雜阿含經 義疏通講 · 冊1Saṃyukta Āgama · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 1

Of the thirty-two discourses in Fascicle 1, almost every one begins with form and then says, “and so with feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.” The same sentence pattern, one word changed, said again; another word changed, said again. A first reader takes this for repetition. Only after finishing the fascicle does one see that between neighbouring discourses often only one word changes, and that the word that changes is exactly what that discourse wants seen. This exposition follows the order of the thirty-two discourses and watches where, layer by layer, the fascicle carries this one matter of the five aggregates of clinging.

I. First Establish Right Contemplation: Impermanence and Right Reflection (Discourses 1–2)

The first discourse has a single teaching: “Contemplate form as impermanent. Whoever contemplates thus has right contemplation.” Then a chain follows: right contemplation gives rise to weariness, weariness exhausts delight and craving, and when delight and craving are exhausted “the mind is said to be liberated.” The second discourse changes “contemplate” to “reflect rightly”: “Toward form one should reflect rightly, contemplating form as impermanent and knowing it as it really is.” One link of the chain changes too: not the exhausting of delight and craving but the cutting off of desire and craving. Taken together the two discourses are the fascicle’s general outline. What is contemplated is impermanence; what is used is right contemplation and right reflection; what is reached is liberation of mind. And “so too with suffering, emptiness, and not self”: the four modes of contemplation already stand side by side within a single discourse. This layer does not yet say what “suffering,” “empty,” or “not self” mean; it only fixes the direction of contemplation.

II. Not Knowing, Not Understanding, Not Abandoning, Not Free from Desire (Discourses 3–7)

From the third discourse the pattern turns from “contemplate” to “not knowing, not understanding, not abandoning, not free from desire”: “Whoever does not know form, does not understand it, does not abandon it, and is not free from desire for it cannot end suffering.” The fourth discourse changes “cannot end suffering” to “cannot pass beyond the terror of birth, old age, sickness, and death,” and the sixth says it once more. The fifth and seventh take another doorway: “Whoever delights in form delights in suffering.” To delight in form is to delight in suffering, and whoever delights in suffering is not freed from suffering. These five discourses establish the meaning from the negative side: the first two said what to do; these five say what happens if one does not. The four “nots” form one set. Not knowing is not knowing as it really is; not understanding is not seeing clearly; not abandoning is not letting go; not being free from desire is craving not yet exhausted. Each hooks into the next, which is why the fifth discourse says that one “not free from desire and craving, the mind not liberated, the craving mind not liberated, cannot end suffering.”

After the seventh discourse there is a summary verse: “Impermanent, and suffering, empty, not self, right reflection,” “the four kinds of not knowing, and delight in form.” This is the compilers taking one word from each of the first seven discourses and gathering them in one place. It is not sūtra text but a table of contents; yet it tells us that the compilers too read these seven as one group.

III. The Three Times, Causes and Conditions, Not Mine (Discourses 8–12)

The eighth discourse changes the dimension to time: “Past and future form are impermanent, how much more present form!” What is past has ceased; what is future has not come; if even these are impermanent, how could what is before one’s eyes be permanent? Hence the noble disciple “does not look back to past form, does not long for future form, and toward present form is weary, free from desire, and rightly turned toward cessation.” The ninth and tenth join the four modes that stood side by side in the first discourse into a single line: “Form is impermanent; what is impermanent is suffering; what is suffering is not self; what is not self is also not mine.” Impermanence, suffering, not self, and not mine are not four things in a row; two “therefores” and one “also” join them into one thing. The eleventh and twelfth press one step further and ask why it is impermanent: “Whatever serves as cause and as condition for the arising of forms, that too is impermanent. Forms born of impermanent causes and impermanent conditions—how could they be permanent?” Form is born of causes and conditions; the causes and conditions are themselves impermanent; how could what they produce be permanent? These five discourses turn the “impermanence” of the first discourse from a mode of contemplation into a reason.

IV. Gratification, Danger, Escape (Discourses 13–14)

The thirteenth discourse does not say “contemplate”; it says “gratification”: “If beings found no gratification in form, they would not be defiled by form.” Why are beings attached to form? Because form has gratification—something lovable and pleasing in it. Why then do they grow weary? Because form has danger. Why can they escape? Because for beings there is “an escape” from form. All three sentences take the form if … not …, then … would not …: they do not tell one to be weary; they explain how weariness is possible at all. In the fourteenth the World-Honored One speaks of himself: “Formerly I sought and practised with regard to the gratification of form.” Not merely knowing that form has gratification, but having sought it and practised it, and then “seeing it as it really is with wisdom.” The two discourses then say the same thing: so long as “I did not know, as they really are, the gratification of the five aggregates of clinging as gratification, their danger as danger, and the escape from them as escape,” then among gods, Māras, Brahmās, ascetics, and brahmins he “dwelt forever in inversion”; only on knowing them as they really are did he “himself realise unsurpassed perfect awakening.” This is the one place in the fascicle where the Buddha’s own realisation is spoken of twice, and what is spoken of is still the five aggregates of clinging.

After the fourteenth discourse a summary verse gathers the eighth through fourteenth as “the past, four kinds, speaking of weariness and liberation,” “two kinds speaking of causes and conditions, and gratification, likewise two kinds.”

V. A Brief Teaching, Explained at Length (Discourses 15–21)

From the fifteenth discourse the form of teaching changes. No longer does the World-Honored One address the bhikṣus; a bhikṣu comes to ask for “a brief teaching of the essentials of the Dharma.” The World-Honored One says a single sentence, then asks him, “How do you explain at length the meaning of what I have taught in brief?” The bhikṣu applies that one sentence to form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, one after another, and the World-Honored One approves. In the seven discourses the World-Honored One’s “one sentence” is different each time: “Whoever is driven by the fetters dies by the fetters; whoever dies by the fetters is bound by clinging.” To go along with the fetters, the afflictions, is to die by them and be bound by clinging. The sixteenth says “adds to the reckonings”—driven by the fetters one adds to the reckonings; not driven, one does not add. The seventeenth: “a thing that is not fit for you; it should be quickly cut off.” The eighteenth adds “nor fit for anyone else.” The nineteenth: “a thing bound by the bonds should be quickly cut off.” The twenty-first: “when one wavers, one is bound by Māra; when one does not waver, one is freed from the Evil One.”

In none of these seven does the “explanation at length” argue anything. It only sets one sentence upon the five aggregates of clinging. That is how this fascicle is to be read: to explain at length is not to say something else, but to let the same sentence fall, one by one, upon form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. And the seven endings are the same: that bhikṣu “alone in a quiet place, diligently practised and dwelt without negligence,” and then “became an arhat, the mind liberated.” The text writes hearing one sentence, understanding one sentence, practising one sentence, realising as one unbroken line.

The twentieth discourse has only seven characters: “The discourse on defilement is taught in the same way.” The compilers tell us that there is one more discourse in which the World-Honored One’s one sentence is “defilement,” all else the same; so they record only the title and do not write it out again. We read it as the base text has it and do not supply the text for it.

VI. The Mind Well Liberated; Not Self, Not Other Than Self, Not Within One Another (Discourses 22–24)

The questioner in the twenty-second discourse has a name: Kalpa. He asks about “the mind well liberated.” The World-Honored One’s answer is to set form within eleven dimensions—past, future, present; inner, outer; coarse, fine; fair, foul; far, near—“all of it entirely impermanent,” and then: “having rightly contemplated impermanence, craving for form is removed; craving for form being removed, the mind is well liberated.” Why is the mind liberated? “Because craving and desire are cut off.” The twenty-third is Rāhula’s question, and the question is long: “How should one know, how should one see this conscious body of mine and all the signs of outer objects,” so that “the view of self, the view of mine, and the fetter of conceit” no longer bind? In the twenty-fourth the direction is reversed: the World-Honored One first puts the same question to Rāhula, “how should one know, how should one see,” and Rāhula does not answer but asks the World-Honored One to expound it for the bhikṣus. The answer is again those eleven dimensions, but the closing phrase changes from “impermanent” to “not self, not other than self, not within one another; thus one contemplates rightly with equal wisdom.” Here the “not self” that stood side by side in the first discourse receives its threefold form: form is not the self; apart from form there is no other self; and self and form do not dwell within each other. Whoever knows and sees thus “cuts off craving and desire, turns away all the bonds, rightly penetrates, and reaches the end of suffering”; the twenty-fourth adds three more: “passes beyond doubt, departs from all signs, and is liberated in stillness.”

