Page 63 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

This is, incidentally, the significance of what we call mudrä in
Buddhism. A mudra is a gesture made with the hand, or a certain

position taken by the fingers. Very often we speak in terms of
samadhi, mantra, and mudra. Here samadhi represents the inner
spiritual realization, mantra the expression of that realization in

terms of speech, while mudra is the expression of that same
realization to the very tips of one's fingers — i.e. to the

outermost ramifications of one's being — in terms of gesture.
Mudra is sometimes translated as 'magic gesture', just as
mandala is sometimes translated as 'magic circle', but it is not

anything magical at all. On the contrary, it is something spiritual,
even transcendental.

Our spiritual realization is not to be confined to the heights. It
has to descend into the depths of our being and transform every

aspect and department of our lives. When that happens, and our
lives are transformed in every aspect, and at every level, in

accordance with Perfect Vision, i.e. in accordance with our insight
into, and experience of, the Truth — then comes what we call
Enlightenment.

Perfect Emotion, the second stage or aspect of the Path,

represents the descent of Perfect Vision into our emotional life. It
represents the transformation — or, if you like the sublimation —
of our crude, unrefined emotional energies into something much

more delicate, much more rarified, something, if we may use the
term, much more spiritual.

Negatively formulated, this Perfect Emotion consists in complete
freedom from attachment, from hatred, and from cruelty.

Positively, it consists in such emotions as generosity, i.e. the

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