and virile
evanescent
ecstacy,
an escape,
so to say, of askesis which creates in man firmness and se?
which is only a pale reflex accom? of a carefully
compassion renity, samatha, by means built
panied by horror of all that is action and up technique of the mind which allows the
affirmation; it is instead a higher form of detachment and of a principle
strengthening
freedom, a higher dimension; for him who that transcends the purely human, irrational,
holds fast to it there is no action that cannot emotional and in general the sarns?ric sub?
be performed, and all bonds are loosened. stance of our In no other tradition are
being.
This is the right interpretation of the doctrine these techniques taught in such a clear, tho?
of the void, of the non-ego, and also of the rough, we might say scientific form, free from
Mah?y?nic conception of the identity of nir? specific religious or ethical as
implications,
v?na and sams?ra in a third principle higher they are in Buddhism. What here
is of par?
than either and anterior to either. Thai ticular is the style of the clear
importance
should be recalled to those who accept unila? vision, bh?tam, which is that of a su?
yath?
terally the theory of innocuousness, of the perior realism, the vision exactly in keeping
timorous respect of all forms of life. As a with reality. A goodly number of giftedmen
matter of fact, Zen Buddhism could be called can still make an (( immanent )) use of Bud?
the doctrine of the Samurai, i.e. of the Japa? dhist We may even
teachings thus understood.
nese (5) who are certainly not noted find in them the corrective of the prevalent
nobility
for their abhorrence of arms and bloodshed. trends of our day: the religion of life, of
The fact is that the pivot on which all this struggle, of (( becoming )), the union with ir?
wisdom turns is one only: the severance of rational, instinctive and forces
sub-personal
the bond of the ego, the destruction of igno? that ever urge man on in a (( towards ?
flight
rance, the awakening. When the bond of the (Bernanos), destroying in him all
centrality,
ego is severed, all restrictions cease. On the all real consistency. In an age like ours, sam
human soil on which the seed of the doctrine s?ric as no other has ever been, that
already
falls depends the fruit it will bear. The huma which as a system of free and virile askesis

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 in Buddhism is mere preparation for ultra? supernatural; because of his ontological status
mundane realisation, might serve to create of creature, or as the result of an original
limits, to provide inner means of defence, to sin, be belongs to the natural order; only
keep at bay the anguish or the rapture felt by by the intervention of a transcendent power,
those who cling convulsively to the illusory on the assumption of his cc conversion ?,
only
?
mortal Ego; this let us repeat it? is not of his faith and of his renunciation of his
to be understood as an escape, but as a means own can he be
will, only by Divine action,
for assuring a serene and cc saved ? and attain to life in ccparadise ?.
superior security
and liberty. And it is in view of the times The of the notion of cc awa?
implications
that are approaching that perhaps never so ? are man is not a
kening entirely different;
much as now has there been need of men fallen or guilty being, nor is he a creature
educated these lines.
along separated by an ontological hiatus from a
But in the Canons we find the Creator. He is a being who has fallen into
opposite
use of such for life to the uso a state of of intoxication and of
disciplines sleep,
of them for carrying us ccbeyond life ? (8). cc ignorance ?. His natural status is that of
It is here that Buddhism itself a Buddha. It is for him to acquire conscious?
presents
as the doctrine of awakening, identical with ness of this by ccawakening ?. In opposition
a strict doctrine of initiation, which as to the ideas of conversion, and
redemption
such is timeless tied down notto action of grace, the leading motive is the des?
(akalika),
historic contingencies, to all faiths truction of cc ignorance ?, of avijja. Decisive
superior
and all systems of mere devotion. It is not here is a fact of an essentially
ccnoetic ? viz.

easy for the Westerner to realise what the real intellectual, and not emotional nature. This

purpose of Buddhism is on this level. The confers an indisputable aristocratic character

