Meditation Page

	The doctrine means redemption by insight. The right knowledge is in itself redemption. But both in origin and method, this redeeming knowledge is very different from our usual conception of knowledge. The knowledge is not demonstrated by sense perception and logical operations, but springs from experience in the transformations of consciousness and the stages of meditation. Such meditation brought the Enlightenment. The doctrine he handed down could only have sprung from meditation. In meditation, for example, like all Indian Yogis, knew himself to be in contact with beings and worlds of transcendent origin. In meditation he saw with the divine, clear-sighted, suprasensory eye. Science and philosophical speculation remain within our given form of consciousness. But this Indian philosophy may be said to take consciousness itself in hand, to raise it to higher forms by exercises in meditation. Consciousness becomes a variable. Rational thinking confined to space and time-a mere stage of consciousness-is surpassed by the transcending experience of an ascent to the supraconscious.
	The answer to the basic questions of existence is to be drawn from these deeper sources, which first lend meaning and justification to the conclusions of reason. Thus what thewishes to reveal is lost in the words that can be said quickly and the abstract propositions that can be thought quickly which make up his teaching. Deep is the doctrine, hard to behold, hard to understand, full of peace, magnificent, inaccessible to mere reflection, subtle; only the wise man can learn it. To this way of thinking, the truth both of the philosophical thought that takes place in normal consciousness; these methods can succeed only where the soul has been purified. What Buddha teaches is not a system of knowledge but a path of salvation, the Noble Eightfold Path: right views, right aspiration, right speech, right conduct, right means of livelihood, right endeavor, right mindfulness, right meditation. Yet this coherent picture of the path of salvation is itself a form of pedagogic system. Buddha's truth is not based solely on meditation but also takes normal consciousness into account. The understanding is transcended, but not rejected.
	It is called back into use the moment the experience of transcendence has to be communicated. And it would be equally incorrect to say that Buddha's truth is based entirely on speculative thought, though its forms of expression are drawn from this source. Nor is it subsumed in the ethos of monastic life. Meditation, understanding, philosophical speculation, monastic ethos, all are part of the truth, but each has a kind of independence; they stand in no definite hierarchical order but operate side by side like the different forms of Yoga in all Hindu systems (the training of the bodily energies, the path of ethical works, the rise to enlightenment, immersion in love [bhakti], the transformation of consciousness by meditation). There is no definite relation between the stages of meditation and the ideas accessible to the normal understanding, or between the experience gained by operating with ideas and that gained by operations affecting the state of consciousness. But we find certain parallelisms. In each stage of meditation, for example, a new suprasensory world is experienced. To disregard a reality in order to transcend it is a formal operation that can be per formed even without such of experience. Logical ideas create space by freeing us from our bonds with the finite. But it is only by meditation that truths are reinforced and established, that full certainty is attained. It cannot be said that the one is primary, the other a mere consequence. One is, rather, the confirmation and guarantee of the other. Each in its own way prepares us for the truth.
	In speculation, meditation, and ethos alike, it is the human will that sets the goal and attains it. Each man has his own power of action and conduct, meditation and thought. He works, he struggles, he is like a mountain climber. That is why Buddha is forever calling for an effort of the will. All a man's powers must be engaged. Not all who try achieve the goal. To be sure, there are exceptional cases of spontaneous Enlightenment without effort of the will, especially under the personal guidance of the Buddha. Then the goal is attained all at once, and for the remainder of the adept's life it is merely clarified by repetition. Meditation is not a technique that can succeed by itself. It is dangerous to gain a systematic control over one states of consciousness, to conjure up one and dispel another. Such methods are ruinous for those who attempt them without the proper foundation. And the foundation is the purity of one's whole life. In the conduct of life the main requirement is wakefulness, which is carried over into meditation, where it attains its fullest scope. Then awareness permeates the body, illumines the unconscious down to the last nook and cranny. To carry light into the depths is the principle of the ethos, of meditation, and of speculation as well. The stages of meditation should not consist of intoxication, ecstasy, or the enjoyment of strange states such as those induced by hashish and opium, but of insight exceeding all normal insight in brightness, an insight in which the thing is present and one is not merely thinking about it. The universal imperative is thus: let nothing lie dormant in the unconscious, wreaking its havoc; let perfect wakefulness accompany all your action and experience.
	Accordingly, human who understand that were enjoined to truthfulness both in their deepest thoughts and in the actions and words of everyday life. They were further enjoined to be chaste, to abstain from intoxicating drink, not to steal, not to harm any living creature (ahimsa), and to observe the four modes of inner conduct: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity toward the impure and evil. These four immeasurables are raised to infinite heights by meditation. They are the atmosphere of the existence: infinite gentleness, nonviolence, the magic that attracts the beasts and appeases their wildness, compassion, friendliness toward everything that lives, whether man, beast or god.