The Equinox (Volume I, Number II)

THE EQUINOX in appearance, without discovering an universe. So, as I set myself to discuss the character of mystic states, it is immediately evident that if I am to render myself at all intelligible to English readers, a totally new system of classification must be thought out. The classical Eight Jhanas will be useless to us; the Hindu system is almost as bad; the Qabalistic requires a preliminary knowledge of the Tree of Life whose explanation would require a volume to itself; but fortunately we have, in the Buddhist Skandhas and the Three Characteristics which deny them, a scheme easily assimilable to Western psychology. In “Science and Buddhism” I dealt in some detail with these Skandhas; but I will briefly recapitulate. In examining any phenomenon and analysing it we first notice its Name and Form (Nama and Rupa). “Here is a Rose,” we say. In such a world live the entirely vulgar. Next (with Berkeley) we perceive that this statement is false. There is an optical sensation (Vedana) of red; an olfactory sensation of fragrance; and so on. Even its weight, its space, are modifications of sense; and the whole statement is transformed into “ Here is a pleasurable set of sensations which we group under the name of a rose.” In such a world lives the sensuous artist. Next, these modifications of sense are found to be but percepts; the pleasure or pain vanishes; and the sensations are observed coldly and clearly without allowing the mind to be affected. This perception (Saiifia) is the world of the surgeon or the man of science. Next, the perception itself is seen to be dependent on the 58