MYSTICAL BUDDHISM. 19 
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 Samadhi, and by the practice of Samadhi the six 
transcendent faculties (Abhinia) 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. 
c 2 
