The Equinox (Volume I, Number III)

THE EQUINOX out the Four Noble Truths, that is in the understanding of the Three Characteristics—the three fundamental principles of Buddhism. Besides representing Malkuth, the Four Noble Truths (viewed in an elementary manner) represent the four lower Sephiroth—Malkuth, Yesod, Hod and Netzach, the state of Right Views carrying with its attainment a transcend- ency over all wrong views, that is to say all crude and unskilful views, all dogmas, assertions, all doubts, which are as unfertile as the elements are when uncombined, by applying to them what we have termed elsewhere the Pyrrhonic Serpent of Selection. The attainment of Right Views is arrived at in three suc- cessive steps. (1) The Aspirant contemplates the ills of life; (2) he meditates upon them; (3) by strenuous will power he commences to strip the mind of the Cause of Sorrow, namely Change. During this stage a series of humiliations must be under- gone, and, not onlymust the Nephesch be conquered, but also the lower states of the Ruach, until the illumination of the Second Noble Truth of the Eightfold Path shatter the step of Right Views which the Aspirant is standing upon just as the fire of God consumed the Elemental Pyramid—the Tower of the Taro. Having attained to mastery over Right Comprehension the aspirant begins to see things not as they are but in their right proportions. His views become balanced, he enters Tiphareth, the Solar Plexus, ‘‘ He sees naked facts behind the garments of hypotheses in which men have clothed them, and by which they have become obscured; and he perceives that behind the changing and conflicting opinions of men there are 144