This weeks FBA Podcast, “On the Threshold of Enlightenment” is part of the pivotal by “Aspects of the Bodhisattva Ideal” series delivered by Sangharakshita in 1969. This lecture describes dhyana (meditation), and prajna (Wisdom), the fifth and sixth perfections.
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On the Threshold of Enlightenment
This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and Happy Listening, Mr. Chairman and Friends. It's for five weeks now that we've allowed ourselves to be carried along by a great stream, by the stream of the Bodhisattva ideal. And week by week we have managed to travel just a little farther. And as we've travelled week by week we have seen that the stream has, as it were, broadened. And we know that when this happens or when this begins to happen, we eventually reach a point when the stream, when the river is so broad, so wide that we don't quite know, we aren't sure whether we are still in the stream or whether we have not started entering the Great Ocean. So this is the point that we reach today. Today we stand in imagination, at least, on the threshold of enlightenment. And in order to come to this point, in order to be able to take up this position, we have had to cover in the course of the last five weeks quite a lot of distance. We've seen unfold week by week many different aspects of the Bodhisattva ideal. We've seen how the Bodhisattva is the ideal Buddhist, one who lives for the sake of the enlightenment, the supreme enlightenment of all sentient beings, whatsoever, that he is the embodiment, the living embodiment of wisdom and compassion. And we've also seen in some detail that one becomes a Bodhisattva. And is born as a Bodhisattva by virtue of the arising of what is called the Bodhisattva, often translated as thought of enlightenment, but we saw that it is, in fact, something much more, something much greater than that, not just an idea, not just a concept of enlightenment in somebody's mind, not even in the Bodhisattva's mind, but something transcendental, something universal. The Bodhisita is only one, but individual Bodhisattvas participate in that one Bodhisita, each through the measure of his capacity. This Bodhisita arises in a man or in a woman, transforming them into a Bodhisattva, independence upon certain conditions, and in this connection we examined Shanti Deva's supreme worship a set of seven conditions, independence upon which the Bodhisita arises, as well as Valjubandhu's for factors, independence upon which the Bodhisita arises. And further we have seen in the course of the last so many weeks that though the Bodhisita itself is universal, the Bodhisattva is an individual being. And the Bodhisita therefore expresses itself universal, though it may be, in his life and in his work, in a thoroughly individual, if not in a unique manner. And this individual, this unique expression of the Bodhisita in the life and in the work of the individual Bodhisattva is what we describe, what is known in the Buddhist tradition as the Bodhisattva's Val. And though we spoke, and though we speak in fact of the Bodhisattva's Val in the singular, in reality it is plural, and there are, you may recollect, several famous sets of vowels, especially the four great vowels of the Bodhisattva which we examined in detail. We have seen even more than all this. We've seen that the Bodhisattva ideal represents a union of opposites. In general it represents a union of the Mandain and the Transcendental, Sanksara and Nirvana. And more specifically it represents a union of the altruistic and the individualistic aspects of the spiritual life as well as the masculine and the feminine approaches. Now you may recollect that the first pair of opposites, that is to say the altruistic and individualistic aspects of the spiritual life are represented in the context of the Bodhisattva ideal, the Bodhisattva path by dana or giving and sealer or uprightness, which are of course the first two palamitas, the first two perfections or transcendental virtues to be practiced by the Bodhisattva. And the second pair of opposites, that is to say the masculine and feminine approaches to the spiritual life, these are represented by the second pair of palamitas, the second pair of perfections, kshanti or patience and virya which is bigger or energy. Now all of these we studied in some detail. We saw for example what was the Buddhist attitude, the traditional Buddhist attitude towards such things as food, work and marriage. We saw that the conservation and unification of energy was one of the central problems of the spiritual life. We saw that the Bodhisattva is a spiritually bisexual being and so on. As today we come to a pair of opposites, still more rarefied, and we shall be seen how the Bodhisattva synthesizes them in his life and his work and his spiritual experience. And this still more rarefied pair of opposites is represented by dana on the one hand and prognure on the other, that is to say by meditation in the widest sense and wisdom. And these two are of course the last two palamitas, the fifth and the sixth of the perfections of the transcendental virtues to be practiced by the Bodhisattva. And inasmuch as this lecture deals with the last two palamitas, with the last two perfections or transcendental virtues it is entitled on the threshold of enlightenment. Because that is where we find ourselves, when we practice whether separately or together wisdom and meditation, meditation and wisdom. These two between them represent the consummation of what is known as the establishment aspect of the Bodhisattva. Now it's very difficult to know where to begin. We have here two vast subjects, meditation and wisdom. One could well speak on either of these for a very long time and perhaps not succeed insane in comparison with the enormity, the greatness of the subject matter really very much. In any case there is no question of trying to treat these two subjects exhaustively. All that can be offered in the course of the next forty-five or fifty minutes is a more or less connected account of certain topics of importance. Now first of all, dhyana, dhyana. We've translated this as meditation, which we'll do. It's good enough for practical purposes. But the term dhyana, like so many other Indian Buddhist sounds written partly terms, is really untranslatable. But we shan't go very far wrong if we consider it as comprising two things. First of all, what we may describe as higher states of consciousness. This is one of the meanings of dhyana, simply higher states of consciousness, supernormal states of consciousness. States of consciousness above and beyond those of our ordinary everyday waking mind. And secondly, dhyana covers not only the higher states of consciousness themselves, but the various practices leading to the experience of these higher, these supernormal states of consciousness. Now these higher states, these supernormal states of consciousness themselves are of two kinds, very broadly speaking. On the one hand one has those higher states of consciousness which are still mundane. And on the other hand those which are truly transcendental. What this distinction really means which you'll see perhaps a little later on, we're going to deal with each of these topics in turn. First of all, the higher states of consciousness are the super conscious states. In Buddhist literature, in Buddhist tradition there are quite a number of lists of these. And these lists, these sets as it were represent different levels within the higher consciousness or different dimensions of the higher consciousness. And today we're going to concern ourselves with three lists. And these are the four dhyanas of the world of form, the four form list dhyanas and the three gates of liberation. These are the traditional terms and the meaning I hope will emerge will be disclosed as we progress. And if we go through these three lists, then we shall have some idea of the whole subject. Some idea of what dhyana in the sense of higher states of consciousness really means. But we have to remember all the time that though we may understand what is said perfectly well, this is no substitute for our own first hand experience. Now first of all, the four dhyanas of the world of form. And traditionally there are two descriptions of these or two ways of describing these, two ways of looking at these. One way in terms of psychological analysis, trying to understand what psychological factors are present in each of these higher states of consciousness or super conscious states. The other approach, the