Philosophies of India

SR No.: 007309
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 709
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

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THE WAY OF THE BODHISATTVA the practices called basti and neti, and of the bodily channels containing and carrying vital wind (prāna) through the classic exercises of control of the breath (prāņāyāma). Such disciplines cleanse and rebuild the nervous and glandular systems.95
Meanwhile the systematic purification of the subtle body is also undertaken. According to the yogic method of Patañjali, this is effected by a gradual transformation of tāmasic and rājasic qualities and forces into sātuvic, while according to the more ancient, less psychological, more materialistic approach of the Jaina disciplines, it is to be brought about by an inhibiting of the physical influx of darkening karmic color into the crystal of the monad. In either case, the sum and substance of the teaching is the same: not simply that we are meant to be crystal pure and perfect, but that in essence we really are. The psychophysical system is defiled, obscured, and disordered by obstructing matter of some kind, which clogs the channels and vessels of life and consciousness on every level. Mala, "dirt, refuse, impurity,” fills us; we are “besmeared.” Whereas the true and
Hui-neng (638-713 A.D.) wrote his celcbrated verse on the wall of the Yellow Plumn Monastery:
"There is neither Bo Tree Nor any mirror bright; Since sūnyata is all,
Whereon can what dust alight?" Hui-neng became the Sixth Patriarch of the Chi'an (Japanese: Zen) school of Far Eastern Buddhism. (Cf. Suzuki, op. cit., p. 205; Alan W. Watts, The Spirit of Zen, The Wisdom of the East Scrics, London, 1936, p. 40; and Sokei-an, "The Transmission of the Lamp," in Cat's Yawn, published by the First Zen Institute of America, New York, 1947, p. 26.)
06 Editor's note: This paragraph is followed in Dr. Zimmer's papers by a brief note indicating his intention to build it out. Hatha Yoga is a system of physical exercises for the cultivation of pcricct health and supernormal bodily powers. Properly, it is a preliminary to other yoga disciplines, but it may be practiced also as an end in itself.
06 For a discussion of the gunas (tamas guņa, rajas guna, sattva guņa), cf. supra, pp. 295-297, 398-402.
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