After the twenty-fourth discourse a summary verse—“the fetters; adding to the reckonings; not self; not another’s; bound by the bonds; wavering,” “what Kalpa asked, and the two discourses Rāhula asked”—gathers the fifteenth through twenty-fourth.

VII. Much Learning, a Teacher of the Dharma, Practice in Accordance with the Dharma, Nirvāṇa Seen in This Life (Discourses 25–29)

The twenty-fifth through twenty-ninth discourses define five terms. What is called much learning? “If one hears that form is a thing for weariness, freedom from desire, cessation, and stillness, this is called much learning.” What is called a teacher of the Dharma? “If one teaches that form is a thing for weariness, freedom from desire, cessation, and stillness, this is called a teacher of the Dharma.” What is called practice in accordance with the Dharma? “Toward form to turn to weariness, freedom from desire, and cessation—this is called practice in accordance with the Dharma.” What is called nirvāṇa seen in this life? Toward form to be weary, free from desire, and ceased, “not giving rise to the outflows, the mind rightly liberated—this is called a bhikṣu’s nirvāṇa seen in this life.” The twenty-ninth is Sanmiliti asking about the teacher who expounds the Dharma: “teaches weariness, freedom from desire, and cessation—this is called a teacher who expounds the Dharma,” one word, “stillness,” fewer than the twenty-sixth. What the five discourses share is three words—weariness, freedom from desire, cessation; the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth add “stillness,” and the twenty-eighth adds “not giving rise to the outflows, the mind rightly liberated.” What is heard is this; what is taught is this; what is practised is this; what is realised is this. Much learning does not lie in much; being a teacher of the Dharma does not lie in saying much; both lie in whether what is heard and taught is these few words. Read together with the previous group: the previous group said how “liberation of mind” comes about; this group says that terms like “much learning” and “teacher of the Dharma” are in fact defined by this one matter alone.

After the twenty-ninth discourse a summary verse: “much learning, teaching well, the Dharma and accordance with the Dharma, and nirvāṇa,” “Sanmiliti asking what a teacher who expounds the Dharma is.”

VIII. Śāriputra and Śroṇa (Discourses 30–32)

In the last three discourses the one who teaches is the venerable Śāriputra, not the Buddha; the one who listens is Śroṇa, a householder’s son. In the thirtieth it is Śroṇa who asks first: when ascetics and brahmins say of impermanent, changing, insecure form, “I am superior, I am equal, I am inferior,” “what are they reckoning, that they do not see what is real?” Śāriputra does not answer directly; he turns and asks him: Is form permanent or impermanent? Impermanent. Is what is impermanent suffering? It is suffering. Of what is impermanent, suffering, “a thing subject to change,” does the noble disciple see form as self, as other than self, as within one another? No. Only after the questions and answers does he say, “this is called knowing as it really is.” The one who asked has spoken the answer himself; only then does Śāriputra teach him directly, that toward form and the rest one “becomes weary, free from desire, and liberated.” That is why the discourse ends with Śroṇa “free of dust and stain, gaining the pure Dharma eye,” “seeing the Dharma, attaining the Dharma, not depending on another,” saying “I have now crossed over,” and taking refuge in the Three Jewels.

The thirty-first changes the set of words: “does not know as it really is the arising of form, the cessation of form, the path leading to the cessation of form”—form, its arising, its cessation, the path to its cessation, four. Not knowing them as they really are, one “is not able to abandon form”; knowing them, one “is able to abandon form”—whether one can abandon or not hangs on these four knowings; and having abandoned, one “is liberated from birth, old age, sickness, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, and distress,” which is how the thirty-first ends. The thirty-second changes again: “does not know as it really is the gratification of form, the danger of form, the escape from form”—form, arising, cessation, gratification, danger, escape, six. Not knowing them as they really are, one “is not able to pass beyond form.” In both discourses Śāriputra first states the two sides, the not-knowing and the knowing; the question-and-answer in the middle is the same as the thirtieth; and after it he states the teaching again. The thirty-second is the last discourse of the fascicle, and its closing holds the fascicle together: “the noble disciple contemplates rightly these five aggregates of clinging as not self and not mine,” and “in all the world takes hold of nothing; taking hold of nothing, one is attached to nothing; attached to nothing, one attains nirvāṇa by oneself.” From “contemplate form as impermanent” in the first discourse to “attains nirvāṇa by oneself” here, what lies between is the one word that each of the thirty-two discourses moves in its turn.

IX. How to Read the Fascicle

Looking back, these thirty-two discourses say one thing only: the five aggregates of clinging. But saying one thing is not saying one sentence. The text begins with impermanence and goes on to suffering, not self, not mine; from “contemplate” to the reverse side of not knowing, not understanding, not abandoning, not free from desire; from the three times to causes and conditions; from gratification, danger, and escape to the Buddha’s own realisation; from the World-Honored One addressing the bhikṣus to a bhikṣu asking for a brief teaching, explaining it himself, realising it himself; from impermanence to not self, not other than self, not within one another; from liberation of mind to the definitions of much learning, the teacher of the Dharma, and the rest; and at the last, Śāriputra, by question and answer, lets a householder’s son say it himself. Each discourse changes one word because the place where beings are bound differs from one to another, so the same matter must be entered through different doors. Repetition is not redundancy; it is one contemplation walking through every possible entrance. And the sentence that appears eight times in the fascicle—“my birth is ended, pure conduct is established, what was to be done is done, I know for myself that there is no further existence”—six times in the teaching or at the close, twice in the fifteenth and seventeenth in the mouth of the bhikṣu asking for the teaching, as what he left home to attain—is what this one matter looks like when it is said to the end.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

How did the later treatise read this fascicle? When the Compendium of Topics in the Yogācārabhūmi speaks of the form of the Saṃyukta Āgama, it first describes the compilers’ work: “Those who later compiled it, so that the holy teaching might long abide, composed uddāna verses and arranged them in order as appropriate.” The four summary verses of this fascicle are of this kind. The treatise says further that without a mātṛkā “it is as with written characters without a mātṛkā: the meaning is not clear,” and so, within the Topics of the Sūtras, it makes its determinations in sequence. Its determinations on the discourses of the five aggregates of clinging can be read directly against this fascicle.

The treatise gives the order of practice: “relying on impermanence, cultivate the perception of suffering; relying on suffering, cultivate the perceptions of emptiness and not self”—this is the order of the ninth and tenth discourses, “what is impermanent is suffering, what is suffering is not self.” It says that “among the formations there are four certainties”: the four certainties of impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and not self, and in speaking of the certainty of impermanence it uses the very words of the eighth discourse: “Know that the impermanence of past and future formations is already certain, how much more of the present.” It gives the gradation of knowledge: “Thus contemplating that because impermanent therefore suffering, because suffering therefore not self—this is called the gradation of knowledge.” And the gradation of the fruits of knowledge: “What is the gradation of the fruits of knowledge? Weariness, freedom from desire, liberation, and complete liberation”—these are the names for the chain in the first discourse, “whoever contemplates rightly gives rise to weariness; weariness exhausts delight and craving; when delight and craving are exhausted, the mind is said to be liberated.” The treatise sums it up: “By the overriding power of knowledge, one gives rise to weariness among the formations; by cultivating weariness, one attains freedom from desire; by cultivating freedom from desire, one attains liberation and complete liberation.”

