The History of Buddhist Thought c12.63

c12.63

There are two other schemes of meditation, which were also used for concentrating the attention. They are almost ignored by Buddhaghosa in his treatment of subjects for meditation, but the second is important in showing how the stages of trance came to be extended, for the trances were enlarged to eight and sometimes nine by taking stages from this scheme and making them extensions of the four trances. The first is the eight Stages of Mastery (*abhibhāyatana*) ² :