other method of description is in terms of images, even visual images. And these two descriptions of these higher states of consciousness, one in terms of psychological analysis, the other in terms of images, these corresponds to the two principle modes, as we may call them, of human communication, or the two principle languages which we use or may use. One of course is the language of ideas, the language of concepts, this sort of language which is spoken by science and by philosophy, and then there is the language of images. The language, if you like, of mental pictures, the language, even of archetypes, comprises such things as metaphors, myth, and simple, and so on. Now Buddhism, as we've seen on other occasions, uses both of these languages. It speaks on occasions the language of concepts, or abstract ideas, abstract thought, and on occasions also it speaks the language of images, of myth, of symbol, of mental pictures. And both of these languages are of equal importance. One of these languages, that is to say the language of concepts, disappears more to the conscious mind, to our conscious rational intelligence, but to the other language, the language of images which is much more concrete, much more vivid, much more pictorial. In a way much more deeply moving, this appeals to the unconscious depths within ourselves. Now most modern expositions of Buddhism, of the Buddha's teaching, fortunately or unfortunately, are given in terms of concepts. We have an awful lot about Buddhist thought, Buddhist philosophy, and so on, and sometimes reading through the literature, which is available, at least in English, on Buddhism, one gets the impression that Buddhism is perhaps one-sidedly not to say overwhelmingly intellectual. One almost gets the impression sometimes that if you really want to understand Buddhism, you have to undergo a rather rigorous course in Buddhist logic and metaphysics, and epistemology, and so on. But this is rather one-sided. We have to correct this sort of impression because Buddhism does use, traditional Buddhism does use, the non-conceptual method or mode of communication, communication through images. It does speak the language of images, at least as frequently, at least as powerfully as it speaks the language of concepts, of abstract ideas. So we have to try to correct this sort of imbalance in the presentation of Buddhism in the West by encouraging various methods of non-conceptual, even perhaps non-verbal communication of the truth and the reality of the Buddha's teaching. There's a very beautiful example of this sort of thing in the life of the Buddha himself in the Zen tradition which I'm sure practically everybody knows, but which it might be as well to recall to mind. We know that sometimes the Buddha spoke at length, sometimes he discussed that intellectually upon his spiritual experience, but not always, sometimes he resorted to more direct methods. Sometimes he spoke the language of symbols, images and so on, and this is what happened when one day, on a very famous occasion, when everybody was sitting around him silently, the Buddha, instead of speaking, simply took from an attendant, standing nearby a golden flower, and he held it up, he held up this golden flower in the midst of the assembly, and he said nothing, he said nothing at all, he didn't even smile, but Maha Kastya-pa, one of the greatest of the disciples, he smiled, because he understood what the Buddha meant, he understood what the Buddha was trying to communicate through his non-verbal communication, this holding up of a golden flower, and this we are told was the origin of the Zen transmission. Just think of it, a great spiritual movement, one of the greatest forms, one of the biggest branches of Buddhism, spreading all over the far east, producing hundreds of enlightened masters, and where did it spring from, not from a system of philosophy, not from a lengthy discourse by the Buddha, but according to tradition, from this one simple, simple equal action of the Buddha, this holding up of the golden flower. The whole of Zen we may say, that was in the petals of that golden flower, and this is what Maha Kastya-pa understood, and that's why he smiled, he probably thought to himself that the Buddha has never done anything greater, never done anything more wonderful in his life than hold up that golden flower, and we may say that that golden flower even now all over the far east, even over those parts of the west which now know about the Zen tradition is shedding, it's light and shedding, it's lust. So this is one of the most famous instances, one of the most famous examples of this sort of thing, and this is the sort of language that we too have to learn to speak. We're very ready, we're very glib with the language of ideas, the language of concepts, we can discuss about Buddhist philosophy, add in finite, and we can talk the hind legs of the proverbial donkey. But we have to learn this other language we have to learn to speak, we have to learn to communicate in this language of images, we have to immerse ourselves in myth and symbol, and learn to experience this different dimension, this comparatively unfamiliar dimension of human communication. But this is a bit of a digression, so let's go back to our four Diannas of the world of form, our four super-conscious states of the world of form. Four are enumerated usually, but sometimes five are enumerated, and this suggests, this as it reminds us, that we shouldn't take these divisions, these classifications, these enumerations too literally. They represent these four Diannas as successively higher stages, successively higher states of psychic, of spiritual development, which are in reality, or which in reality constitute one continuous ever unfolding process. All right, now for the description of these four states, or these four higher states of consciousness in terms of psychological analysis. Now we'll speak for a little while, at least the language of concepts before going on to speak the language of images. In terms of psychological analysis, the first Dianna, the first of these states of higher consciousness, is characterized by absence of all negative emotions. We've heard quite a bit about negative emotions in the course of these lectures, and in the course of some of the lectures which preceded this series, but specifically in terms of the Buddhist tradition, the negative emotions are, lust, ill will, sloth and stalker, restlessness and anxiety, and doubt. In other words, the five mental hindrances, as they're traditionally called. In the first Dianna, the first state of higher consciousness is characterized by an absence of negative emotions, such as these. In other words, unless all negative emotions are inhibited, are suppressed, are suspended, unless the mind is clear, not only of the five mental hindrances, but of fear, of anger, of jealousy, of anxiety, of worry, of remorse, of guilt, unless the mind is completely free from all these negative emotions, at least for the time being, there is no entry into higher states of consciousness. So it's quite clear it's quite evident what our initial task must be. If we want to practice meditation seriously, it is to learn to be able to inhibit at least temporally, the grosser manifestations at least, of all these negative emotions. And there are, of course, various methods of inhibiting, various methods with the help of which we can get rid of, these negative emotions, such as lust, ill will, sloth and stalker and so on, fear, guilt, anxiety, and jealousy, but we're not going into all that now. On the positive side, the first deanna is characterized by a concentration and unification of all our psychophysical energies. Last week, I think it was, we saw that our energies are usually scattered, they usually are dispersed over a multiplicity of objects, our energies leak away in various directions, they're wasted, they're blocked, but when we take up the practice of meditation, one of the things that happens is all our energies are brought together. Those energies which are blocked are unblocked, those which are being wasted are checked in the wasted, and they're not wasted any longer, and all our energies in this way come together, they're concentrated, they're unified, they flow together as it were, and this flowing together of energy, this heightening of energy, this accumulation of energy, psychophysical energy, is characteristic of the first deanna. It is, in fact, characteristic in increasing degrees of all four deannals, this unification, this concentration of all our