On the gratification, danger, and escape of the thirteenth and fourteenth discourses, the treatise says “one should examine eight matters, namely, among the formations, the examination of gratification, danger, and escape,” and weighs each in turn: “this gratification is extremely narrow and small,” “this danger is extremely broad and great,” “this escape is still, unsurpassed, and finally secure.” On the self, the view of mine, and the conceit of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth discourses, the treatise sets up four wrong graspings, the first two being “the wrong grasping of views, namely grasping self and mine among the formations” and the wrong grasping of conceit. What the treatise says does not go a single word beyond the text of the discourses; it only lays out, as a table, the one word that each of the thirty-two discourses moves. The order given in this exposition does little more than follow that table back into the text of the discourses.

Fascicle 1 was about contemplation: contemplating form as impermanent, suffering, empty, not self. The twenty-six discourses of Fascicle 2 ask about the thing contemplated: what, exactly, are the five aggregates of clinging? Discourse by discourse it gives definitions. What is form, what is feeling; where does consciousness dwell, and on what does it grow; what separates an aggregate from an aggregate of clinging, and what separates the thing with outflows from the thing without. At the end of the fascicle, in the Hall of Deer Mother in the Eastern Park, a bhikṣu asks nine questions in a row, and the World-Honored One answers one of them in a single sentence: “The five aggregates are not the clinging, nor are the five aggregates other than the clinging; where there is desire and craving toward them, those are the five aggregates of clinging.” This fascicle is the road to that sentence. This exposition follows the grouping of the twenty-six discourses and their four summary verses, and watches how, step by step, the fascicle turns “aggregate” into “aggregate of clinging.”

I. If Form Were Self, Sickness and Pain Should Not Arise in It (Discourses 33–36)

The thirty-third discourse does not begin from contemplation but from a reason: “Form is not self. If form were self, sickness and pain should not arise in form, nor should one wish form to be thus or not thus.” If form were self, I could tell it to be this way and not that way; but form falls sick, form hurts, and none of it obeys. “Because form is without self,” there is sickness and pain in it. This is something Fascicle 1 never said: not self is not only something contemplated; it is inferred from the plain fact that form does not do what it is told. Only then comes the exchange familiar from Fascicle 1: impermanent? suffering? “Would one see in it self, other than self, or within one another?” The thirty-fourth discourse says the same at the Deer Park to “the remaining five bhikṣus,” and adds at the end: “The remaining five bhikṣus did not give rise to outflows; their minds were liberated.”

The thirty-fifth discourse concerns three venerables not long gone forth. The World-Honored One knows what they are thinking and teaches them without being asked: “Bhikṣus, this mind, this intellect, this consciousness: reflect on this, do not reflect on that; cut off this desire, cut off this form, and dwell having realized it in your own person.” Mind, intellect, consciousness are set side by side, three words for the one thing that reaches out and grasps: what to think of, what not to think of; cut off desire, cut off form. In the thirty-sixth the World-Honored One asks first and the bhikṣus request the teaching. He begins: “Dwell as an island unto yourself, dwell as your own refuge; dwell with the Dharma as your island, with the Dharma as your refuge; with no other island, no other refuge,” and then asks: “From what cause do grief, lamentation, pain, and distress arise? How do they come to be? Through what? To what are they bound?” The answer is: “There is form, there is the cause that is form, there is being bound to form.” Grief and distress do not come from outside; they come from there being form and from being bound to it. After these four discourses the compilers set a summary verse: “Bamboo Grove, Vaiśālī purified, right contemplation,” “impermanent, suffering, not self; five, three, and sixteen.” Five, three, and sixteen are the numbers of bhikṣus liberated at the end of three of the discourses.

II. I Do Not Dispute with the World (Discourses 37–38)

The thirty-seventh discourse is a declaration: “I do not dispute with the world; it is the world that disputes with me.” Why? “What the wise of the world say exists, I too say exists”; what the wise of the world say does not exist, I too say does not exist. What exists? “Form is impermanent, suffering, subject to change: the wise of the world say this exists, and I too say it exists.” What does not exist? Form that is “permanent, constant, unchanging, abiding.” The Buddha does not set up a separate account of the world to quarrel over; what he says, those with eyes can see for themselves, and “that the blind and eyeless of the world do not know it and do not see it is no fault of mine.” The thirty-eighth discourse offers a comparison: one and the same vessel is called by people in different places by one name, by another a bowl, by others by other names again. “As they know it, so too I speak of it. Why? So that I should not differ from the people of the world.” Whatever people call a thing, the Buddha calls it the same; he coins no new names. Set in a fascicle that defines the five aggregates of clinging, these two discourses make something plain: the definitions that follow are not the Buddha’s inventions, but things that are already so in the world and that people fail to see.

III. Seeds, Stations of Consciousness, and Obstruction and Stagnation (Discourses 39–40)

The thirty-ninth discourse is the longest simile of the fascicle. Five kinds of seed, from root, stem, joint, self-dropping, and fruit: “where there is the earth element but no water element, those seeds do not grow and spread”; water without earth, and they do not grow either; earth and water together, and they grow. What is this a figure for? “The five kinds of seed are a figure for consciousness together with the aggregates of clinging; the earth element is a figure for the four stations of consciousness; the water element is a figure for delight and craving, grasping at the four kinds of clinging where consciousness dwells.” Consciousness is the seed; form, feeling, perception, and formations are the four grounds where it dwells; delight and craving are the water. Consciousness “dwells in form, grasping at form, moistened by delight and craving, and grows and spreads.” Here the “clinging” in “aggregate of clinging” is given a shape: consciousness fastens onto the four aggregates and waters them with delight and craving. Conversely, “if anyone says that apart from form, feeling, perception, and formations, consciousness comes or goes or stays or arises, that is only words; questioned, he does not know, and only increases his confusion, because it is not within his range.” To speak of a consciousness coming and going apart from the four aggregates is mere talk. How is it cut off? “When one is free from craving toward the realm of form, then, being free from craving, the bond born of the mind’s obstruction and stagnation in form is cut; when that bond is cut, the grasping is cut; when the grasping is cut, consciousness has no dwelling place and no longer grows and spreads.” To be free from craving is to draw off the water; with the water gone, the grasping is cut and consciousness has nowhere to dwell. Such a consciousness, the discourse ends, “goes neither east, west, south, nor north, nor to the four intermediate directions, nor up nor down; it goes nowhere, but sees only the Dharma and wishes to enter nirvāṇa, stilled, cool, pure, and real.” The fortieth discourse gathers this into one sentence: “One who is obstructed and stagnant is not liberated; one who is not obstructed and stagnant is liberated.” Obstruction and stagnation are consciousness glued by delight and craving to the four aggregates.

IV. Knowing in Five Ways, and the Seven Skilful Points (Discourses 41–42)

In the forty-first discourse the World-Honored One speaks of himself: “Regarding these five aggregates of clinging, I know as they really are in five ways: I know form as it really is, and I know the arising of form, the gratification of form, the danger of form, and the escape from form as they really are.” Then he defines aggregate by aggregate. Form is “all the four great elements and what is made of the four great elements”; feeling is “the six classes of feeling: feeling born of eye-contact, and feeling born of ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-contact”; perception is the six classes of perception, formations are “the six classes of volition,” consciousness “the six classes of consciousness.” What is arising? The arising of form is “delight and fondness toward form”; the arising of feeling, perception, and formations is in each case “the arising of contact”; the arising of consciousness is “the arising of name and form.” Gratification is “the joy and pleasure that arise conditioned by form”; danger is “that form is impermanent, suffering, subject to change”; escape is “to tame desire and craving toward form, to cut off desire and craving, to pass beyond desire and craving.” This is the first time the five aggregates of clinging are set out item by item: what each one is, where it comes from, why it is lovable, why it is a danger, how one gets out. The forty-second discourse adds two items, making “seven skilful points and three kinds of contemplation”: between arising and gratification it inserts “the cessation of form” and “the path leading to the cessation of form,” the cessation of form being “the cessation of delight,” and the path “the eightfold noble path.” The seven of the seven skilful points are form, arising, cessation, path, gratification, danger, escape; the three kinds of contemplation are of “aggregates, elements, and sense bases.” Knowing these seven points, “one attains the ending of outflows within this very teaching.”

