The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana — Th. Stcherbatsky (1927)

1 Fr. Heiler, op. cit.p.47, following prof. Rhys Davids, thinks that (brahmanical) Yoga is predominantly physical and hypnotic,whereas the Buddhist method of meditation is intellectual and moral. I would not venture to endorse this opinion. In this respect the difference, if any, is negligible. Heiler evidently overlooks,in his Buddhist fervour, the devotion to God (iivara-pranidhdna ) of the brahmanical Yogi. The process of moral purification of the latter is very vividly described by prof. S.’N. Dasgupta, The Study of Patanjali, p. 142 ff.(Calcutt,1920) and his other works.

2 The late prof. 0 Rosenberg has himself practised some yoga-meditatiou in a Zen Mo¬ nastery in Japan. He used to compare the agreeable feeling of ease which he then experienced to the effect produced by music, especially when executed personally. Attention is then fixed and a light feeling of ecstasy makes you forget all troubles of life. The warlike Samurai before go¬ ing to war used to go through a course of yoga-exercises in some Zen nonastery, and this had the most beneficial influence upon their moral condition,in strengthening their courage and endu¬ rance.

3 It is interesting to note that the gods of Epicurus are also quiescent, inactive and also possess aethereal bodies of a special atomic structure.

4 Cp. Katha-vatthu, VI. 4. The Yogacaras likewise reckon catalepsy among the asam¬ skrta elements.

N III VAX A

III. YOGI - PRATYAKSA

III. Mystic intuition (yogi-prat y a ksa)

Apart from the above described general function of Yoga, there is an¬ other special kind of it, the subjective counterpart of the first. It then ap¬ pears as the mystic intuition of the true condition of the universe. The Buddhist Saint is supposed, in a moment of mystic illumination, suddenly to perceive the whole construction, with its gross and mystic worlds, as vividly as if it were a direct sense perception. As a psychological process it is equally taught in Hinayana and in Mahayana, but its content, the picture which reveals itself at this moment, is quite different in both systems. It corresponds to their theo¬ retical parts, to the system of pluralism which is taught in Hinayana, and to the monist view which is the central conception of Mahayana, as will be seen later on. For, although a sudden illumination, it does not come with¬ out preparation. The future Saint has gone through a long course of moral training and he has carefully studied all the details of that philosophic con¬ struction, when in the moment of sudden illumination, what he had before tried to understand only theoretically, comes up before him with the vivacity of living reality. Beginning with this moment he is a Saint, all his habits of thought are changed. He directly views the universe as an infinite con¬ tinuity of single moments in gradual evolution towards Final Extinction. In Mahayana the Bodhisattva sees directly, or feels inwardly, quite another picture, corresponding to the theoretical teaching of that religion. The Path towards Salvation is therefore divided in a preliminary path of accu¬ mulating merit ( sambhdra-margci ), in a subsequent course of training ( prayoga-murga) and in the path of illumination (drsti-marga). 1 The latter is momentary. It is technically called perception of the Four Truths, such perception being the exclusive property of the Saint ( drya ). Therefore they are called the four truths of the Saint ( dryasya satydni). They express the general view that 1) there is a phenomenal existence (duhkha), 2) its driving force (samudaya), 3) there will be final extinction ( nirodha ), and 4) there is a path towards it (marga). In this general form the four truths are accepted

1 Mrs. C. Rhys Davids (Dhamma-sangani transl.,p. 256, n. 2) calls it a « mental awaken¬ ing)), «intellectual conversion)), «a certain vantage-point for mind and heart from which the Promised Land of Nirvana was caught sight of, and the fact of impermanence first discerned)). Under «the fact of impermanence# the theory of the impermanent dharmas must be evidently understood. A poetical description of drsti-marga , which is the same as srota-apatti-phala , is found in D. N. I. 76 ff.

by all Indian systems. 1 There is absolutely nothing Buddhistic in them. Their meaning changes according to the content which is put into them, ac¬ cording to what is understood under phenomenal life (duhkha) 2 and under extinction (nirvana). Within the pale of Buddhism these conceptions have, at a certain date, undergone a radical change. In early Buddhism they correspond to a pluralistic universe, in Mahayana to a monistic one. 3