energies, the energies of our total being. Now this concentration and unification of energies is experienced in the first deanna as something intensely pleasurable, when all the energies come together, when there's no dissipation of energy, no division of energy, no conflict, no energy being wasted, no energy blocked, but everything flowing freely as it were and concentrated naturally on higher and higher levels, then this is experienced as something extremely, intensely pleasurable, even blissful. And the pleasurable sensation experienced in this first deanna is of two kinds. There's a purely mental aspect, and there's also a physical aspect. The physical aspect is often described as rapture or preteen, and it manifests in various ways. It may manifest by way of somebody's hair, for instance, standing on end, or it may manifest in the form of tears. Some people, when they practice meditation after a while, start weeping violently. This is a manifestation of the preteen, the rapture on the physical level, and it's a very good and healthy and positive manifestation, though it does pass away after some time. Now the first deanna is also characterized by a certain amount of discursive mental activity. One can enter upon the first deanna, having suspended all negative emotions, unified ones energies, having also experienced various pleasurable sensations, mentally and physically, but some vestige of mental activity, some vestige of discursive mental activity will still remain in the first deanna. It isn't enough to disturb concentration, but it is still present. There's a little flickering mental activity, at least about the concentration, the meditation, the experience itself, at least about this, if not about anything else. After a while, of course, it may seem as though the discursive mental activity recedes through the fringes of one's experience, one's concentration. It doesn't really disturb one when he's cutting on with one's practice, but a certain amount of mental activity is there. So this is the first deanna, the first state or stage of higher superconscious experience. Now in the second deanna, the mental activity, the discursive mental activity, which was one of the characteristics of the first deanna, this disappears, this fades away, with increased concentration. So therefore the second deanna is a state of no thought. When my speaks in terms of no thought, people often become a little afraid. They think that one almost ceases to exist when there is no thought, but it must be emphasized that there is simply no discursive mental activity. But at the same time, one is fully awake, one is aware, one is conscious. In fact, one's whole consciousness, one's whole being is heightened. If anything, you're more alert, more awake, more aware than you normally are. So even though the discursive mental activity fades away, even though the mind is no longer active in that sense, but still a clear and pure, a bright state of awareness is experienced. One doesn't go into a sleepy state, one doesn't go into a comma, one doesn't go into a sort of trance, nothing of that sort. And of course, in the second deanna also, one's psychophysical energies become still more concentrated, still more unified, with the result that the pleasurable sensations of the first deanna persist, both the mental ones and the physical ones. Now in the third deanna, another change takes place. You notice in passing from the first to the second deanna, discursive mental activity is eliminated. Now in passing from the second deanna to the third deanna, it is the pleasurable physical sensations that disappear. The mind is blissful, but consciousness is increasingly withdrawn from the body, and these pleasurable, even blissful sensations, are no longer experienced in the body or with the body, because consciousness, because awareness is being withdrawn from the body. In fact, in this stage, bodily consciousness may be very peripheral indeed, as though your conscious of your body, a great way away, right on the periphery of your experience, not right on your own doorstep, as it were, as is usually the case. The other factors that remain in the third deanna, as before, except that they are still further intensified. Now in the fourth deanna, another change occurs, or rather change occurs in order to make it possible for the fourth deanna to be experienced, and that is that in the fourth deanna, even the mental experience of happiness disappears. Not of course the one becomes unhappy or uneasy in any way, but in the fourth deanna, the mind passes beyond pleasure and pain. And this is something which is rather difficult for us to understand. We can't help thinking of a state which is neither pleasure nor pain as being a sort of neutral, grey state rather lower than either pleasure or pain, but it isn't like that. In the fourth deanna, the mind passes beyond pleasure, beyond pain, beyond even the mental bliss of the previous deanna, and the end of the state are what is called equanimity. And if one can be paradoxical, one may say that the state of equanimity is even more pleasant than the pleasant state itself, but because one can't say that it's more painful than the painful state, it doesn't work quite like that. It is something even more deeply satisfied, put it in that way, it's sort of a positive peace, which is even more blissful than bliss itself. And in this stage of the fourth deanna, of course all one's energies, the total energies of one's being are fully integrated so that this deanna, the fourth deanna, is a state, is a state of perfect, mental, perfect spiritual harmony and balance and equilibrium. So these are the four deanna's, the four states, the four super conscious states, the four states of higher consciousness in terms of psychological analysis, now for the description in terms of images. And here we find the Buddha using four similes, one for each deanna. He says, as it were, the first deanna is like this, or one's experience in the first deanna is like this, and you notice the Buddha is giving very ordinary, everyday sort of illustrations, but they are very, very apple sight, is there supposing there is a bath attendant? Now they had such things, such people apparently, 2500 years ago in India, so the Buddha says, "Suppose there is a bath attendant," and he's going about his usual work, and what does he do? He takes a handful of soap powder, now you might be rather surprised to hear that they had soap powder also in ancient India, 2500 years ago, and you may be still more surprised to learn that they get it from a soap tree. In India soap grows on trees, and I've seen this, I've used this myself in South India, there's a tree which has a sort of fruit, and you dry this fruit and then you powder it and you get something almost exactly like soap powder, at least it works in exactly the same way. So the Buddha says, supposing this bath attendant takes a handful of soap powder, and he mixes it with water, and he goes on mixing and kneading, and he mixes and he mixes, he needs and he needs until, the soap powder is a ball, fully, thoroughly saturated with moisture. It's so fully saturated that it can't absorb one more drop of water, and at the same time no single speck of soap powder is unpermeated by the water, he said, "The experience in the first jhana is just like that," and they experience in the second jhana. The Buddha said, "This is like a great lake and it's full of water, but the water doesn't come from the rainfall, there are no rivers, there are no streams which flow into this lake, but there is a subterranean inlet right deep down in the middle of the lake, there's a little inlet, where the fresh water bubbles up from the depths, and gradually this fresh cool cold water which bubbles up from the depths in the middle of the lake, extends throughout the waters of the lake and permeates, and this is, he said, what one's experiences like in the second jhana, and then the third jhana experience, here the Buddha takes not just a lake of water, but a lake of lotuses, and he says, "Suppose you see great beds of lotus flowers, red and blue and white and yellow, growing in the midst of the water." So what is the state? What is the condition of these lotuses? He said, "They are fully in the water, their roots are soaked in the water, their stems are soaked, their leaves are soaked, even the petals of the blossoms are soaked in water, and they live there, they grow there in the water, soaked in the water, permeated by the water, they spring up from the water." So the Buddha said, "One's experience in