V. Clinging, Bondage, Senses, and Being Eaten (Discourses 43–46)

The forty-third discourse says: “Because of clinging there is attachment; without clinging there is no attachment.” The foolish, unlearned, ordinary person “sees form as self and as mine and clings to it; having clung, when that form changes and alters, the mind turns along with it.” What one has grabbed changes, and the mind changes with it; so “fear, obstruction, and confusion of mind arise.” The noble disciple does not see self or mine, and “when that form changes and alters, the mind does not turn along with it.” The forty-fourth changes the word: “If it arises there is bondage; if it does not arise there is no bondage.” Where does bondage arise from? From “not knowing as they really are the arising of form, the cessation of form, the gratification of form, the danger of form, and the escape from form,” a list of five close to, but not the same as, the five of the forty-first discourse, which has form itself where this has the cessation of form. Not knowing them, one “delights in, praises, and clings to” form. The two discourses have one structure: clinging, change, the mind turning, fear; no clinging, change, the mind not turning, no fear. The difference lies only in the first step.

The forty-fifth discourse pushes back to the root of the view of self: “If any ascetics or brahmins see a self, every one of them sees it in these five aggregates of clinging.” There is no view of self that does not arise upon the five aggregates of clinging. Having seen a self, “the faculties grow; the faculties having grown, contacts increase,” and at the touch of the six sense bases of contact, feelings of pain and pleasure arise. Further still: “There is the mind element, the element of dharmas, and the element of ignorance. Because the foolish, unlearned, ordinary person is touched by ignorance, there arise the sense of existing, the sense of not existing, the sense of both existing and not existing, the sense ‘I am superior,’ the sense ‘I am equal,’ the sense ‘I am inferior,’ and the sense ‘I know, I see.’” Existing, not existing, both, superior, equal, inferior, I know and I see: seven senses, all from contact with ignorance. The noble disciple “abandons ignorance and gives rise to knowledge,” and “the contact with ignorance that arose before ceases, and afterward the sense born of contact with knowledge arises.” The forty-sixth discourse gives the five aggregates another set of definitions: “What can be obstructed and divided is called the form aggregate of clinging.” Hand, stone, stick, knife, cold, heat, hunger, thirst, mosquitoes and flies, wind and rain: what these can touch is form. “The characteristic of feeling is the feeling aggregate of clinging”; “perceptions are the perception aggregate of clinging”; “the characteristic of making is the formations aggregate of clinging”; “the characteristic of distinguishing is the consciousness aggregate of clinging.” Then a very heavy sentence: “I am now being eaten by present form; in past lives I was eaten by that form, just as now in the present.” It is not that I enjoy form; form is eating me. So it was in the past, and if one delights in future form, one “will again be eaten by that form.” Therefore toward present form one “gives rise to weariness, becomes free from desire, extinguishes the danger, and turns toward cessation,” “ceasing and not increasing, withdrawing and not advancing, ceasing and not arising, relinquishing and not taking up.” After these ten discourses comes the summary verse: “I, lowly, seeds, obstruction and stagnation, the five turnings, seven,” “two bondages and the senses, the aggregates in three times, eaten by the world.”

VI. The Faithful Son of Good Family, and Ānanda’s Two Answers (Discourses 47–51)

The forty-seventh and forty-eighth discourses speak of “the faithful son of good family,” who should think: “I should follow the Dharma; toward form I should dwell much in the cultivation of weariness.” The first discourse speaks of the faithful layman, the second of one who “with right faith has gone forth from home into homelessness”; the first reaches “liberation, with knowledge and vision,” the second reaches being “free from all birth, old age, sickness, death, grief, lamentation, pain, and distress.” In the forty-ninth and fiftieth the World-Honored One questions Ānanda. If a householder should come and ask “of what things does one know the arising and passing away?”, how would you answer? Ānanda answers: “One knows that form is subject to arising and passing away; one knows that feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are subject to arising and passing away.” If a wanderer of another sect should ask “why does the World-Honored One teach people to cultivate pure conduct?” Ānanda answers: “It is so that toward form one may cultivate weariness, freedom from desire, extinction, liberation, and non-arising that the World-Honored One teaches people to cultivate pure conduct.” Twice the World-Honored One says, “Good, good! You should answer thus.” These two discourses are the fascicle’s public statement: when someone asks what the Dharma knows and what its practice is for, the answers lie entirely in the five aggregates of clinging. The fifty-first is shorter still: “Form is perishable; the cessation of that form, nirvāṇa, is imperishable.” Perishable and imperishable, divided in a single sentence.

VII. One Title Given in Brief, and Two Brahmins’ Questions (Discourses 52–54)

The fifty-second discourse is a single line: “The Yudijia Sūtra, as taught in the section on the four dharmas in the Ekottarika Āgama.” The compilers tell us a discourse belonged here and that its content is found in the Ekottarika Āgama; following the base text, we record only the title and do not supply the discourse. The fifty-third is a brahmin village chief who comes a long way to ask: “Ascetic Gautama, what do you discuss and what do you teach?” The Buddha answers: “I discuss causes and teach causes.” What causes? “With cause and with condition the world arises; with cause and with condition is the arising of the world; with cause and with condition the world ceases; with cause and with condition is the ceasing of the world.” How does the world arise? The ordinary person does not know as they really are the arising, cessation, gratification, danger, and escape of form, and “delights in form, praises form, and dwells with a mind stained and attached; delighting in form, he clings; conditioned by clinging there is existence; conditioned by existence there is birth; conditioned by birth there are old age, death, grief, lamentation, pain, and distress; this is the arising of the great mass of suffering.” This is where the five aggregates of clinging join the twelve links: from not knowing to delighting, from delighting to clinging, then existence, birth, old age and death. The road to the ceasing of the world runs the other way: knowing as it really is, one “does not delight in it, does not praise it, is not stained by it, does not linger in it,” and “craving for form ceases, and when craving ceases clinging ceases.” In the fifty-fourth another brahmin boasts of a young pupil who can read omens, “what he says exists exists, what he says does not exist does not exist.” The Buddha does not argue about omens; he only asks: “Is form originally without seed?” “Is there any form that lasts a hundred years? Or does it arise at one time and cease at another?” The brahmin answers each time “So it is, World-Honored One,” and has himself said that form is impermanent; asked “this teaching or that teaching, this account or that account, which is superior?”, he answers: “It is like someone who can rescue the drowning, free the captive, show the way to one who has lost it, and give a bright lamp in the dark.”

VIII. Aggregates and Aggregates of Clinging; With Outflows and Without (Discourses 55–56)

With the fifty-fifth discourse the subject of the fascicle is stated outright: “I shall now speak of the aggregates and the aggregates of clinging.” What are the aggregates? “Whatever forms there are, past, future, or present, internal or external, coarse or fine, fair or foul, far or near, all of them together are called the aggregate of form.” All form, of whatever time, place, or kind, is collectively called the aggregate. What are the aggregates of clinging? “If form is with outflows and is clung to, and if, whether past, future, or present, it gives rise to greed, hatred, and delusion and to other states of mind, the various higher defilements,” that is an aggregate of clinging. The difference lies in four words: with outflows, clung to. The aggregate is simply form; form that is clung to and gives rise to greed, hatred, and delusion is an aggregate of clinging. The fifty-sixth discourse runs the same line once more, now in terms of outflows: “If form is with outflows and is clung to, that form can give rise to craving and hatred,” and is a thing with outflows; “whatever forms are without outflows and not clung to” give rise to no craving or hatred, and are things without outflows. Read together, “clinging” and “with outflows” are two names for one fact: an aggregate becomes an aggregate of clinging because it is clung to and can give rise to craving and hatred. This also answers the seed simile of the thirty-ninth discourse: earth is the aggregate, water is delight and craving; where there is water, the aggregate has become an aggregate of clinging. After these ten discourses the summary verse: “Two faithful, two Ānanda, perishable, Yudijia,” “brahmin, and the world, aggregates, with outflows, without outflows.”

