ads of it, the line of those Heads, the Eastern
Patriarchs, Bodhidharma's successors, was as follows: He died in
or about 536, having appointed Chi Kuang to succeed him. Chi
Kuang appointed Hui Ssu, called the "Chief of the Chunglung
School of the followers of Bodhidharma." Hui Ssu died in 576,
having sent out Chih-i into the world the year before, and having
appointed Seng T'san to succeed him as head of Dzyan. Seng T'san
died in 606; Tao Hsin, his successor, in 651; Hung Jen, his, in
675. Hung Jen, it appears, left two successors: Lu Hui-neng in
the south, and Shen Hsiu in the north. It was the last quarter
of the century: I imagine Lu Hui-neng was the Messenger sent out
into the world; he spent the rest of his life teaching in the
neighborhood of Canton; I imagine Shen Hsiu remained the Head of
the Esoteric School. After that the line disappears; but the
school attained its greatest influence in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries in China, and later still in Japan.--All
these were men living not quite in the world: it was known that
they were there, and where they might be found. After Shen Hsiu,
the last Northern Chinese Patriarch, the line probably withdrew
to Tibet, which had lately come into relations with China, and
where civilization had been established through the efforts of
T'ang Taitsong. And now I will close this lecture with a saying
of Shen Hsiu's which, in this modified form, is very familiar to
all of you:

"Mind is like a mirror: it gathers dust while it reflects. It
needs the gentle breezes of soul wisdom to brush away the dust of
our illusions."

XXV. TOWARDS THE ISLANDS OF THE SUNSET

I had not thought to speak to you further about Celtic things.
But there is something in them here which concerns the spiritual
history of the race; something to note, that may help us to
understand the Great Plan. So, having beckoned you last week to
the edge of the world and the fountain of dawn, and to see
Bodhidharma standing there and evoking out of the deep a new
order of ages, I find myself now lured by a westward trail, and
must jump the width of two continents with you, and follow this
track whither it leads: into the heart and flame of mysterious
sunset. I hope, and the Gwerddonau Llion, the Green Spots of the
Flood,--Makarn Nesoi, Tirnanogue, the Islands of the Blest.

We saw that while the great flow of the cycles from dying Rome
ran in wave after wave eastward, there was