the third jhana is like that." And then he said, "One's experience in the fourth jhana, what is that like?" He said, "Supposing there is a man who on a very hot day, as you know it can be very hot in India, suppose there is a man who on a very hot day takes a bath." It's a bath, of course, as they do in India, in the open air, in a stream, in a tank. And then having bathed, he comes out, feeling all fresh and cool and clean, and he takes a great length of white cloth, which is what they garve themselves in India, and he wraps it round him, and he sits down in this clean white cloth, pure, clean, insulated. He said, "This is what one feels like when one experiences the fourth jhana, the fourth estate, of the higher consciousness." So these are the similes. Here the Buddha is speaking the language of images. But possibly you've got more out of this description than you've got out of the description in terms of psychological analysis. It may be that the Buddha's language of images spoke to you more closely, more intimately, perhaps even more truthfully, than his language of concept. And one can see from these pictures, from these images, from these four similes, that there is a definite progressive order visible as one passes from one jhana, one super conscious state, to the next. First of all, there's a unification of the energies of the conscious mind, and you remember in the first simile you've got two things, you've got water, and you've got soap powder. There's a duality, there's a split, there's a division, but they're needed together. So first of all, one has a state or an experience of complete unification of the energies of the conscious mind. This is what the first jhana really represents. Once the negative emotions have been put out of the way, a unification of all the energies of the conscious mind on the conscious level. And then what happens next, the energies of the super conscious mind begin to penetrate into the unified conscious mind, begin to bubble up within it, as it were, as a sort of source of inspiration as you like. This is what is meant by the cool, clear, cold water bubbling up within the innermost recesses of the lake. It represents that trickling in, that percolating in, perhaps finally that pouring in of the super conscious energy, the super conscious forces, once one's energies have been unified on the level of the conscious mind. And next, these energies having started bubbling up within one or pouring down into one, next they take as it were, complete possession, just like the lotuses. Being permeated by the water, their roots, their stems, their leaves, their flowers, their buds, everything permeated by the water. So in this third stage, the super conscious forces, the super conscious energies coming from deep within if you like or coming from high up if you like, they permeate. They transform, they transmute the energies of the conscious mind. And finally, they not only permeate, but they dominate. Not only dominate, but they enclose, and they unfold, just like the man who has taken his bath being enclosed and unfolded by the white sheet in which he swells himself. You notice that in the second jhana, the super conscious, in the form of the water flowing in from the outlet, is contained just like a seed to change the metaphor within the unified conscious. But in the fourth, it's the conscious, though of course the thoroughly transformed conscious, which is contained within the super conscious. So this situation has been completely reversed. Now all this could be represented visually. One is painting pictures as it were with words, but it could be done more directly with the brush, with colors. And in fact, it's interesting to observe that Lama Govinda has done this. I remember many years ago I saw a series of what he called abstract paintings, four abstract paintings which represented the four jhana, the four states, the four stages of higher consciousness. Another, in fact, I was thinking over this lecture only this morning, it did occur to me that I could represent the different kinds of experience in these four jhanas in a diagrammatic form. Just in black and white, like a sort of chart, which would make it still more clear, still more tangible, still more palpable as it were. So much then for the four jhanas of the world of form, we've spent rather long time on them because of their central importance for the practice of meditation, for in fact the practice of the spiritual path generally. We're now turning to the four form-less jhanas. Now these four form-less jhanas, which are often superimposed upon the four jhanas of the world of form, these are rather remote from the experience of most meditators. So we shall be dealing with them rather more briefly. They consist, one may say, in the experience of objects, of ever increasing degrees of subtlety and refinement. The first of these jhanas of the formless world, these four states of higher consciousness associated with the formless world. His first one is known as the sphere of infinite space, or the experience, if you like, of infinite space. Here there's no visual image. You may recollect that by the time we reach the fourth jhana of the world of form, we are left behind the body consciousness. So what does that mean? There are no pictures in the mind. There are no images, no visual images. You don't think about your own body. You don't think about objects in the external world. You don't think about a house or a tree. So what is your experience like? It's devoid of all objects. So when you take away all objects, if you were to take away, for instance, all the people in this room, take away all the chairs, take away all the pictures, take away all the lights, whatever you've got, you've just got space, empty space. And furthermore, you take away this whole city. You take away the whole globe itself, or you've got empty space. You take away the whole planetary system, the galactic system, or you've got empty space. So if you abstract yourself from the senses through which these objects in space are perceived, you are left, as it were, with the experience of infinite space, space extending infinitely in all directions. But you can't even say in all directions, because it would be extending in all directions from a point here, but there is no point here, because there's no here, there's no there, physically, materially, spatially speaking. So it's just a great infinity of space, all of which is everywhere. So this is the experience in the first of the jianas associated with the formless words. And then, secondly, the sphere of infinite consciousness, infinite vinyana to use the original word. You reach this, we are told, by reflecting, that you experienced infinite space. But there was an experience of infinite space. There was an awareness of infinite space. There was a consciousness of infinite space. So that means that, with the infinity of space, there is an infinity of consciousness, the subjective correlative of that objective state, or that objective experience. So subtracting from, or abstracting from, the experience of space, and concentrating upon the experience of consciousness, the infinity of consciousness, you experience infinite consciousness, consciousness extending in all directions. But again, not from any particular point, consciousness again, which is all present everywhere. And then, something still more verified, the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception. Where you really do take wing, and you really do go very far, though you are stood up within the mundane, as we shall see a little later on, you have gone from the object, the infinite object to the infinite subject, as it were, and now you go beyond both. And you reach a state in which you cannot say, because there, in a sense, is no one to say, whether you are perceiving anything, or whether you are not perceiving anything. You are not fully beyond subject and object, but you can no longer think in terms of, or experiencing in terms of subject or object. So it is a sphere of neither perception nor non-perception. And then, first and lastly, the sphere of, it usually translates as nothingness. But it is really no thinginess, the sphere of non-particularity. This means a stage or a stage or an experience in which you cannot pick out anything in particular as distinct from any other thing. In our present stage, in our present stage, we can pick out, say, a flower as distinct from a tree. We can pick out a face as distinct from a house. But in this stage, in this stage, there is no particular