IX. Swiftly Attaining the Ending of Outflows (Discourses 57–58)

In the fifty-seventh discourse the World-Honored One sets out “without telling the community, without telling his attendant, alone and without companion,” and Ānanda says “today the World-Honored One wishes to dwell in stillness, with little to do,” and that no one should follow. Later many bhikṣus go with Ānanda to see him. A bhikṣu in the assembly thinks: “Knowing how, seeing how, does one swiftly attain the ending of outflows?” The World-Honored One, knowing his thought, says: I have already said “contemplate the aggregates well,” I have taught the four foundations of mindfulness and the eightfold path, yet “still there are sons of good family who do not make the effort of desire, do not make the effort of delight, do not make the effort of mindfulness, do not make the effort of faith, but are slack and lazy.” Then comes a chain of causes: “The foolish, unlearned, ordinary person sees form as self; to see a self is what is called a formation. That formation, what is its cause? What is its arising? What is its birth? What is its turning? Contact with ignorance gives rise to craving, and conditioned by craving that formation arises.” To see a self is already a formation; the formation arises from craving, craving from feeling, feeling from contact, contact from the six sense bases, and the six sense bases are “impermanent, conditioned, arisen dependent on mind.” Then the twenty views are walked through one by one: not seeing form as self, but seeing form as mine; not seeing form as mine, but seeing form in self, and so on, four for each of the five aggregates, twenty in all; and when all twenty are gone one “further holds the view of annihilation, the view that existence is destroyed”; and even when that view too is given up, “one is not free from conceit. One not free from conceit again sees a self, and to see a self is a formation.” The circle comes back to formation. So to swiftly attain the ending of outflows is to see this circle to its end, down to conceit.

The fifty-eighth discourse is the nine questions in the Hall of Deer Mother. The World-Honored One first says “there are five aggregates of clinging,” and a bhikṣu rises to ask: the five aggregates of clinging, “what is their root? What is their arising? What is their birth? What is their contact?” The answer: “These five aggregates of clinging have desire as their root, desire as their arising, desire as their birth, desire as their contact.” He asks again: “Are the aggregates the clinging, or are the five aggregates other than the clinging?” The answer: “The five aggregates are not the clinging, nor are the five aggregates other than the clinging; where there is desire and craving toward them, those are the five aggregates of clinging.” Aggregate and clinging are not one and not two; where there is desire and craving toward the aggregates, the aggregates are aggregates of clinging. He asks “are two aggregates related to each other?”; they are: to think “in the future may I have such form, such feeling, such perception, such formations, such consciousness” is aggregate related to aggregate. He asks what is called an aggregate, and the answer is the passage of the fifty-fifth discourse. He asks by what cause and condition it is called the aggregate of form: “The four great elements are its cause, the four great elements are its condition; this is called the aggregate of form.” Feeling, perception, and formations have “contact as cause, contact as condition”; consciousness has “name and form as cause, name and form as condition.” He asks about gratification, danger, and escape; he asks “how does conceit arise?”, and it arises when one “sees form as self, as other than self, or within one another”; he asks how one becomes free from conceit; finally he asks “knowing what, seeing what, does one swiftly attain the ending of outflows?”, and the answer is still that one sentence: all form is “not self, not other than self, not within one another.” Another bhikṣu in the assembly thinks a wrong view: “If there is no self, who in a future life will receive the result of deeds done without a self?” The World-Honored One knows his thought, and does not answer who receives the result; he returns to the first exchange. Is form permanent or impermanent? Impermanent. What is impermanent, is it suffering? It is suffering. What is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change, does one see it as self, as other than self, or within one another? No. These are the three questions asked from the first discourse of Fascicle 1 to here. “One who sees thus has right view.” The fascicle’s last summary verse: “Aggregates, root, the aggregates are the clinging, two aggregates related,” “name, cause, two gratifications, conceit, swift ending of outflows”: all nine lines are the nine questions of the Hall of Deer Mother.

X. How to Read the Fascicle

Fascicle 1 said one thing thirty-two times; Fascicle 2 gives that one thing its names. Form is the four great elements and what they make, what can be obstructed and divided; feeling is the six classes of feeling, the characteristic of feeling; perception is the six classes of perception; formations are the six classes of volition, the characteristic of making; consciousness is the six classes of consciousness, the characteristic of distinguishing, dwelling on the four aggregates with delight and craving for its water. The aggregate is all form; the aggregate of clinging is form that is with outflows, clung to, and able to give rise to greed, hatred, and delusion. Things with outflows and things without differ in whether they can give rise to craving and hatred. So the “clinging” in “aggregate of clinging” is nothing other than “where there is desire and craving toward them.” The fascicle begins from the reason if form were self, sickness and pain should not arise in it, passes through seeds, obstruction and stagnation, knowing as it really is, clinging, bondage, the seven senses, being eaten by form, discussing and teaching causes, and comes to rest at “the five aggregates are not the clinging, nor are the five aggregates other than the clinging”: twenty-six discourses that turn the object of contemplation over and look at it from every side. Fascicle 1 taught people to look; Fascicle 2 tells them what they are looking at, and this besides: the desire and craving that turn an aggregate into an aggregate of clinging are the very thing to be left behind. And the whole fascicle closes on the last words of the fifty-eighth discourse, “many bhikṣus did not give rise to outflows; their minds were liberated,” the same sentence pattern as the ends of the thirty-fourth, thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and forty-sixth: the summary verses record five, three, and sixteen, while the “many” of the forty-sixth and fifty-eighth is kept in the closing narrative of the discourses, not in the verses.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The Compendium of Topics in the Yogācārabhūmi reads this fascicle by first putting the distinction between aggregate and aggregate of clinging as two ways of establishing: “Know that the meaning of a heap is the meaning of an aggregate. Further, by the dominant power of causes and conditions that are defiled through and through, the aggregates of clinging are established; know that the aggregates of clinging are only with outflows. Further, by the dominant power of both the defiled and the purifying causes and conditions, the aggregates in general are established; know that these aggregates include both with outflows and without.” The treatise’s “aggregates of clinging” are the discourses’ aggregates of clinging, its “aggregates in general” are the discourses’ aggregates; aggregates of clinging only with outflows, aggregates in general both with and without, which is exactly the reasoning behind the fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth discourses taken together.

On the seeds and the dwelling of consciousness in the thirty-ninth and fortieth discourses, the treatise says: “One cause and two conditions make the sprout of future existence grow. Among the five kinds of formations, the consciousness followed by the seeds of defilement is called the cause. The four stations of consciousness, which resemble the cause, are called the condition. Further, when fondness and craving moisten that consciousness, so that it takes rebirth and continues in this or that place of birth and brings about embodiment, this too is called the condition.” The seed is consciousness, the four stations of consciousness are the condition, fondness and craving moisten it: the same names as the discourse’s earth element and water element. The treatise also says: “Only the mind dwells in the four stations of consciousness, with turning and with defilement; and only the mind cuts off the four stations of consciousness, without turning and without defilement.” With turning and with defilement is the discourse’s “obstruction and stagnation”; without turning and without defilement is its “not obstructed and stagnant, and therefore liberated.”

