called Samâdhi, first by focussing his thought, cittass' ekaggatâ, and thus attaining 1) a little thrill khuddata pîti; 2) a momentary joy, khanika pîti ("momentary flash"); 3) a flood of emotion, okkantika pîti, in which he is submerged as with a wave; 4) an elated rapture, ubbega pîti, in which he is transported, not only mentally but physically, so that he can rise and float off; and 5) an "all pervading ecstasy, pharana pîti.* According to later views, "the unintelligent has no trance and the unintranced has no intelligence" (Dhammap. 372). But the intuitive flash of knowledge, or suffusion of insight in the early period may be the result of a personal experience rather than of a system of concentrated meditation. Thus in the Theri (xlvii), one of the Sisters has a vision of the Buddha and of Truth through visual observation of what happens to water when it flows out and what happens to a lamp when it is extinguished, and this is her gnosis. (knowledge and confession): "Unto my cell I go and take my lamp, And seated on my couch I watch the flame; Then grasp the pin and push the wick right down So to my mind comes freedom." The Manual of a Mystic seems to refer to this exercise: "Meditating on the wax-taper I aspire to attain bliss" (p. 63). But it is interesting to notice how often the early Buddhists are helped to their gnosis by this vision of the Buddha. Harita, shocked into moral consciousness by the sudden death of his beloved wife, has a vision of the Buddha, who appears and, admonishing him, leads him to "develop his insight" (Thera xxix). Tissa is asleep and sees a vision 4 See the account in Mrs. Rhys Davids' Buddhist Psychology, London, 1914, 187 f., and the (Yogâvacara) Manual of a Mystic, 1916, pp. xi, xiii, and notes, p. 7 f.; examples, e. g. p. 23. of the Buddha shedding glory upon him and admonishing him and therewith he became emancipated (xxxix). Emancipation is here freedom from existence bound to Karma, extinction of spatial life as well as extinction of desires, one being dependent on the other. Thus Uttara (cxli) says: nibbayissam anâsavo, as explained by the commentator, "by the expiry of the last moment of consciousness I shall utterly pass away like a fire without fuel." So Buddha himself said, as did others after him (ib cliii), "stayed is the further rise of consciousness; blown even here to nothingness." Buddha himself attained to enlightenment through the recognized series of trances. With him who was himself the Supreme Lord, there could be no vision save of the Truth, which led him finally to that jhâna-ecstasy which reappears in the gnosis of his disciples, e. g. Theri (cxii). The completed system of the Hîna school is given by Buddhaghosha in the fifth century A.D. as the Way of Purity, Visuddhi Magga. Here forty subjects of meditation are enlisted, ten pleasing, ten gruesome, ten being reflections on Buddha, morality, etc., and ten being exalted states, joy, compassion, love, etc. The novice is given certain subjects to meditate upon, which brings him to, one trance after another. Hundreds of times he must repeat formulas connected with each subject, sitting retired, his eyes fixed on a red disk, till he sees it as well with his eyes closed as open. 66 Then he retires to his hut and develops the reflex," abandoning investigation and consideration, till he attains to the ecstasy of the third and to the supernatural calm of the fourth trance. Then he receives the clarified "divine eye" of purified intuition." An account of these trances will be found in Warren's Buddhism in Translations, and in Mr. E. W. Burlingame's Legends, from the Dhammapada Commentary, in HOS. vol. xxviii. See also Mrs. Rhys David's Buddhist Psychology, the Quest Series, London, 1914. As a result of his mystic vision the Buddhist may attain to the miraculous powers acquired by all Yogins. Almost synchronous with this exposition of Buddhistic Yoga is the Brahmanic Yoga of Patañjali, our third division. Here, however, the end sought is the isolation of the soul from the bonds of the sense through sloughing off the aspects common to matter, till the soul reaches a pure condition in which it can establish a relation of immediate perception or intuition of truth, of things as they are. Patañjali lived between three and five hundred A. D. He refutes idealism and his system is an extension of dualistic teaching; it gives the means of attaining to the Yoga-state of full self-expression. The mind by concentration learns how to resist fluctuations vṛtti, till it attains dispassionateness. This concentration, samâdhi, is obtained by certain exercises, such as breathings and postures, and gives insight or intuition. Quite as important in the method are the sentiments to be cultivated, friendliness, happiness, compassion, etc. The balanced state of mind finally attained then brightens with conscious knowledge. Positive aids to Yoga are (a) abstention from injury, from falsehood, theft, incontinence and rapacity (acceptance of gifts), five in all; (b) five observances, cleanliness, contentment, self-castigation, study, and devotion to the Iśvara or Lord-soul; (c) postures, described at length; (d) regulation of breath; (e) withdrawal of the senses, which leads to mastery of the organs of sense; and (f) fixed attention. The result of the late state of samâdhi is that one attains to objectless meditation or pure ecstasy, which frees the spirit from ignorance, especially from the delusion that spirit has any identity with matter. Now three things are noticeable here. First that the Yoga is a sober psychological study which, however, immediately resolves itself into magic (mastery of matter); second, that it admits devotion to the timeless Lord-soul (not divinity), as equally valid with its own system; and, third, that it makes isolation or separation of soul from matter depend on ecstatic trance-induced intuition. As to the first point, abstention from theft makes all jewels come to one; by binding the mind to one object, one fuses the knower with the known and obtains intuitive knowledge of times (past births, etc.); and concentrated insight controls as well as understands objects (language of birds, course of stars). So the Brahmanic Yogin (like the Buddhist) can become invisible and perform tricks of pure magic. Such is the content of the Vibhûti-pada (third book). As to the second point, what is elsewhere of prime importance, the favor of the Lord-soul is here negligently admitted as one of the five observances but is in itself productive of the rapturous intuition gained by the formal system. The third point alone makes it possible or rather imperative that the Yoga should be explained as a mystic system, according to which the whole life is oriented with reference to one idea until there is an emotional transformation corresponding to this. focussed state, a transformation equivalent to absolute dispassionateness. This state of Kaivalya (isolation) is the culmination of the system; in it the self as energy of intellect rests grounded upon itself (without relation to the aspects of matter), eternally freed from the effects of Karma. But this mysticism is in no sense an intuition of God (there is no God), only of truth in regard to the soul. The Mahâyâna, in distinction from the Hîna, was a combination of early Buddhistic and late Brahmanic philosophy. It makes a fourth form of mysticism. in our list because, though based on Yoga, it has a different goal from that of Yoga and of the Hînayâna. It appears well set forth in Asanga's Mahâyâna Sûtrâlamkâra, which explains the Mahâyâna not in nihilistic terms, as in the Mâdhyamika School of Nâgârjuna but according to the Yogâcâra School. It was about the time of the Christian era, when religion turned from solitude to the world that Buddhism expanded 6 *Edited by Sylvain Lévi, Paris, text, 1907; introduction and translation, 1911, into that greater philosophy which may have been affected by the Manichæan and gnostic influence then stealing eastward, that Asanga taught. He lived in Ghandhara, in the West. The idea of the trinity which as Lévi (p. 18) says, "semble aussi trahir des influences étrangères," arises suddenly at this time. Early Buddhism no longer satisfied a church which had outgrown the cloister. Iran, near where Asanga was born, was agitated by a religious revolution (the restoration of Zoroastrianism) affected by Jewish and Christian thought, so that it is not impossible that the ideas of Asanga were affected by these and by the Logoi to which his Dharmas correspond. Be that as it may, his work in its vision, ecstasy, and magic is essentially Indic." In this system the discipline is based on a mystic union like that of love. To the six organs (sense-organs and manas) Asanga adds Alaya-vijñâna, the fundamental affirmation of existence as the base of thought: sum ergo cogito. Pure being can rid itself of the latent effect of actions by attaining to cessation of difference when the universal consciousness takes the place of self-consciousness (the Ego no longer being "other" than the whole). Truth realized in the intellect (Bodhi, as agent) leads to communion with the Buddha. Buddha here is the real, neither being nor not-being. Containing all, the real does not reveal itself; it excludes duality; it gives greater bliss than Nirvâna (as cessation).. To reach Bodhi is to become a Bodhisat and this is accomplished by the passage through ten bhûmis or stages from Faith to Buddha as preliminary and final experiences. With the first stage one acquires the knowledge of the ideas or ideal phenomena; in the second, one becomes spotless and Compare Senart, Rev. Hist. Relig. 1900, Nov. Dec., on the relation with the Yoga; also his Origines Bouddhiques Musée Guimet, 1907, and for the bhûmis his Mahâvastu (1882), vol. i, Introduction, p. xxvii f. The Mahâvastu Bhûmis (possibly seven at first, ib. xxxv) are rather ethical stages, lacking the illumination found in Asanga's list. |