thingness of things. You cannot identify this as this, and that as that, is not exactly as though they are all confused or mixed up together, but the possibility of picking out doesn't exist. Now this is perhaps as nearly as one can get to it. So it is called the sphere of no-thingness. Not a state of blankness, not a state of nothingness, but of no-thingness. The particularity of things is abrogated. Now the four dearners of the world of form, and the four formless dearners are all classified in the Buddhist tradition as mundane, worldly. You might think we've gone a very great distance, but no, this is not enlightenment. These are super-conscious, super-normal experiences, but they fall short of enlightenment, they're mundane. They're not worldly, of course, in the ordinary sense. They represent a very high degree, indeed, of unification and refinement of psychic energy. We can call them spiritual states, spiritual experiences, but they're still not transcendental. In other words, they have no direct contact as yet with ultimate reality. And in Buddhism only that is called transcendental, which is either of the nature of ultimate reality or directly leading to directly conducive twit. So it's this contact with ultimate reality from the heights of the mundane, from the heights of the super-conscious, which now has to be met. And it's made when the concentrated mind, the mind in the dearner state where the higher high lower turns with awareness from the mundane through the transcendental, when it begins to contemplate reality, it's then that the dearner, it's then that the dearner state becomes, from being mundane, transcendental. Now there are many different transcendental dearners, and sometimes these transcendental dearners are called samartis, and the difference among them is in accordance with the aspect of reality, the particular aspect of reality, which is contemplated. And amongst the most important, amongst the most vital and significant of these transcendental dearners, these samartis are a set of three technically known as the gateways to liberation. First of all, and we'll deal with them quite briefly, first of all comes what is called the sign less or the image less samadhi. And here in this dearner, in this experience, this super-conscious experience with a transcendental object, reality is contemplated as devoid of all conceptual constructions. One gets rid of all thoughts, all concepts about reality. One sees that reality is devoid of all these things, that they have no reference to, no bearing upon reality, that even the word, even the word, reality itself is quite nonsensical, that there is no word, that there is no thought, and it's only when one comes through this no word and no thought, no concept, only then one can get at one can see that reality, which is not reality. So here, in the sign less, the image less samadhi one contemplates reality, not even using the word reality as devoid of all signs, all signs which might give the mind some hint of what to look for, in comparison with what, devoid in a word of all ideas and all concepts. But then there is what is called the unbiased, or the directionless samadhi. The mind at this level, this level of dearner of super-conscious experience, doesn't discriminate between this and that. So it has no particular goal, it doesn't discriminate, it doesn't distinguish between the means and the end here and now. There's no time sense even, no past, no present, no future. So the mind stays where it is as it were, it's got no direction in which to go and it contemplates reality also under this aspect, that it's got nowhere to go, no direction, no tendency, no bias towards this or that, because there is no this, there is no that. So this is what we call the unbiased or the directionless samadhi. And thirdly and lastly, there is the voidness samadhi. And here reality is seen, reality is contemplated as having no self-nature, but it has no characteristics of its own by which it might be recognized or distinguished from other things. We can't say that, say a chair is this, a human being is that, and Shrunyatta, reality is that is not anything as distinguished from any other thing or things as having a particular self-nature of its own. So this is what we call the voidness samadhi, the realization of the fact or the contemplation of reality under the aspect of having no recognizable, identifiable nature of its own distinct from the natures of other things. Now with these transcendental samadhi's, which represents a very lofty peak of spiritual experience, indeed, we begin to pass from meditation dhyana, with which we've been concerned hitherto, to praknya or wisdom, but we'll deal with wisdom in a minute. Before we deal with wisdom, just a few more words about dhyana. We've dealt with dhyana in the sense of the higher states of consciousness, the super conscious states, but we now have to deal with the second great meaning of dhyana, dhyana in the sense of the practices leading to these higher states of consciousness. But we're going to be very, very brief here. We could, of course, explain the five basic meditation exercises, could speak at length of the preparations for meditation, could describe the experiences or some of the experiences occurring in the course of practice, but with no time for all that. And in any case, these topics have been dealt with on a number of other occasions before. Today, I'm going to limit myself just to one observation under this heading. And that is that dhyana, in the sense of the experience of super conscious states, is a natural thing, a natural thing. Ideally, as soon as one goes into the meditation room, whether it's the shrine at Sakura or a corner of one's own house, as soon as one goes there, as soon as one sits down, as soon as one crosses one's legs, as soon as one closes one's eyes, as soon as one does all this one should go straight into dhyana. It should be as natural, it should be as easy as that. In fact, we may say that if we let a normal, if we let a truly human life, if we had spent the previous day or the previous week, the previous month, the previous year properly, this might well happen, no reason why it shouldn't happen, that as soon as we sit down, cross our legs, close our eyes, we just go quite naturally into the dhyana state, the super conscious state. But I hardly need to tell you, it seems almost cruel to mention it, that this is not what happens, we all have to strive and to struggle and to sweat, and sometimes to swear under our breath, hands to feel disappointed and it isn't worth the effort that we are making fools of ourselves and we might just say Robbie at the cinema or washing the television and so on. This is what usually happens, we have to strive and struggle, but strive and struggle to do what? We don't have to strive and struggle to meditate, no. We don't have to strive and struggle to get into the dhyana state, no, not that. We have to strive and struggle to remove the obstacles. We have to strive and struggle to remove, for example, the five mental hindrances. If we can only remove them, then we go sailing at least into the first dhyana. So most of what we call meditation exercises, do not lead directly to higher states of consciousness. They simply help us remove the obstacles. Concentrate on mindfulness of breathing, it removes the obstacle of distraction. Concentrate on the metabhana, it removes the distraction of real will. So just remove the obstacles with the help of these methods, and then the higher states, or at least the first of the higher states, will naturally manifest themselves. Now the bodhisattva does not simply practice dhyana, meditation. The bodhisattva practices dhyana, paramita, the perfection of meditation, transcendental meditation. In other words, he practices meditation so as to gain enlightenment for the benefit of all. He doesn't practice it for the sake of his own peace of mind though that comes. He doesn't practice it so that he may go to heaven, though even that may come if he wants to. He practices meditation, he practices dhyana as one aspect of the path which will lead him one day to enlightenment, to premium enlightenment for the benefit of all. Finally we may say that the bodhisattvas practice of meditation does not exclude external activity. Does not exclude external activity. In our case, if we want to meditate, we have to stop external activities. We can't do both at the same time. We have to find a place a quiet corner, we have to sit still, have to close our eyes, cross our legs and all the rest of it. But the