Mircea Eliade YOGA IMMORTALITY AND ... - Brihaspati.net

guess what Buddhaghosa's ambition is justi-fying rather all these practices, made
understandable, most "logical". The last chapter of his voluminous work entitled
"benefits accruing to developing understanding," and one paragraph (pp. 703-709) is just
to show that through intelligence we can get to ecstasy (Nirodha "detention of states of
consciousness").
Furthermore, we Yogacara blooming after the fifth century and which reaffirms the need
for experience yogi: to destroy the world of phenomena (ie, profane), and toward the
unconditioned, is more faeil "retreat to the center one my-mo "through meditation and
ecstasy, in lieu of analytical destruction of the world. Yogacara But that's why they did
not resign 'to philosophy: in its role of "school of thought" should be ex-put their views
with all the traditional scholastic frame.
All Buddhist monks who were dedicated to yoga, used to fix certain objects atenci6n:
kasina were, the kind of media meditaci6n known long before Buddhism. The
Visuddhimaggahabla of them repeatedly (page 118: the earth, 170, 172, water, 173
colors, 174, light, etc..), 18 In the
18 Reference to fcastna Refer Dhammasangani (trans. C. Rhys Davids, Buddhists
Psychological Ethics, p. 43, n. 4, p. 47, n. 2), Compendium of Philosophy
(Abhidhammattha-Samgaha, tr. Shwe Zan Aung ) p. 54; La Vallee-Poussin, Etudes et
Materiaux, p. 94 et seq.
Tantrism, the xa kasi enjoyed great importance. Any object, any phenomenon, can be a
kasina: light that slips through the crack of the door in a dark place, a pitcher, a pe-Dazo
of land, and so on. Through meditation we obtain a perfect correspondence between
thought and object, ie that uni-fies the mental flow suspending any other psychic activity.
This technique will become popular in Ceylon as in Tibet.
We have a very important text, although confused, refer -
ent Buddhist yoga centered kasina: this is the book Cone -
lished as Yogavacara's Manual of Indian Mysticism as practiced by
Buddhists, edited by T. W. Rhys Davids under that title (London,
1896 Pali Texts Society) and translated by Woodward with the title of
Manual of Mystic (London, 1916, Pali Texts Society). The state of
text leaves much to be desired, which further complicate their impression
tion. The manual, is anonymous, but we can put approximately
mately the date of redaction between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This
written in Pali and Sinhala and assume that its appearance as late
is related to the arrival of Buddhist monks in Siam, called
by King Vimala Dharma Surya (1684-1706) to Ceylon, with the pro -
posito revive the spiritual life of a Buddhist monastery
island (see Manual of a Mystic, pag. 145 et seq.). As Is,
Schematic and dark, resembling a list of recipes techniques
that a proper manual. He who yogava -
was receiving no doubt face the teachings orally, the text to the
times pointer. It is true that most of the texts of medi -
tacion Indians are presented under this aspect schematic summary
and that the real initiation technique and kept transmitting
orally, but the "manual" is very secretive. T. W. Rhys Davids and
Caroline Rhys Davids tried to explain as far as pos -