2 MYSTICAL BUDDHISM. 



ance from the fires of passion and the flames of concupiscence. 

 Yet it encouraged association and combination for mutual 

 help. It established a universal brotherhood of celibate 

 monks, open to persons of all castes and ranks, to rich and 

 poor, learned and unlearned alike a community of men which 

 might, in theory, be co-extensive with the whole world all 

 bound together by the common aim of self- con quest, all 

 animated by the wish to aid each other in the battle with 

 carnal desires, all penetrated by a desire to follow the example 

 of the Buddha, and be guided by the doctrine or law which he 

 promulgated. 



Ccenobitic monasticism in fact became an essential part of 

 true Buddhism and a necessary instrument for its propagation. 



In all this the Buddha showed himself to be eminently 

 practical in his methods and profoundly wise in his generation. 

 Evidently, too, he was wise in abstaining at first from all 

 mystical teaching. Originally Buddhism set its face against 

 all solitary asceticism and secret efforts to attain sublime 

 heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no esoteric system 

 of doctrine which it withheld from ordinary men. 



Nor did true Buddhism at first concern itself with any form 

 of philosophical or metaphysical teaching, which it did not 

 consider helpful for the attainment of the only kind of true 

 knowledge worth striving for the knowledge of the origin 

 of suffering and its remedy the knowledge that suffering 

 and pain arise from indulging lusts, and that life is in- 

 separable from suffering, and is an evil to be got rid of by 

 suppressing self and extinguishing desires. 



In the Mahd-parinibbdna-sutta (Rhys Davids, 11-32) is re- 

 corded one of the Buddha's remarks shortly before his decease. 



" What, Ananda, does the Order desire of me ? I have 

 taught the law (desito dhammo) without making any distinc- 

 tion between esoteric and exoteric doctrine (anantaram aba- 

 hiram karitva). In the matter of the law, the Tathagata 

 (i.e., the Buddha) has never had the closed fist of a teacher 

 (acariya-mutthi) that is, of a teacher who withholds some 

 doctrines and communicates others." 



Nevertheless, admitting, as we must, that early Buddhism 

 had no mysteries reserved for a privileged circle, we must not 

 shut our eyes to the fact that the great importance attached 

 to abstract meditation in the Buddhist system could not fail 

 in the end to encourage the growth of mystical ideas. 



Furthermore, it is undeniable that such ideas were, in some 

 countries, carried to the most extravagant extremes. Efforts 

 to induce a trance-like or hypnotic condition, by abstracting 

 the thoughts from all bodily influences, by recitation of mysti- 