bodhisattva is practicing something much greater, something much higher. The bodhisattva is able, or should be able, to do both simultaneously. The scripture stressed this very, very much in a number of places that internally he should be immersed in dhyana but externally carrying on various activities. Not that he suffers from a sort of partial skits of freeness or anything like that. What appear to us to be two contradictory things in the case of the bodhisattva are one thing. The activity is the external aspect of the inner meditation. The inner meditation is the inner dimension of the external activity, the two sides of a single coin as it were. So this is how the bodhisattva practices meditation. He practices it as not excluding external activity. So this, of course, should eventually be our aim too. But in the meanwhile, we mustn't delude ourselves and we have to recognise that for us for a very, very long time to come, meditation will exclude external activity. Non-activity will exclude meditation. Even though we should certainly try to see that the effects of our meditation, our meditation increase, persist and carry over into our everyday life and activities. But it will be a very, very long time before we can meditate. Just as we meditate at our best on our meditation cushion when we're in the midst of the traffic, when we're washing up, and so on. But that should be our alternate aim. However, it's time we passed on now to Pragnya, which is the sixth and last paramita. The sixth and last perfection or transcendental virtue. And Pragnya is from the Sanskrit root ganya, which means simply to know. And Prag, which comes before it, is simply an emphatic prefix. And Pragnya is therefore knowledge in the extreme or knowledge per excellence. And this means, of course, knowledge of reality. Pragnya is knowledge of reality. And the word for reality in this connection, not that words really matter very much, the word for reality in this connection is shunya ta, which literally means the voidness, emptiness. But of course it's not emptiness as opposed to fullness. It indicates the word shunya ta indicates a state beyond opposites, a state beyond words. Now shunya ta is the subject matter of the perfection of wisdom group of sutras. And the perfection of wisdom group of sutras is one of the most important of all the different groups of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures. There are incidentally well over thirty different perfection of wisdom texts, perfection of wisdom scriptures. Some are very long, the longest is 100,000 verses, and some on the other hand are very short. Among the shorter versions are the well-known diamond sutra and the equally well-known heart sutra. And these two present the essentials of the whole perfection of wisdom teaching and experience in a highly condensed form. But this is just by the way. Shunya ta then is reality. And knowledge of reality means knowledge of shunya ta. And knowledge of shunya ta is prognyar or wisdom. And we find that four main degrees of shunya ta are enumerated. Some text speak of twenty and thirty-two degrees. But really there are four main degrees of shunya ta, emptiness, whiteness. And these are not four different kinds of reality. They represent four progressively deeper stages of penetration by wisdom into ultimate reality. And these four will give us some idea of the nature and content of prognyar or wisdom. So as we go through them, we shouldn't forget that these are all conceptual constructions or conceptual presentations, not the real thing, not the experience itself. They are all only fingers pointing to the moon. If we can get a glimpse of the moon with the help of these fingers, then we shall be lucky. First of all, what is called emptiness of the conditioned or Sanskrit or Shunya ta? This means that conditioned existence, the normal existence, if you like relative existence, is devoid of the characteristics of the unconditioned, the absolute, the truth. The characteristics of the unconditioned of the absolute in Buddhism are, first of all, bliss. Secondly, permanence. That it is beyond time, not that it persists in time, but that it occupies as it were a dimension in which time itself does not exist and then thirdly, true being, ultimate reality. Now conditioned existence, phenomenal existence, relative existence, is devoid of these, devoid of these three characteristics of the unconditioned. Relative existence on the contrary is unsatisfactory, it's impermanent, and it is not ultimately real. And for this reason, the conditioned is said to be empty of the unconditioned. And it means, or this means, that we should not expect to find in the flux of relative existence what only the absolute, only the unconditioned, can give us. So the conditioned is said to be empty. And this is the first of the four kinds of Shunya ta when we see that the conditioned is empty of the unconditioned. Secondly, emptiness of the unconditioned are Sanskritoshunya ta. Here we see, or wisdom sees, that the unconditioned is devoid of the characteristics of conditioned existence. Condition existence is unsatisfactory, riddled with unhappiness, it's impermanent, and it's not wholly real. But the unconditioned, the absolute, is devoid of these characteristics of relative existence, the conditioned. The unconditioned is the locus, as we may say, of bliss, of permanence, beyond time, true being, and so on. Therefore we say, or therefore we speak in terms of, therefore we see the emptiness of the unconditioned, that the unconditioned is empty of the conditioned. Just as in the conditioned, you will not find the unconditioned, in the unconditioned, you will not find the conditioned. So these first two kinds of voidness, emptiness of the conditioned emptiness of the unconditioned, the two being mutually exclusive as it were, these two forms of shunya ta are common to all forms of Buddhism. And they represent, obviously, a comparatively dualistic approach, that the conditioned is not the unconditioned, the unconditioned is not the conditioned. This world is not that world, that world is not this world. The conditioned is empty of the unconditioned, the unconditioned is empty of the conditioned. So this, as I say, represents the comparatively dualistic approach. But this sort of dualistic approach is necessary, at first, as the sort of working basis of our spiritual life in its early stages. We have to make this distinction, we have to make this division, we have to think to begin with. Well, here is the conditioned, and there is the unconditioned, and I want to get from here to there. This is how we cannot help thinking in the early stages of our spiritual life. So we take as our working basis as it were, this duality of the conditioned and the unconditioned, mutually exclusive, the one not being found in the other. Now the third and fourth kinds of shunya ta are peculiar to the Mahayana. The third kind of shunya ta is what we call great emptiness. Maha shunya ta. In the Mahayana, Maha always means pertaining to shunya ta. The Mahayana is the vehicle of shunya ta. The bodhisattva is the Maha, satva also, the being born out of the voidness as it were. So thirdly, the great emptiness, the Maha shunya ta. And in what does this consist? How is this empty? How is this right? This consists in the emptiness of the distinction between the conditioned and the unconditioned. We see that the distinction between the condition and the unconditioned is not ultimately valid. See, that it's a product of dualistic thinking. We may spend 10, 15, 20, 30 years of our spiritual life working on the assumption that the condition is the condition and the uncondition is the unconditioned. And that is necessary. That's very good. That's right. But eventually, we have to learn to see the emptiness of the distinction between these two, the conditioned and the unconditioned. We have to see that this distinction is not ultimately valid and that it is, as I've said, a product of our dualistic thinking and ultimately to be transcending. We have to seek and not just intellectually theorize, not just speculate, not just think. We have to see. We have to experience the arupa and shunya ta, the form and whiteness, the condition and the unconditioned. Sanghsara itself, the wheel, the spiral, the goal. Ordinary beings and Buddhists are ultimately of one and the same essence, one and the same reality. And this is Maha shunya ta, the great emptiness, the great void in which it is where all distinctions, all dualisms are swallowed up or lost or obliterated so that