On the conceit of the fifty-seventh and fifty-eighth discourses, the treatise says: “There are four kinds of view of self that serve as the basis for giving rise to conceit,” and that from such a view one “measures oneself against others as superior, equal, or inferior,” which is the source of the three senses of the forty-fifth discourse, “I am superior, I am equal, I am inferior.” On the gratification, danger, and escape of the forty-first and forty-second discourses, the treatise names them the nature of things as they are: “The nature of things as they are means, among the formations, gratification, danger, and escape.” What the treatise says still does not go a single word beyond the discourses; it only sets the definitions given in the twenty-six discourses back under the one sentence, “the aggregates of clinging are only with outflows.” The distinction drawn in this exposition does little more than follow that sentence back into the text of the discourses.

Fascicle 1 spoke of contemplation; Fascicle 2 asked what the aggregates of clinging are. The twenty-nine discourses of Fascicle 3 ask something else: where the aggregates of clinging come from, and where they go. The first discourse puts the answer up front: “the arising of craving and delight is the arising of form; the ceasing of craving and delight is the ceasing of form.” From there, discourse by discourse, the same thing is said under different names: stations of consciousness, the existing body, the burden, the seal of the noble Dharma. At Vaiśālī a Licchavi layman brings the words of an outsider teacher, “no cause, no condition,” and the World-Honored One answers: “There is a cause, there is a condition, for beings to be defiled; there is a cause, there is a condition, for beings to be purified.” That sentence is the title of the fascicle.

I. Arising and Ceasing, Not Delighting, and What an Aggregate of Clinging Is (Discourses 59–61)

The fifty-ninth discourse does not contemplate impermanence; it first asks about the road in: “What is the arising of form? What is the ceasing of form?” The answer is short: “The arising of craving and delight is the arising of form; the ceasing of craving and delight is the ceasing of form. The arising of contact is the arising of feeling, perception, and formations; the ceasing of contact is their ceasing. The arising of name-and-form is the arising of consciousness; the ceasing of name-and-form is the ceasing of consciousness.” The arising of the five aggregates is not one road but three: form from craving and delight, feeling, perception, and formations from contact, consciousness from name-and-form. These three sentences are the foundation of Fascicle 3; the other twenty-eight discourses stand on them.

The sixtieth discourse is about one’s attitude toward that road: “It is good that a bhikṣu does not delight in form, does not praise form, does not cling to form, is not attached to form.” Not delighting, not praising, not clinging, not being attached: four acts that are really one, not feeding it. When it is not fed, “he does not delight in form, and the mind is liberated.” At the end there is a passage Fascicles 1 and 2 did not have: “the views that go together with the former limit are exhausted forever without remainder,” and likewise the latter limit, and both together; “one who is fastened to nothing clings to nothing in the world; clinging to nothing, he seeks nothing; seeking nothing, he realizes nirvāṇa for himself.” Being fastened, clinging, seeking, nirvāṇa: four steps on one line.

The sixty-first discourse is a set of definitions: “What is the aggregate of form that is clung to? All form, that is, the four great elements and form derived from the four great elements, is called the aggregate of form that is clung to.” The aggregate of feeling is the six classes of feeling, perception the six classes of perception, formations the six classes of volition, consciousness the six classes of consciousness. After each the same sentence follows: “impermanent, suffering, of a nature to change, and so on up to its cessation, nirvāṇa.” The definitions done, the discourse turns to people: one who reflects on this Dharma with wisdom, examines, discerns, and accepts it “is called one who follows by faith”; one who does so with heightened wisdom “is called one who follows by Dharma”; when one sees it rightly as it is and the three bonds are cut off and fully known, this “is called the fruit of stream-entry”; one in whom no outflow of mind arises “is called an arhat.” The same five aggregates of clinging; how deeply one sees them decides where one stands.

II. Bound by the View of Self; Contact with Ignorance and Contact with Knowledge (Discourses 62–63)

The sixty-second discourse separates the ordinary person from the noble disciple: “The foolish, unlearned ordinary person, without wisdom and without knowledge, gives rise to the view of self and is bound to the five aggregates of clinging, so that the mind is bound and desire arises.” How does the view of self bind? By “seeing form as self, as other than self, as within one another.” The noble disciple is not without the five aggregates of clinging; he “does not see form as self, as other than self, as within one another.” The difference is in that one view alone. At the end the discourse brings back Fascicle 1’s “rightly contemplated, all are impermanent,” showing that view and contemplation are two faces of one thing.

The sixty-third discourse goes finer: “If ascetics and brahmins reckon there is a self, all of them reckon a self in these five aggregates of clinging.” Not only the ordinary person: everyone who reckons a self reckons it in these five. Then the discourse goes to contact: one who has not left what belongs to self “enters the faculties; having entered the faculties, contact arises.” Here a new name appears: “there is the mind element, the dharma element, and the element of ignorance, touched by contact with ignorance.” Touched by contact with ignorance, the ordinary person “says there is, says there is not, says there both is and is not, says there neither is nor is not, says I am the best, says I am equal; I know, I see.” And the noble disciple? He “dwells in the six bases of contact and is able to grow weary of ignorance and give rise to knowledge,” so that “the former contact with ignorance ceases and the latter contact with knowledge arises.” Contact is still contact; the earlier one is contact with ignorance, the later one contact with knowledge. The aggregates of clinging arise at contact, and the difference in contact is knowledge or ignorance.

III. The Udāna: No Self, Nothing Belonging to Self, and the Four Stations of Consciousness (Discourse 64)

The sixty-fourth discourse is at the Hall of Deer Mother in the Eastern Park. Rising from meditation in the late afternoon, the World-Honored One first utters a verse of his own: “Dharmas have no I, nor anything belonging to me; since I shall not be, whence would what belongs to me arise? A bhikṣu liberated from this cuts the lower bonds.” A bhikṣu rises to ask about the verse. The World-Honored One answers: the ordinary person reckons the five aggregates as self, the noble disciple does not; “this form will not be, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness will not be; this form is a perishing existence, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are perishing existences; therefore not self, not mine, and self and what belongs to self will not be.” One liberated thus cuts the five lower bonds.

The bhikṣu asks again: the five lower bonds cut, how are the outflows ended? This answer is the longest passage in the fascicle. The World-Honored One first says one sentence: “The foolish ordinary person, the unlearned being, gives rise to fear where there is nothing to fear.” Fear of what? Fear that there is “no self, nothing belonging to self, and neither of the two will arise.” Because of fear he “grasps at the four stations of consciousness”: consciousness stations itself in form, in feeling, perception, and formations, “grasping at, delighting, increasing, growing broad and great.” This continues the seed simile of the thirty-ninth discourse in Fascicle 2: there, consciousness was the seed, the four aggregates the earth, delight and craving the water; here, consciousness “whether coming, going, abiding, arising, or ceasing, increases and grows broad and great,” and always in these four places. If someone says consciousness has somewhere to go outside the four stations, “there is only talk; questioned, he does not know, and only increases confusion, because it is not within his range.”

The way to cut it is still freedom from craving: “when one is free from craving toward the realm of form, the bond born of the mind in form is also cut; when that bond is cut, the grasping of consciousness is also cut; consciousness no longer stations itself and no longer increases and grows broad and great.” Then follows a chain of causes, sentence after sentence: “because consciousness has no station it does not grow; not growing, it has nothing to do; having nothing to do, it abides; abiding, it is content; content, it is liberated; liberated, it clings to nothing in the world; clinging to nothing, it is attached to nothing; attached to nothing, it realizes nirvāṇa for itself.” The last sentence gathers up every direction: “I say that consciousness does not abide in the east, south, west, or north, in the four intermediate directions, above or below; except in the wish to see the Dharma: nirvāṇa, cessation, stillness, coolness.” Consciousness not abiding does not mean consciousness disappears; it means consciousness is no longer carried along by its grasping.

