Again, some superficial critics think that Buddhist dhyana is a sort of intense meditation on some highly abstracted thoughts, and that the concentration which works in the same way as self-hypnotism leads the mind to the state of a trance, called Nirvana. This is a very grievous error committed by those who have never comprehended the essence of religious consciousness, for Buddhist dhyana has nothing to do with abstraction or hypnotization. What it proposes to accomplish is to make our consciousness realize the inner reason of the universe which abides in our minds. Dhyana strives to make us acquainted with the most concrete and withal the most universal fact of life. It is the philosopher's business to deal with dry, lifeless, uninteresting generalizations. Buddhists are not concerned with things like that. They want to see the fact directly and not through the medium of philosophical abstractions. There may be a god who created heaven and earth, or there may not; we could be saved by simply believing in his goodness, or we could not; the destination of evil-doers may be hell and that of good men paradise, or this may be reversed: true Buddhists do not trouble themselves with such propositions as these. Let them well alone; Buddhists are not so idle and superficial as to waste their time in pondering over the questions which have no

vital concern with our religious life. Buddhists through dhyana endeavor to reach the bottom of things and there to grasp with their own hands the very life of the universe, which makes the sun rise in the morning, makes the bird cheerfully sing in the balmy spring breeze, and also makes the biped called man hunger for love, righteousness, liberty, truth, and goodness. In dhyana, therefore, there is nothing abstract, nothing dry as a bone and cold as a corpse, but all animation, all activity, and eternal revelation.

Some Hindu philosophers, however, seem to have considered hallucinations and self-suggested states of mind as real and the attainment of them as the aim of dhyana, practice. Their conception of the eightfold dhyana-heaven in which all sorts of angels are living is evidence of it. When the mythical beings in those regions practise dhyana, they enter into different stages of samadhi. They first come to think that they are lifted up in the air like a cloud; (2) they feel the presence of some indescribable luminosity; (3) they experience a supernatural joy; (4) their minds become so clarified and transparent as to reflect all the worlds like a very brilliant mirror; (5) they feel as if the soul has escaped bodily confinement and expanded itself to the immensity of space; (6) they now come back to a definite state of consciousness in which all mental functions are presented and the past and present and future reveal themselves; (7)