they simply don't exist anymore. And is this great void, of course, into which people, even spiritual people, are so afraid of disappearing. They want to cling on to their dualistic ways of thinking, self and others, this and that. But eventually they must all be swallowed up and this is the real tiger's cave. The tiger's cave, of course, is remarkable for the fact that many tracks lead into it, or up to it, but none come out. So the great void is like this. You get into it, but you never come out. This is why you want to go into it. So this is great emptiness. Maha shunya ta, the third degree or level of penetration into reality. And, fourthly, emptiness, of emptiness, shunya ta, shunya ta. And what could that possibly be? Here we see that emptiness itself is only a concept, only a word, only a sound. Even Maha shunya ta, you're still hanging on to subtle thoughts, subtle dualistic experiences. So even this, ultimately, has to be abandoned. And when this is abandoned, when you come to shunya ta, shunya ta, well, there's just nothing to be said. All that is left is the great silence. And of course it's a significant silence. It's a thunderous silence. And these are the four degrees of shunya ta. And as I said, they represent successively more advanced stages of penetration into reality. And what penetrates, what breaks through, if you like, is throgna, wisdom. A few minutes ago I referred to the heart sutra. And the heart sutra is so cold because it contains the heart or the essence or the gist of the whole body of perfection and wisdom teachings. And the heart of the heart sutra is contained in its concluding mantra, which, as most of you know runs, gate, gate, paragate, parasangate, bodhisvar, which being interpreted literally, and the literal meaning doesn't give the real meaning, goes something like this, gone, gone, gone beyond, gone all together beyond, enlightenment, success. Now the words of the mantra refer to the four degrees of shunya ta. Gone, gone. What does this mean? Gone from conditioned existence, gone from relative existence, gone from the world. No, the first degree of shunya ta, the sung scrita shunya ta, the experience of the emptiness of the conditioned as a result of which you leave it. You go forthright, so gone, gone, and then gone beyond. When you leave the conditioned, where do you go to? What do you go to? The unconditioned, there's nowhere else to go. You go to the unconditioned, you go beyond. And this represents the second degree of shunya ta, the asang scrita shunya ta, the emptiness of the unconditioned. You go to the unconditioned, you go beyond, because the unconditioned is empty of the conditioned. You don't want to have anything more to do with the conditioned. And in the unconditioned there's no trace of the conditioned. And then gone all together beyond, all together beyond. Beyond the distinction between the conditioned and the unconditioned, and this represents the third degree, mahā shunya ta, the great whiteness. When you go beyond the very distinction between conditioned and unconditioned, and then you really and truly do go all together beyond. And then enlightenment, voting, there's no structure, there's no sentence here, it's just the word. The exclamation, voting, enlightenment, awakening. And here, in enlightenment, in the ultimate awakening, the idea of shunya ta itself is transcendent. So it's just there when you come there having traversed these three degrees of shunya ta, when you come to the fourth, you can only as it were open your arms and say, in Alan Watts's phrase, this is it, enlightenment, awakening. And this is the word in the mantra voting. And then, swa-swa-swa. This is a word indicating auspiciousness, success, achievement, and it often comes at the end of the mantra. It means you've done your task, you've done your work, you've achieved your goal, you've reached your goal, you're in enlightenment. It means that all four degrees of shunya ta have been traversed. It means that fraganya, wisdom, has been fully developed and success, through success, has been achieved. Now the foregoing account of wisdom has been progressive. In other words, it's been an account in terms of more and more advanced stages of penetration into reality. But there's another teaching, there's another tradition which unfolds as it were simultaneously, different aspects, various aspects, various dimensions if you like, of wisdom. And this is the teaching of what are known as the five ganyanas, the five knowledges or the five wistoms. And we will conclude with an account of these wistoms. These will give us further insight, perhaps, into the nature of wisdom, fraganya, with the capital W. First, what is known as the knowledge or wisdom of the dharma dhatu, knowledge or wisdom of the dharma dhatu, and this is the basic wisdom, or which the other four are subject to the aspects or special aspects. Now the term dharma dhatu is a rather difficult one. The dharma dhatu means a sort of sphere, it means a realm or a field if you like, and here it represents the whole cosmos, the whole universe. Dharma here means reality, the ultimate. So the dharma dhatu means the universe, the whole cosmos, considered as the sphere of the manifestation of reality. Or dharma dhatu means the universe, or the cosmos, conceived of as fully pervaded by reality. Just as the comparison goes, the whole of space is filled with, permeated by the sun's beams, the sun's rays, in the same way the whole of existence, the whole cosmos, the whole universe, with all its galactic systems, its suns and its stars, and its races and its gods and its men, they're all pervaded, or it is all pervaded by reality. It itself is a sort of field for the manifestation of reality, for the play if you like, the expression, the exuberance of reality. So the wisdom of the dharma dhatu means knowledge of direct knowledge, experience of the whole cosmos as pervaded by, non-different from reality. Not that the cosmos is wiped out, not that it's obliterated, you see it's still, it's still all there, the horses and the trees, the fields, the men and the women, the sun and the moon and the stars, they're all there, just as they were before. But now they are pervaded by, permeated by reality, and you see both at the same time. One doesn't obstruct the other. You see the cosmos, you see reality. You see reality, you see the cosmos. Cosmos is reality, reality is cosmos. Rupa is Shruna dhatu. One doesn't obstruct the other, the interpenetrate, and this is the dharma dhatu. The knowledge of this is, knowledge or wisdom of the dharma dhatu. And this knowledge or wisdom of the dharma dhatu is symbolized by the figure of Varochina, the illuminator. The illuminator like the sun, the sun Buddha, as he's sometimes called, or the white Buddha, as he's more usually described. Then, secondly, the mirror like wisdom. The wisdom which is like a mirror, because the enlightened mind sees everything. The enlightened mind understands the true nature of everything. It reflects everything, just as the mirror reflects all objects. In this way, the enlightened mind reflects everything. If you look into the depths of the enlightened mind, you see everything, just as Shruna in his pilgrimage, when he reached the Varochina star in South India, when he walked inside, he saw the whole universe, the whole cosmos mirrored, because Varochina's tower symbolized, the bodhicitta, the enlightened mind itself. So the enlightened mind reflects all the objects of the world. Everything that exists, they're all reflected in the depths of the enlightened mind, but the enlightened mind is not affected by them. They don't stick. If you take a mirror and you place an object in front of it, the object is reflected. You take that object away, put another in front of the mirror, the mirror reflects that, or you move the mirror, you don't find the reflection sticking. When you move the mirror, you move the object. So the enlightened mind is just like that, nothing sticks. It reflects, but nothing sticks. Whereas our mind, of course, is quite different. If you pursue the illustration, you may say that our mind is sort of mirror, but all the reflections stick. They don't only stick, but they sort of congeal and they get all jammed up together. And sometimes the mirror sticks to the object, and you can't separate them. So in other words, in the enlightened mind, there's no subjective reaction, no subjective attachment, there's pure, perfect objectivity, that like a mirror reflecting everything that exists. So this is the mirror-like wisdom. We seize