62 Ancient Ideals
there is one life for all, that we live in the midst of one miraculous
being, and that to harm another being is to harm oneself— all this
undergirds Gautama’s gospel. But it is not always at the center. An
enemy of the Self, Gautama nonetheless affi rms the life and acts of
the individual, the one who is to become his own lamp.
What Gautama brings to the world is preeminently his person.
He provides a doctrine, yes, but also an incarnation, a breathing and
walking instance of the spiritual discipline he propounds. And this
person begins to change the world so that it looks to compassion as
a Soul value— a value that can create unity of being and joy— and
not just to courage.
Suppose, contra Nietz sche, that compassion is not a resentful
rebuttal to the ethos of courage. Suppose compassion is a second
Soul State, a second great ideal, always potentially pre sent, latent
in men and women, always already possi ble. It is a State we may
enter from the State of Self, to think again of Blake. Suppose com-
passion is a second Soul virtue, no less potent, though later in its
full disclosure to the world, than courage. Suppose a new possibility
for a life that is whole and fi lled with meaning has received embod-
iment in Gautama and becomes available in time to virtually all
human beings?
It is now not only aristocrats and godly males like Achilles and
Hector who can live from and for the Soul. Compassion is a virtue
open to everyone. The promise of full, unifi ed life unfolds fl ower-
like. And it is to be encountered not only in India, but more and
more throughout the world.
In China, not far from where the Buddha achieves wakefulness and
puts Mara to rout, a teacher not entirely unlike him begins his career
in failure. Confucius wants what many thinkers— both honest and
nefarious— have wanted. Confucius wants a post with signifi cant
public responsibility. He wants to do something for the suff ering