The Sword of Song

SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 110 Of the metaphysical and religious t heories which have been built upon the facts here stated, I have nothing to s ay in this place. The facts are not at the disposition of all; from the nature of the s ubject each man must be his own witness. I was once twitted by som e shallow-pated person with the fact that my position cannot be demon- strated in the laboratory , and that therefore (save the mark!) I m ust be a m ystic, an occultist, a theosophist, a mystery-monger, and what not. I am none of these. The above criticism applies to every psychologist that ever wrote, and to the man who makes the criticism by the fact of his making it. I can only say : “You have y our own laboratory and apparatus, y our mind; and if the room is dirty and the apparatus ill put together, y ou have certainly not me to blame for it.” The facts being of individual importance, then, there is little use if I detail the results of my own experience. And the reason for this reticence—for I plead guilty to reticence—that to explain would damage the very apparatus whose use I am advoca- ting. For did I say that such and such a practice leads one to s ee a blue pig, the suggestion is sufficient to cause one class of people to see a blue pig where none existed, and another to deny or suspect the blue pig when it really appeared, though the latter alternative is unlikely . The con- scious phenomenon, and the bliss, is of so stupendous and well-defined a nature that I cannot imagine any preconceived idea power- ful enough to diminish it appreciably. But for the sake of the former class I hold my tongue.1 I trust it is now perfectly clear, if m y statements are accepted—and I can only 1 On the advisibility of so doing I am open to conviction. T he scientific m ind, I m ight ar gue, will not readily fall into that error ; and for the others, they will be useless as a research phalanx, and may as well see blue pigs and be happy as not. I n the past, no doubt, r esearch has been choked by the m ultitude of pseudo-blue-pig- people, from the “T.S.” to the “G.D.” We must distinguish by methods, not by results.—A. C. most seriously assure y ou that honest labo- rious experim ent will be found to verify them in every particular—that whatever arguments are brought forward destructive of the reality of Dhy ana, apply with far more force to the norm al state, and it is evident that to deny the latter seriously is ipso facto to become unserious. Whether the normal testimony may be attacked from above, by insisting on the superior reality of Dhy ana—and à fortiori of Samadhi, which I have not experienced, and conse- quently do not treat of, being content to accept the highly probably s tatements of those who profess to know, and who have so far not deceived m e (i.e. as to Dhyana), is a question which it is not pertinent to the present argum ent to dis cuss.1 I shall, however, suggest certain ideas in the follow- ing section, in which I propose to discuss the most famous of the Buddhist medita- tions (Mahasatipatthana, its method, object, and results. VIII. MAHASATIPATTHANA. This meditation differs fundamentally from the usual Hindu methods by the fact that the m ind is not restrained to the contemplation of a single object, and there is no interference with the natural functions of the body as there is, e.g., in P ranayama. It is essentially an observation-practice, which later assumes an analy tic as pect in regard to the question, “ What is it that is really observed?” The Ego-idea is resolutely excluded from the start, and so far Mr. Herbert Spencer will have nothing to object (“Principles of 1 The gr avest doubts assail me on further examination of this point. I am now ( 1906) convinced that the exper iences to which I r efer constitute Samadhi. The accursed pedentry of the pundits has led to the intr oduction of a thousand useless subtleties in philosophical ter minology, the despair alike of the translator and the investi- gator, until he realises that it is pedantry, and as worthless as the rest of oriental literature in all matters of exactitude.—A. C.