everything, knows everything, understands everything, but doesn't stick, doesn't stop anywhere. And this mirror-like wisdom is symbolised by exopia, the imperturbable, the dark blue Buddha. Thirdly, the wisdom of equality are sameness. The enlightened mind sees everything with a complete objectivity. There's no reaction, there's no sticking. The enlightened mind sees the same reality in all, the same shunya ta in all, equally. So the enlightened mind has the same attitude towards all. It sees that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, a flower is a flower, tree is a tree, a house is a house, a cathedral is a cathedral, the sun is the sun and the moon is the moon. It sees all that, but it sees at the same time the same, the common reality in all. So it has the same, a common attitude towards all. It's equal. It's equal-minded. The enlightened mind is equal-minded towards all. There's the same love, the same compassion for all, without any distinction, without any discrimination. Sometimes it's said that they love and the compassion of the enlightened mind for, without discrimination on all beings and all objects and all things, just like the sun's rays falling. Now on the golden roofs of a palace and now on a down hill. It is the same sun. It doesn't mind whether it gills the gilded roof of the palace or the down hill. It's the same. It shines alike. So the enlightened mind is just like that, shining in the same way, with its love and its compassion on high and low, so-called good and so-called bad. And this wisdom of equality or same nest, which is the same, which is even towards all, is symbolized by Rupna Samvava, the jewel-born, the yellow Buddha. Fourthly, the all-distinguishing wisdom, the mirror we've seen reflects all things equally. But at the same time we've seen it doesn't confuse or blur their distinctive features. The mirror will reflect the tiny detail. It'll be clear and distinct in the mirror. So this is very important and it means that the enlightened mind doesn't see things only in their unity or only in their diversity. It sees both together. The enlightened mind, especially under its aspect of the all-distinguishing wisdom, doesn't only see the unity of things. It sees the differences of things, the uniqueness of things. And it sees both of these together. It doesn't reduce the plurality to a unity. It doesn't reduce the unity to a plurality. It sees the unity and the plurality, the unity and the difference. So that Buddhism on the philosophical level, intellectually speaking, is neither a monism in which all differences are canceled out. Neither is it a pluralism in which all unity disappears. It's neither monistic nor pluralistic. In the Buddhist vision of existence, the Buddhist vision of life of reality, unity does not obliterate difference. Difference does not obliterate unity. We can't help perceiving now one, now the other. But the enlightened mind sees unity and difference. At one and the same time, it sees that you are all ineffaceably uniquely yourselves. At the same time it sees that you're all one. And the one does not obstruct the other. You are one at the same time that you are yourselves individually, and at the same time that you are yourselves individually blossoming with all your idiosyncrasies. At the same time, you are all one. On these two, the unity and the difference, the monism and the pluralism, these are not two different things. We don't say that they're one, mind two, but they're not two. And this, this all distinguishing, this all discriminating wisdom is symbolised by Amitabha, the infinite light, the red Buddha. Firstly and lastly, the all-performing wisdom, the enlightened minds devotes itself to the welfare of all living beings and in so doing it devises many skillful means of helping people as they're called. And it does all this. It devises these skillful means. It helps living beings naturally and spontaneously. We mustn't imagine the Bodhisattva or the enlightened mind as sort of sitting down one morning thinking, "Well, how can I go and help someone today?" Let's think. Maybe I'll go and help so and so today. The enlightened mind doesn't function like that. It just function freely, spontaneously, naturally. The helpfulness sort of pours forth in a flat. But quite spontaneously, without any premeditation, without any intellectual working things out, weighing a pros and cons and thinking, "Well, is this person what I need help all that?" and trying to strike a sort of balance. So this all-performing wisdom is symbolised by Amoga City, the infallible success, the green Buddha. So these are the five knowledges or the five wistoms which exhibit on the same level as it were, different aspects of Pragnya, different aspects of wisdom. Now we've dealt now with Jana and with Pragnya, with meditation and with wisdom separately as distinct part of my tasks. But it's time now to consider them together, together. And this we shall do with the help of Huineng or Wailang, the sixth patriarch of the Jana school in China. The Jana school is the chain of the Zeng school, of course. Huineng, the sixth patriarch in the course of his platform scripture, a series of addresses to a body of people whom he very politely addresses as learned audience, has this to say on the subject of samadhi and Pragnya. He says, "learned audience. In my system samadhi," which of course is the highest form of Jana, "samadhi and Pragnya are fundamental, but do not be under the wrong impression that these two are independent of each other, for they are inseparably united under not two entities. Samadhi is the quintessence of Pragnya, or Pragnya is the activity of samadhi. At the very moment that we are team Pragnya, samadhi is therewith and vice versa. If you understand this principle, you understand the equilibrium of samadhi and Pragnya. The disciple should not think that there is a distinction between samadhi begets Pragnya, and Pragnya begets samadhi. To hold such an opinion would imply that there are two characteristics in the dharma. Learned audience, to what a samadhi and Pragnya are analogous, they are analogous to a lamp and its light. With the lamp there is light, without it it would be dark. The lamp is the quintessence of the light, and the light is the expression of the lamp. In name they are two things, but in substance they are one and the same. It is the same case with samadhi and Pragnya. In other words, commenting upon this we may say that samadhi, which represents the highest form of jnana, is the enlightened mind as it is in itself. Whereas Pragnya is what we may describe as objective functioning, the enlightened mind at work in the world as it were. We could even say that jnana represents the subjective and Pragnya, the objective aspect of enlightenment. We could say that, except that in enlightenment there is no subject and no object. Well we have now completed our journey. Perhaps we are not just standing on the threshold of enlightenment, perhaps in imagination, in hopeful anticipation at least, we are now knocking on the gate. Perhaps the Buddha is listening, perhaps he is ready to open the gate a little, perhaps he is ready one day to let us in. We have seen how the body is set for unites, various pairs of opposites, the altruistic and the individualistic aspects of the spiritual life, the masculine and the family and approaches. We have seen today how the body is set for unites, the subjective and the objective poles as it were of spiritual experience at their very highest level. In other words, we have seen during the last three weeks including today how the body is set for practices, giving and uprightness, patience and vigor, meditation and wisdom. And these are of course the six parameters or perfections or transcendental virtues which constitute the establishment aspect of the bodhicitta. And it is of course upon the arising of the bodhicitta that one becomes, one is born as a bodhisattva. So we have covered a very great deal of ground but there is still quite a bit of ground left to cover. And next week we shall be turning from the comparatively general, the comparatively abstract to the more particular, the more individual, the more concrete and we shall be considering the stages of the bodhisattva path in terms of the actual persons who realize those stages. In other words, we shall be considering them in terms of the bodhisattva hierarchy. And until then we remain standing or kneeling perhaps or perhaps even sitting in meditation on the threshold of enlightenment. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]