IV. Meditative Reflection, Inner Stillness, Contemplating as It Really Is (Discourses 65–68)

The sixty-fifth through sixty-eighth discourses are four tellings of one sentence: “You should always cultivate skilful means and meditative reflection and inwardly still the mind.” Why? “Stilling the mind within, contemplate as it really is.” Meditative reflection is for seeing truly. Seeing what? “This is form, this is the arising of form, this is the ceasing of form.” The four discourses differ in how they tell the arising.

The sixty-fifth tells it from feeling: the ordinary person does not contemplate pleasant, painful, and neutral feeling as they are, and “delighting in and attached to feeling, clinging arises; conditioned by clinging, existence; conditioned by existence, birth; conditioned by birth, aging, sickness, death, grief, lamentation, distress, and pain.” That is the arising of form. The noble disciple contemplates as it is, and “attachment ceases, so clinging ceases; clinging ceases, so existence ceases; existence ceases, so birth ceases.” That is the ceasing of form. The sixty-sixth tells it from form: one who does not contemplate the arising, gratification, danger, and escape of form as they are “delights in that form, praises it, craves and is attached to it, and form arises again in a future life”; one who knows as it is “does not delight in form, does not praise it, does not delight in and is not attached to it, and does not give rise to future form.” The sixty-seventh joins the two and adds a line: “delighting in and attached to form and praising form, he clings.” The sixty-eighth is the shortest and tells it from the six bases: “Conditioned by eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises; the three together give rise to contact; conditioned by contact, feeling arises; conditioned by feeling, craving arises; and so on up to the arising of the whole great mass of suffering. This is called the arising of form.” And the ceasing: “contact ceases, so feeling ceases, and so on up to the ceasing of the whole great mass of suffering.”

The arising told in the four discourses is four stretches of one chain: six bases, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, existence, birth, aging and death. The fifty-ninth discourse said “the arising of craving and delight is the arising of form”; these four spell out the links before and after craving and delight. Each ends with an abbreviation: “As with contemplating, so up to realizing, twelve discourses, are to be told in full in the same way.” The sixty-fifth discourse ends by listing the names that stand beside “contemplating”: “so too discerning, discerning in various ways, knowing, knowing broadly, knowing in various ways, drawing near, drawing near and cultivating, entering, touching, realizing”; each of these can replace “contemplating” and be told over again, which is why the sixty-sixth through sixty-eighth end with “and so on up to realizing, twelve discourses.”

V. The Existing Body: the Path, the Limits, the Four, and the Six (Discourses 69–71)

The sixty-ninth discourse gives the five aggregates of clinging another name: the existing body. “What is the path leading to the arising of the existing body?” Not knowing as they are the arising, ceasing, gratification, danger, and escape of form, one “delights in form, praises form, is attached to form, abides in form”; delighting and craving, one clings; clinging, existence, birth, aging and death; “this is called the path leading to the arising of the existing body.” The discourse explains the name itself: “The path leading to the arising of the existing body, know it, is the path leading to the arising of suffering.” The existing body is suffering; its arising is the arising of suffering.

The seventieth discourse speaks of three limits: “What is the limit of suffering of the existing body? The five aggregates of clinging.” “What is the limit of arising of the existing body? Craving for future existence, together with greed and delight, delighting here and there.” The limit of ceasing is that craving “cut off without remainder, spat out, exhausted, free of desire, ceased, stilled, sunk.” The seventy-first discourse speaks of four: the existing body, its arising, its ceasing, and the track of the path to its ceasing; the track “is the eightfold noble path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.” At its end are seven passages headed “again, there is a difference,” seven supplements to the same discourse: know the existing body, cut off its arising, realize its ceasing, cultivate the path; one who does so “is called a bhikṣu who has cut off the bond of craving and desire and all the bonds, who has cultivated full penetration and reached the end of suffering”; “reached the final limit, reached final freedom from stain, reached the final pure conduct, a pure superior man”; “an arhat whose outflows are all exhausted”; one who has “cut the barrier, crossed the moat, passed beyond the boundary, escaped the sentries, raised the banner of the noble Dharma.” The discourse explains these five itself: “What is cutting the barrier? Cutting the five lower bonds. What is crossing the moat? Crossing the deep moat of ignorance. What is passing beyond the boundary? Reaching the end of beginningless birth and death. What is escaping the sentries? The exhaustion of craving for existence. What is raising the banner of the noble Dharma? The exhaustion of the conceit of self.” The last passage: “has cut off five limbs, has completed six limbs, guards the one, relies on the four, has cast aside the truths, free of all seeking, with purified thoughts, bodily action stilled, the mind well liberated, wisdom well liberated, standing alone in pure conduct, an unsurpassed man.” These numbers the discourse does not open out further. The summary verse calls this “the arhat has six kinds”: six ways of speaking of the arhat, not six kinds of arhat.

VI. What Is to Be Known, Knowledge, the Knower; the Burden and Its Bearer (Discourses 72–73)

The seventy-second discourse has three names: “What is the dharma to be known? The five aggregates of clinging.” “What is knowledge? Taming desire, cutting off desire, passing beyond desire: this is called knowledge.” “Who is the knower? The arhat.” What is known is the five aggregates of clinging; the way of knowing is cutting off desire; the one who knows is the arhat. What of the arhat after death? “Not that he exists in another world after death, not that he does not, not both, not neither; it is told at length without measure, and all reckonings are extinguished forever.” None of the four positions is set up, because the things by which he could be counted are gone.

The seventy-third discourse has four names: “the heavy burden, taking up the burden, laying down the burden, and the bearer of the burden.” The heavy burden is the five aggregates of clinging; taking it up is “craving for future existence, together with greed and delight, delighting here and there”; laying it down is that craving “cut off forever without remainder, ceased, spat out, exhausted, free of desire, ceased, sunk.” And the bearer? “The person: the person who has such a name, such a birth, such a clan, such food, such experience of pleasure and pain, such a length of life, such a span of abiding, such a limit to his life.” This passage asks to be read with care. The bearer the discourse speaks of is the “person” with a name and a family, who eats, feels pleasure and pain, and lives so long: the one whom the world calls a person. It does not set up, outside the five aggregates, some further self who carries the load. The discourse before said of the arhat that “all reckonings are extinguished forever”; the person of this discourse is exactly those reckonings. The verse says: “Having laid down the heavy burden, one should not take it up again; the heavy load is great suffering, laying down the load is great happiness; cut off all craving and all formations end; understanding the remaining range, one does not turn back to existence.”

VII. Māra’s Bonds, the Tathāgata and the Arhat, Clinging to Nothing (Discourses 74–76)

The seventy-fourth discourse speaks of bondage: the ordinary person who does not know form as it is “delights in form, praises it, abides bound to it, bound by the bond of form, bound by the inner bond, not knowing the root, not knowing the limit, not knowing the deliverance”; so “bound he is born, bound he dies, bound he goes from this world to another,” “following Māra’s will, entering Māra’s net, shaped by Māra, bound by Māra’s bond, led by Māra.” The noble disciple knows as it is, “knows the root, knows the ford, knows the deliverance,” and is “freed from Māra’s bond, free of Māra’s leading.” Māra here is not a character; it is another name for bondage.

The seventy-fifth discourse asks a question. A bhikṣu who is weary of form, free of desire for it, has ceased it, does not raise it, and is liberated “is called a Tathāgata, Worthy One, Perfectly Awakened”; a bhikṣu who is weary of form, free of desire, and has ceased it “is called an arhat liberated by wisdom.” Then “between the Tathāgata, Worthy One, Perfectly Awakened, and the arhat liberated by wisdom, what is the difference?” What is cut off is the same. The difference is this: “The Tathāgata, Worthy One, Perfectly Awakened, having never before heard the Dharma, awakened to the Dharma by himself and penetrated unsurpassed awakening, and in future ages opens the awakening of his śrāvakas and teaches them the Dharma: the four stations of mindfulness, the four right efforts, the four bases of power, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening, the eightfold path.” He “attained what had not been attained, benefited where there had been no benefit, knew the path, discerned the path, taught the path, and went through the path.” First he walks the road out; then he tells the road. This is one of the few places in the discourses that speak directly of the difference between the Tathāgata and his disciples.

