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of our Manual, first, the kind of conscious experience arising apart from syste- matic effort to obtain any such specific result, but which was bound, none the less, to lead to hedonistic consequences, pleasant or unpleasant (pp. 1-42). Next, we see a certain felicific result deliberately aimed at through self-cultivation in modes of consciousness called Good (pp. 43-97). And, incidentally, we learn something of the procedure adopted in that systematic culture. The Commentary leaves us no room to doubt whether or not the phase rupupapattiya maggam bhaveti (* that he may attain to the heavens of Form he cultivates the way thereto ') refers to a flight of imaginative power merely. ' Form = the r u p a-b h a v o,' or mode of existence so called. * Attainment = n i b b a 1 1 i, jati, sanjati' — all being terms for birth and re-birth.^ So for the attaining to the Formless heavens. Through the mighty engine of * good states,' induced and sustained, directed and developed 1 Asl. 162. See below, pp. 43 et seq., 71 et seq. Ixxxviii by intelligence and self-control, it was held that the student might modify his own destiny beyond this life, and insure, or at least promote, his chances of a happy future. The special culture or exercise required in either case was that called Jhana, or rapt contemplation, the psychology of which, when adequately investigated, will one day evoke considerable interest. There was first intense attention by way of * an exclusive sensation,'^ to be entered upon only when all other activity was relaxed to the utmost, short of checking in any way the higher mental functions. After a time the sensation practically ceases. The wearied sense gives out. Change, indispensable to consciousness, has been eliminated ; and we have realized, at all events since Hobbes wrote, how idem semper sentire et non sentire ad idem recidunt. Then comes the play of the ' after-image,' and then the emergence of the mental image, of purely ideational or representative construction. This will be, not of the sense-object first considered, but some attenuated abstraction of one of its qualities. And this serves as a background and a barrier against all further invasion of sense-impressions for the time being. To him thus purged and prepared there comes, through subconscious persist- ence, a reinstatement of some concept, associated with feeling and conation {i.e., with desire or aspiration), which he had selected for preliminary meditation. And this conception he now proceeds by a sort of psychical involution to raise to a higher power, realizing it more fully, deepening its import, expanding its application. Such seems to have been the Kasina method according to the description in the Visuddhi Magga, chap, iv.,^ but there were several methods, some of which, the method, e.g., of respiration, are not given in our Manual. Of the thoughts for meditation, only a few occur in the Dhamma- ^ See above, p. Ixix. ^ Translated in Warren's 'Buddhism in Translations,' p. 293 et seq. Cf. below. Book I., Part I., chap. ii. Cf. also Rhys Davids* * Yogavacara's Manual,' Introduction. Ixxxix Sangani, such as the * Sublime Abodes ' of thought — love, pity, etc. But in the former work we find numerous lists for exercise in the contemplative life, with or without the rapt musing called Jhana.^ In the exercises calculated to bring out re-birth in the world of Form, it was chiefly necessary to ponder on things of this life in such a way as to get rid of all appetite and impulse in connexion with them, and to cultivate an attitude of the purest disinterestedness towards all worldly attrac- tions. If the Formless sphere were the object of aspiration, it was then necessary, by the severest fetches of abstraction, to eliminate not only all sense-impression, but also all sensory images whatever, and to endeavour to realize con- ditions and relations other than those obtaining in actual experience.^ Thus, in either method a foretaste of the mode of re-becoming aspired after was attempted. But besides and beyond the sort of moral consciousness characterizing these exercises which were calculated to promote a virtuous and happy existence in any one of the three worlds, there were the special conditions of intellect and emotion termed lok'uttaram citta m.^ Those exercises were open to the lay pupil and the bhikkhu alike. There was nothing especially * holy,' nothing esoteric, about the practice of Jhana. The diligent upa- saka or upasika, pursuing a temporary course of such religious and philosophic discipline as the rising schools of ^ J. P. T. S., 1891-1893. Synopsis of the Vis. Mag., Parts II. and III. 2 In translating the formula of the Third Aruppa or meditation on Nothingness, I might have drawn attention to Kant's development of the concept of None or Nothing, in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (end of Div. i. of Transc. Logic). Some great adepts were credited with the power of actually partaking in other existences while yet in this, notably Maha Moggallana {e.g., M. i.). Gotama tells of another in the Kevaddha Sutta (D. i. 215), but tells it as a myth. 3 P. 82 et seq. Cf. n. 2 on p. 81. xc Buddhism afforded, might be expected to avail himself or herself of it more or less. But those * good ' dhammas alluded to were those which characterized the Four Paths, or Four Stages of the way, to the full ' emancipation ' of Nirvana. If I have rendered lokuttaram cittara by ' thought engaged upon the higher ideal ' instead of select- ing a term more literally accurate, it is because there is, in a way, less of the * supramundane ' or ' transcendent,' as we usually understand these expressions, about this cittam than about the aspiring moods described above. For this sort of consciousness was that of the man or woman who regarded not heaven nor re-birth, but one thing only, as ' needful ' : the full and perfect efflorescence of mind and character to be brought about, if it might be, here and now. The Dhamma-Sangani never quits its severely dry and formal style to descant on the characteristics and methods of that progress to the Ideal, every step in which is else- where said to be loftier and sweeter than the last, with a wealth of eulogy besides that might be quoted. Edifying discourse it left to the Suttanta Books. But no rhetoric could more effectively describe the separateness and un- compromising other-ness of that higher quest than the one word A-pariyapanna rn. — Unincluded — by which refer- ence is made to it in Book III. Yet for all this world of difference in the quo vadis of aspiration, there is a great deal of common ground covered by the moral consciousness in each case, as the respective expositions show. That of the Arahat in spe differs only in two sets of additional features conferring greater richness of content, and in the loftier quality of other features not in themselves additional. This quality is due to the mental awakening or enlighten- ment of sambodhi. And the added factors are three constituents of the Noble Eightfold Path of conduct (which are, more obviously, modes of overt activity than of con- sciousness) and the progressive stages in the attainment of XCl the sublime knowledge or insight termed a fi n a.i Our Western languages are scarcely rich enough to ring the changes on the words signifying * to know ' as those of India did on j n a and v i d, d r s and pas. Our religious ideals have tended to be emotional in excess of our intel- lectual enthusiasm. ' Absence of dulness ' has not ranked with us as a cardinal virtue or fundamental cause of good. Hence it is difficult to reproduce the Pali so as to give im- pressiveness to a term like a n ii a as compared with the mere nana m,^ usually implying less advanced insight, with which the ' first type of good thought ' is said to be associated. But I must pass on. As a compilation dealing with positive culture, undertaken for a positive end, it is only consistent that the Manual should deal briefly with the subject of bad states of consciousness. It is true that akusalani, as a means leading to unhappy result, was not conceived as negatively as its logical form might lead us to suppose. Bad karma was a ' piling up,' no less than its opposite. Nevertheless, to a great extent, the difference between bad types of thought and good is described in terms of the contradictories, of the factors in the one kind and in the other. Nor are the negatives always on the side of evil.