MYSTICAL BUDDHISM. 



stages of abstraction did not satisfy the requirements of later 

 Buddhism in regard to the intense sublimation of the thinking 

 faculty needed for the complete effacement of all sense of 

 individuality. Higher and higher altitudes had to be reached, 

 insomuch that the fourth stage of abstract meditation is 

 sometimes divided and sub-divided into what are called eight 

 vimokhas and eight samapattis all of them forms and stages 

 of ecstatic meditation.* 



A general name, however, for all the higher trance-like 

 states is Samddhi, and by the practice of Samadhi the six 

 transcendent faculties (Abhiuna) might ultimately be obtained, 

 viz., the inner ear, or power of hearing words and sounds 

 however distant (clair-audience, as it might be called), the 

 inner eye or power of seeing all that happens in every part of 

 the world (clair-voyance), knowledge of the thoughts of others, 

 recollection of former existences, the knowledge of the mode 

 of destroying the corrupting influences of passion, and, 

 finally, the supernatural powers called Iddhi, to be subse- 

 quently explained. 



But to return to the Buddha's first course of meditation at 

 the time when he first attained Buddhahood. This happened 

 during one particular night, which was followed by the birth- 

 day of Buddhism. 



And what was the first grand outcome of that first profound 

 mental abstraction ? One legend relates that in the first 

 watch of the night all his previous existences flashed across 

 his mind; in the second he understood all present states of 

 being; in the third he traced out the chain of causes and 

 effects, and at the dawn of day he knew all things. 



According to another legend, there was an actual outburst 

 of the divine light before hidden within him. 



We read in the Lalita-vistara (chap, i.) that at the supreme 

 moment of his intellectual illumination brilliant flames of 

 light issued from the crown of his head, through the inter- 

 stices of his cropped hair. These rays are sometimes repre- 

 sented in his images, emerging from his skull in a form 

 resembling the five fingers of an extended hand. 



Mark, however, that it is never stated that Gautama ever 

 attained to the highest result of the true Yoga of Indian 

 philosophy union with the Supreme Spirit. On the con- 

 trary, his self-enlightenment led to entire disbelief in the 

 separate existence of any eternal, infinite Spirit at all any 

 Spirit, in fact, with which a spirit existing in his own body 

 could blend, or into which it could be absorbed. 



* These are described in Childers's Pali Dictionary, s.v. 