ideal here is the absolute of on the doctrine of Buddhism. It ignores the
unconditioning
the attainment of absolute transcen? cc sin ?-complex, self-abasement and self-mor?
being,
now
the puerile idea of those who tification. Its is clear and
askesis ccdry?;
dency. By
it is alien to the
features of autosadism or
identified nirvana with ccnothingness ?, or
into the unconsciousness of a kind masochism which are always present in the
regression
of trance determined the know forms of the asceticism more known to the
by distressing
ledge that ? life is suffering ?, has been to West, and which have often given rise as to
a large extent discarded. Also the a reaction among Westerners to anti-ascetic
teaching
cc life is suffering ? belongs a of life.
that only to the prejudice and distorted exaltation
exoteric aspect of Buddhism. The deeper This character of loftiness, which is due to
meaning of the
expression dukkha is (( com? Buddhist ontology, is matched by the Bud?
motion ?, is agitation rather than (( suffer? dhist doctrine of autonomy: man is the free
ing ?: the condition that the ariya, th s master of his own He is res?
alone
destiny.
(c noble son )), rejects is that of universal im for what he is. Thus in conformity
? ponsible
permanence, of the transitory a state that with his he can confirm the stat3
vocation,
should therefore be essentially understood in which he is, or he can change it. There are
in ontological terms, and whose emotional no and no therefore there
penalties rewards;
significance is quite secondary. Its counter? is nothing to hope for and nothing to fear;
part is thirst, tanha; and the extinction, the the only things that must be taken into con?
nirvana in question, is not destruction in ge? sideration are objective, extra
unsentimental,
neral but precisely and only the destruction moral connection of cause and effect, If
of what in the being is thirst, insatiable long? a Buddha sets himself free, it is by his own
ing, fever and attachment, in its many forms efforts alone. On the path to awa?
leading
and branches. Beyond all that lies awakening no external aid is to be looked for.
kening
and enlightment, the samhhodi which leads This on which
conception, already pivoted
to the unconditioned, the immortal. the traditional Hindu notion of the karma,
Perhaps the antithesis between the initialic is particularly stressed by Buddhism. The
notion of (( awakening ? and the religious and historical Buddha, as is well known, did not
more Christian notion of cc salva? present himself as
savior, but as a
a divine
especially
tion ? or cc redemption ? has not yet been man who, after attaining by himself enligh?
adequately stressed. The religious conception tenment and the Great Liberation, points out
is based on the assumption that man is a being to those having a like vocation the path to
detached from the sacred and the follow. All this refers to early Buddhism.
existentially

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 The attacks of Mara.
A|anta, 2nd cent. A.D.

dt

Pit

With Mahay?nic Buddhism in its prevailing trine looks on all that as too little and it left
and popular aspects, we descend once mor. ih behind. Its horizon is that of the tradi?
to the level of the soteriological religions; tional Hindu metaphysics, which consider the

myriads of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas busy divine worlds as themselves

belonging to the
themselves to assure the salvation and happi? sams?ra, for which does not con?
immortality
ness of all living beings. sist in the perpetuation of individuality but in
if we turn to the terminus
ad quern , the realisation of the Unconditioned; nor the
Again,
i.e. to the ultimate ideal of Buddhism, the Being is
herethe supreme point, that beyond
break with religious is a clear one which nothing other is conceivable. The Being
conceptions
and it is difficult for Westerners to grasp i is matched by the Non-Being and the Uncon?

fully. In the West we are accustomed to con? ditioned is that which is superior and anterior
sider as a religious ideal the ? Paradise ?, the to both. In a well-known sequence (9) the
survival of the believer in heaven, and only Buddha and condemns one by one all
rejects
a few mystics speak of the unitive life, of the identifications: identification with the
union with the Being. But the Buddhist doc body, with the elements, with the Ego, with

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the cosmos, with the divine hierarchies, even of humanitarianism and indiscriminate love,
with the God of Being, that is to say with the the pale evanescent wisdom of one who has
Brahma. In a speech which is Michaelange recognised that the <cworld is suffering ??
lesque in its grandeur, identification with the Undoubtedly, the metaphysical dimensions of
God of Being, which is equivalent to the unio Buddhism just referred to can only be grasp?
rnystica, the ultimate limit of religious rapture, ed, let alone achieved, by very few. But the
is rejected in terms that see in it almost a ultimate background of the whole system is
diabolical temptation (10), for it would re? indeed that. The canonical saying is known:
present a limit to the great Liberation, to the (( All the waters of the ocean have but one
attainment of the Unconditioned. flavor, that of salt; so the sense of the whole of
He who has a knowledge of these dimen? the Law is only one, that of liberation ? (11)
sions of the Buddhistic dimensions For the ultimate, the great nirvana, or more
experience,
that appear clearly in the canonical texts, what correctly, the ccvoid ?, the sunna, the Buddha
can he think of those who consider that Bud? uses the method of the so-called ccnegative
dhism is not even a religion but a system of theology ?;it is unnameable, indefinable, in?
sentimental secular to the human mind; one can
sickly morality, consisting comprehensible

The Buddha, in meditation. Taxila, 5th cent. A.D.

