Japan and the Japanese illustrated . himself, notwithstanding the almostabsolute detachment which he has reached. Finally, at the fourth degree, the asceticno longer possesses this sentiment of physical well-being, all obscure as it is ; he has 136 LIFE IN JAPAN: lost ;ill memory. jMore than this, he has even lost the feeling of indifference, and,henceforth free from all pleasure and all grief, whatever may be their object, whetherAvithin or without, he has reached impassibility—he is as near to the Nirwana as he canbe during this life. Then it is that the ascetic is permitted to approach the
Japan and the Japanese illustrated . himself, notwithstanding the almostabsolute detachment which he has reached. Finally, at the fourth degree, the asceticno longer possesses this sentiment of physical well-being, all obscure as it is ; he has 136 LIFE IN JAPAN: lost ;ill memory. jMore than this, he has even lost the feeling of indifference, and,henceforth free from all pleasure and all grief, whatever may be their object, whetherAvithin or without, he has reached impassibility—he is as near to the Nirwana as he canbe during this life. Then it is that the ascetic is permitted to approach the second stageof the Dhyuua, the four superposed regions of the world without forms. He firstenters into the region of the infinite in space. From this he climbs a new step, intothe reffiou of the infinite of intelligence. Having attained to this height, he entersui)on a third region, that in which nothing exists. But, as in this vacuum and in thisdarkness an idea might remain, to represent to the ascetic the nothingness into which. A SENNIN, Oi; BUDDHIST .SAINT. he is plunging, he requires a last and supreme effort to enter the fourth region of theworld without , where there are no longer ideas, nor even an idea of the absenceof ideas. Such arc the mystic exercLscs of Buddhist contemplation, of which the Buddhi-Dharma was th. inoinniir in Japiu. The other apostles, his successors, walk inthe footsteps ..f Buddha in tlic .same manner—that is to say, by substituting, eachafter his fashion, exterior practices for the spontaneity ol piety and the activity ofintelligence. The mas^ter said to his disciples, Go, all men of piety, hide yourgood works, and show your sins. So the bonzes instituted processions of was one of the principal traits of Siikyamounis character. His compassion SAKYAMOUNI. 137 extended itself to all created beings. When Lis doctrine spread amongst the Japanese,the latter had already made it a law that the flesh of no domestic animal s
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