La Terre et les Rêveries de la Volonté, by Bachelard, Gaston (Librairie José Corti, Paris, 1948)

 

p. 164/15-16

[En réalité, le soleil couchant est une image de nirvâna, …]1 u/l: Note that atthaṃ gacchati is used both of the setting of the sun and for the extinction (nibbāna) of the arahat.

 

p. 165/16-18

[C’est donc à juste titre que les pratiques de nirvâna demandent qu’on vide peu à peu l’esprit de ses images.]2: This is true of samatha practice.

 

p. 165/18-19

[Au contraire l’antinirvâna, la philosophie du réveil, …]3 u/l: Réveil, ‘awakening’, is ambivalent. Certainly nibbāna is kammanirodha, ‘cessation of action’, but it is also bodhi, which is precisely ‘awakening’. J. Evola’s book on the teaching of nibbāna is called La Dottrina del Risveglio.

 

p. 272/16-17

[L’annulaire est aussi le doigt médical, celui qui est le plus convenable pour mêler les mixtures …]4 u/l: This is so today in Ayurvedic medicine.

 


 

1 ‘In reality, the sunset is an image of nirvana, …’

2 ‘So it is justified that the practices of nirvana demand that one should empty the mind gradually of its images.’

3 ‘In contrast the anti-nirvana, the philosophy of awakening, …’

4 ‘The ring-finger is also the medical finger, the one that is most convenient for mixing mixtures.’