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 one finite shape an ideal a
only say what it is not, not what it is, for type against background
cannot even apply to it the category of being. of grandeur and spiritual virility which i'
But how be called the would be hard to find in any other
ignore what may tradition,
the marks of Him who has no marks? beside which of ?sanctity?
the religious values
traces,
Because cc the lord of men and gods ? was itself pale and droop. Judged by this standard,
called the perfectly cc awakened One ?. As far from being a doctrine accessible to all, a
ccunconquered and intact beings ?, similar to doctrine that makes things easy for the (c spi?
cc lofty Supermen ? those who have ritualists ? because it has no dogma and no
appear
travelled along this path (12); like lions in rites, and is free from exelusivisms, the Bud?
whom anguish and terror are dead
(13) they
dhist path of awakening is, as we have said,
see the past, see the heavens and the a narrow one reserved to those who possess
they
infernal regions (14), they know this world an exceptional vocation and qualifications, and
and the world the kingdom of death in following it, it may be said that the saying
beyond,
and the kingdom free from death, the tem? of the Katha-upamsad is also applicable: it
and the eternal are cc like is like walking on a razor edge while no help,
poral (15). They
like bulls in a mountain cave
? though either human or divine, is given.
tigers,
as cc free from It is agreed that wisdom of this kind cannot
they appear beings vanity, who
have appeared in the world for the good of be (( popularised ?. Indeed, it should not even

many, for the health of many, for compassion be indiscriminately communicated for it is not
?
of the world, for the good, the profit and the without risk the canon itself speaks of the
health of men and gods ? (16). ccI have consequences of the doctrine if wrongly inter?
the brambles of opinions, I : it is like one who having seized a
passed beyond preted
have over I have serpent in the wrong way, sees it pounce on
acquired power myself,
reached the path, I possess the knowledge, I him, death or mortal pain (20). It
producing
have none who guide me ? says the Awakened stands out and remains a summit, bearing
One of himself (17). He is the ccdaring One witness to what a could
superior humanity
who never the sure guide, free from conceive. to the forms in which Buddhism
As
hesitates,
as the sunlight, free from has becomea religion sui generis, and, worse
passion, bright
pride, heroic )); he is the ccOne who knows, still, as to those forms in which it is conceived
by no and appreciated as a democratising humani?
who is dazzled by no fevers, overcome
troubles, tempted by no victories, stained by tarian morality, they should be rightly consi?
dered as an unparalleled contamination of the
no ?; he is cc the great being who
stains lives

apart, freed from all ties, no longer slave to truth.

any servitude ?, he is the cc

worthy One who Julius Evola

keeps watch over himself, of steady step, ready

to the announcement ?, cc inclined to none and
NOTE S
disinclined towards none, sublime in soul,

impassible ?; he is cc the One whom

powerful,
no thirst burns, no smoke dims, and no mist (1) Dhammapada, 58-59.
(2) Cfr. Suttanip?ta, I, vii, 21; Digha-nik?ya, XII, 1.
wets; a spirit who honors sacrifice and who 24-26, 28; Dhammapada, 141.
rises up majestically as no other does )> (18). (3) Majjhimonik?ya, XXII.
(4) Vie de Milarepa, transl. by Kazi Dawa Samdup.
Passions, pride, falsehood have fallen away French ed., Paris, 1955, p. 81.
from him like mustard the point
seeds from (5) Kaiten Nukariya, The religion of the Samurai,
London, 1913.
of a needle. Beyond good, beyond evil, he Heiwa no Hakken, 1949.
(6) Shinsho Hanayama, Tokio,
has cast off both chains, and detached from (Translated into Italian by G. Morichini, in the Bocca edit.,
under the title La Via della pace, Rome, 1954).
pain, detached from pleasure he is purified.
(7) J. Evola, The doctrine of awakening, London, Luzec
As he knows, he no longer enquires: ccHow & Co., 1951.

so? ? He has reached the bottom of the ele? (8) Cfr. per es. Majjhimonik?ya, LH.
(9) Majjhimonik?ya, I.
ment free from death. He has left the human XLIX.
(10) Majjhimonik?ya,
bond and the divine bond and has freed him? (11) Anguttara-hik?ya, VIII, 19.

(12) Majjhimonik?ya, CXVI.

self from all bonds; no one in the world can
(13) Suttanip?ta, III, vi, 47.
conquer him, who has for his domain the (14) Samyutta-nik?ya, III, 58-59; Dhammapada, 422-423.

(15) Majjhimonik?ya, XXXIV.

infinite and whose path is known neither by (16) Ibid., IV.
the gods nor by angels, nor by men (19) (17) Uravagga, III, 21.
LV1.
Notwithstanding the hyperbolical element in (18) Majjhimonik?ya,
(19) Dhammapada. 420 sg. and passim; Majjhimonik?ya,
some of these attributes, from them takes de XCVIII.

326

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