Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c21.s2.25

c21.s2.25

According to the *Laṅkāvatāra* the attainment of the highest knowledge may be accomplished by Bodhisattvas through the realization that things are nothing but mental creations; that there is no origination, existence or destruction of things; that external things can be said to exist or not exist only in the sense of a mirage, being produced by mental impressions from of old, and through the true apprehension of things in their ultimate nature. To aid in the attainment of this end a special series of meditations (*dhyāna*) is prescribed, which are obviously intended to take the place of the inferior meditations of the Hīnayāna. The first is that of the Śrāvakas and solitary Buddhas; it dwells on the doctrines of the non-existence of the soul and the transitory, miserable, and impure character of the world, ending in the suppression of ideation. This practice for beginners (*bālopacārika*) is followed by the searching investigation of things (*artha-pravicaya*), which reveals not only that there is no self, but that the doctrine of the self and other heretical views cannot be said really to have any existence, and that the world of appearance is truly unreal. In the third meditation it is realized that the thought that there is no self and no appearance is itself an outcome of delusion, and the mind then falls back on the conception of suchness (*tathatā-lambana*), while in the fourth meditation the mind achieves the complete and perfect appreciation of the nothingness and the incomprehensibility of all phenomena.