Buddhist Meditation and Nirvana

Christianity teaches salvation by faith; while Buddhism places its greatest reliance in meditation. And it is not strange that the methods of the two religions should be so different, when we consider the very different meanings attached by Buddhists and Christians to the word ‘salvation’— the latter wishing to be saved from sin and hell, the former from karma and rebirth. The meditations of the Buddhists were not simple reflections on abstract subjects, but trances of se1f-hypnotism as well, in which they tried to bring, not merely the conceptions of the mind, but also the emotions and feelings of the heart to rarefied generalizations. By meditation an equation is made between this karma and nullity whereby subjective terms find themselves wiped out, and only nothingness remains. In other words, if you think of nothing you do not think. This nothingness when temporary is a trance; when permanent, Nirvana. There are nine attainments or hypnotic states in the Buddhist system of meditation. And these trances were not merely of importance to learners, as a means for arriving at Nirvana; but, the temporary release they afforded from the sense-perceptions and the concrete was so highly esteemed, that they were looked upon as luxuries and enjoyed as such by the saints and by The Buddha himself.