43b | CR Book XII, Chapter 4

penance, self-sacrifice work off the sense of guilt which
comes from past deeds, and which tends to grow for a time
as one realises that one's own satisfactions are invaria-
bly bought at the expense of others, and that one's 'very
existence as an individual is a mark of disorder which
must be expiated." One learns to put one's aggressiveness
to a good use, by turning it against oneself. A new sense
of solidarity is set free, in which we quite nat-
urally serve others without any after-thought.

Intellectually, we deprive ourselves of any firm ground.
One exercise consists in letting go one idea after anoth-
er, together with the divisions that arise from them, -
'the good soul is forgetful.' Another consists in think-
ing properties away from the things to which they are u-
sually attributed, and that way learning to establish one-
self in that which is nothing by itself such as it is
quite by and for itself. One trains oneself to look at
things without chattering. One aims at poverty of intell-
ect, wishes to appear foolish rather than wise (how much
self-conceit that may cover!), tramples on the pride of
knowledge, and learns to feel that thinking and talking
indicate presumption. The intellect may be systematically
harassed, baffled, exhausted and raised above itself and
all discrimination by the use of koans. It is remoulded
by regular mediation on memorised texts, reflection on
the meanings of emptiness (XII,  ), and by pondering on the
similes which express the change which the reality char-
acter of things and objects undergoes when they are view-
ed as empty and 'unborn'.

The empirical reality of a kasina-object is discarded,
as by stages it is transformed into the jhana-sign, - by
the concentrated attention bestowed upon it, backed up by
a persistent effort to renounce all sense attachments for
the sake of the Beyond. The sense datum is re-formed
and un-form-ed in the direction of emptiness, reduced
to a sublime residue, conceived in such a way that the
underlying emptiness shines through it. The
perception is re-form-ed so as to reveal the 'inward
properties of things', their salvational content. It is
lifted up into an, as it were, 'intermediate' world, of
'disembodied forms', of inoffensive, because de-instinct-
ualised objects, a world which other traditions experi-
enced as Numbers, Proportions, Harmonies, Rhythms, Symb-
ols, Logoi, Separate Substances etc.

(I only must mention some other practices which seem