Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

Manomaya 151
represents the progressive purification of the mind, so the spheres represent
corresponding degrees of density or subtlety.54 It is notable that just as
liberation means the cessation of sap.siric existence, so the achievement of
insight itself does not have a corresponding cosmological stratum.
Collins discusses the relation between Buddhist cosmology and psychology,
calling it psychological cosmology.55 He tabulates the cosmological
spheres of early Buddhism and correlates them with meditative levels.56 This
has been mentioned in chapter v. The correspondence between cosmology
and psychology, and the lack of ontological discontinuity, is again evidenced
by the fact that experience of a certain meditative level identifies the subject
with that level of reality, enabling the meditator to manipulate it. We have
also seen a somewhat different, and spiritually humble, example of this
principle in chapter 111. There, we referred to canonical passages in which
bhikkhus were encouraged to develop spiritually advantageous 'concepts',
such as impermanence and selflessness. This practice would contribute to
the bhikkhu's realisation of these insights: in experiencing the psychological
ideas he eventually identfies with them cosmologically.
The psychological/cosmological transmutation which comes about
through meditation is the same as the rationale behind the practice of
classical yoga," and we saw examples of this process above in the Satapatha
Brihmana and the Byhadiranyaka Upani~ad. In these three examples, the
transmutation of the meditator is different from that in Buddhism. In
them, the point is to become the same as the stuff on which one is meditating
(usually Brahman); in Buddhism, the point is to experience what is
meant by selflessness. The former imply an ontological transmutation, of
what one is. The latter is an epistemic transmutation, to know how one
operates. In stating only that one realises how one is, Buddhist teachings
leave unanswered the question of whether one thereby becomes identified
with everything.
The term dhatu, which we have just seen used to refer to cosmological
levels, is used elsewhere in the Sutta maka to refer to a classification of the
four mahibhiiti, (earth (pa~haui), water (ipo), wind (ugu) and fire (tejo)), plus
space (ihsa) and consciousness (vin"n"ip~).~~ One can see that here, too, there
is a progression from the grossest or densest element to the subtlest. And
their classification together as elements indicates their congruity in all other
respects: consciousnessness is not categorically distinct from earth. The fact
that there are no category distinctions is further emphasised in this Sutta,
which is called the Bahudhituka Sutta, when the term dhitu is applied in like
manner to processes such as the senses, to abstract notions such as comfort
and discomfort, happiness and unhappiness, harmfulness and harmlessness,
and to the three cosmological realms, as well as to the six elements
just mentioned.59
There is in the Sutta PiGaka an alternative threefold division of the
degrees of density of phenomena to that of the cosmological dhitus, and it