attachment--an
inclination towards something; and this attachment arises from thirst
or desire. Desire presupposes perception of the object desired;
perception presupposes contact; contact, at least a sentient contact,
presupposes the senses; and, as the senses can only perceive what has
form and name, or what is distinct, distinction is the real cause of
all the effects which end in existence, birth, and pain. Now, this
distinction is itself the result of conceptions or ideas; but these
ideas, so far from being, as in Greek philosophy, the true and
everlasting forms of the Absolute, are here represented as mere
illusions, the effects of ignorance (avidya). Ignorance, therefore, is
really the primary cause of all that seems to exist. To know that
ignorance, as the root of all evil, is the same as to destroy it, and
with it all effects that flowed from it. In order to see how this
doctrine affects the individual, let us watch the last moments of
Buddha as described by his disciples. He enters into the first stage
of meditation when he feels freedom from sin, acquires a knowledge of
the nature of all things, and has no desire except that of Nirva_n_a.
But he still feels pleasure; he even uses his reasoning and
discriminating powers. The use of these powers ceases in the second
stage of meditation, when nothing remains but a desire after
Nirva_n_a, and a general feeling of satisfaction, arising from his
intellectual perfection. That satisfaction, also, is extinguished in
the third stage. Indifference succeeds; yet there is still
self-consciousness, and a certain amount of physical pleasure. These
last remnants are destroyed in the fourth stage; memory fades away,
all pleasure and pain are gone, and the doors of Nirva_n_a now open
before him. After having passed these four stages once, Buddha went
through them a second time, but he died before he attained again to
the fourth stage. We must soar still higher, and though we may feel
giddy and disgusted, we must sit out this tragedy till the curtain
falls. After the four stages of meditation[73] are passed, the Buddha
(and every being is to become a Buddha) enters into the infinity of
space; then into the infinity of intelligence; and thence he passes
into the region of nothing. But even here there is no rest. There is
still something left--the idea of the nothing in which he rejoices.
That also must be destroyed, and it is destroyed in the fourth and
last region, where there