In the seventy-sixth discourse the World-Honored One asks first: having contemplated form, do you see self, other than self, within one another? The bhikṣus answer no. The World-Honored One says: “Form is not self; what is not self is impermanent; what is impermanent is suffering.” The order of this sentence is the reverse of Fascicle 1: there, impermanent therefore suffering, suffering therefore not self; here, not self therefore impermanent, impermanent therefore suffering. One can set out from either end and arrive at the same place: “clinging to nothing in the world; clinging to nothing, one is attached to nothing; attached to nothing, one realizes nirvāṇa for oneself.”

VIII. Cutting Off Desire, Arising and Abiding and Coming Forth, Form in the Three Times (Discourses 77–79)

The seventy-seventh discourse is very short: “Cut off desire and craving for form; when desire and craving are cut off, form is cut off; when form is cut off, one abandons and fully knows; having abandoned and fully known, the root is cut off. Like a palm tree with its crown cut, it does not grow again in the future.” What is cut off is desire and craving, not form; when desire and craving are cut, form is “cut off,” and this cutting is for the person: form is no longer an aggregate of clinging. Cut the crown of a palm tree and the whole tree never grows again; that is the root cut off.

The seventy-eighth discourse says form and suffering arise and cease together: “If form arises, abides, and comes forth, then suffering arises here, sickness abides here, aging and death come forth here”; “if form ceases, is stilled, and sinks, suffering ceases here, sickness is stilled here, aging and death sink here.” Suffering is not something added to form; it is form’s own arising, abiding, and coming forth. The seventy-ninth discourse speaks of the three times: “Past and future form are impermanent, how much more present form!” The noble disciple “does not look back at past form, does not long for future form, and toward present form is weary, free of desire, and ceased and stilled.” The discourse has a passage that winds: if there were no past form, the noble disciple would not “not look back at past form”; it is because there is past form that he does not look back. That is to say, not looking back and not longing are not treating form as nonexistent; it truly is there, and one does not look back, does not long.

IX. The Seal of the Noble Dharma and the Purity of Seeing (Discourse 80)

The eightieth discourse is one of the great discourses of the fascicle. The World-Honored One first lays down an order: “If one who has not attained emptiness says, I have attained signlessness, nothingness, and knowledge and seeing free of conceit, that cannot be!” Emptiness first; signlessness, nothingness, and knowledge and seeing free of conceit after. A bhikṣu asks him to teach, and he answers: sitting at the foot of a tree in a secluded place, “contemplate well that form is impermanent, a wearing away, a thing to be freed of desire for,” and likewise feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness; “the mind delights, is purified, is liberated: this is called emptiness.” “One who contemplates thus still cannot be free of conceit, nor is his knowledge and seeing purified.” Further: “contemplate the sign of form cut off, the signs of sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and dharmas cut off: this is called signlessness,” and still not free of conceit. Further: “contemplate the sign of greed cut off, the signs of hatred and delusion cut off: this is called nothingness,” and still not free of conceit.

Then how is one freed of conceit? The discourse turns in another direction: “contemplate: from what do self and what belongs to self arise?” The answer: “from what is seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched, or cognized.” Then ask: “If consciousness arises from a cause and a condition, is that cause and condition of consciousness permanent or impermanent?” “That cause and that condition are all impermanent”; and if cause and condition are impermanent, “how could the consciousness they give rise to be permanent?” Only here does it say: “What is impermanent is conditioned, a formation, arisen from conditions, a thing of danger, a thing that ceases, a thing to be freed of desire for, a thing to be abandoned and fully known: this is called the seal of the noble Dharma, the purity of knowledge and seeing.” The three concentrations, emptiness, signlessness, and nothingness, all contemplate the signs that are cut off; to be free of conceit one must contemplate where self and what belongs to self come from, from seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and cognizing, whose causes and conditions are impermanent. Conceit is the place where self arises left unseen. Once it is seen, the seal is set.

X. Pūraṇa and Mahānāma: There Is a Cause, There Is a Condition (Discourse 81)

The eighty-first discourse is at Vaiśālī. The Licchavi Mahānāma went every day to the Buddha. This day he thought: “If I go to the World-Honored One too early, the World-Honored One and the bhikṣus I know will all be in meditation; let me go instead to the Ājīvika outsiders at the seven mango trees.” He came to Pūraṇa Kāśyapa. Pūraṇa, seeing him from afar, first told his followers to be quiet, saying this is “a white-clad disciple of the ascetic Gautama, foremost in Vaiśālī, who always delights in stillness.” Mahānāma asked Pūraṇa: I hear you teach your disciples, “without cause, without condition, beings are defiled; without cause, without condition, beings are purified.” Is that so? Pūraṇa admitted it: “There truly is this doctrine; it is not a false report of the world. I hold this doctrine, and it is a doctrine in accord with Dharma.” Mahānāma “was displeased, rebuked him, rose from his seat and left,” and went to the World-Honored One and told him the whole matter.

The World-Honored One first says one sentence: “That Pūraṇa speaks from his own fancy; it is not worth recording.” Then he sets out the position squarely: “There is a cause, there is a condition, for beings to be defiled; there is a cause, there is a condition, for beings to be purified.” What are the cause and condition? Not some other theory; the very thing this fascicle has been saying for twenty-nine discourses. “If form were wholly suffering, not pleasant, not accompanied by pleasure, not nourished by pleasure, apart from pleasure, beings would not delight in and cling to it on that account.” Form is not pure suffering; there is pleasure in it, so beings are stained by it; “stained, they are bound; bound, they are troubled.” That is the cause and condition of defilement. And the reverse: “If form were wholly pleasant, not painful, not accompanied by pain, not nourished by grief and pain, apart from pain, beings would not grow weary of form on that account.” Form is not pure pleasure; there is pain in it, so beings grow weary of it; “weary, they do not delight; not delighting, they are liberated.” That is the cause and condition of purification.

This answer deserves slow reading. The World-Honored One did not say form is suffering and therefore to be rejected; he said form has both pleasure and pain, and pleasure is the cause of being stained, pain the cause of growing weary. Defilement and purity both have a road in, and both roads lie in form. Pūraṇa’s “no cause, no condition” does not say too little; it erases the whole road, and once the road is erased there is nowhere to apply effort.

XI. The Last Six Discourses (Discourses 82–87)

The last six discourses of the fascicle say one thing in three forms: in the eighty-second, eighty-third, and eighty-fifth the World-Honored One asks first, the bhikṣus ask him to teach, and then teacher asks and disciple answers; in the eighty-fourth the World-Honored One speaks straight through; in the eighty-sixth and eighty-seventh he first states, then poses a question within the teaching, and the bhikṣus answer. In the five with questions, the exchange runs: “Is form permanent or impermanent?” “Impermanent, World-Honored One.” “Is what is impermanent suffering?” “It is suffering, World-Honored One.” “If it is impermanent, suffering, a thing of change, would a learned noble disciple see in it self, other than self, within one another?” “No, World-Honored One.” Each has its own opening. The eighty-second asks “where does a learned noble disciple see impermanence and suffering”; the eighty-third asks “where does he see not self, not other than self, not within one another”; the eighty-fourth states it directly: “Form is impermanent; what is impermanent is suffering; what is suffering is not self”; the eighty-fifth asks “where does he not see self, other than self, within one another”; the eighty-sixth gives a reason: “If impermanent form were permanent, that form should not have sickness or pain, nor should there be any wishing concerning form that it be thus or not thus.” The eighty-seventh gives the same reason in terms of suffering: “Form is suffering. If form were not suffering, sickness and pain should not arise in form.”

The reason given in the eighty-sixth and eighty-seventh discourses continues the thirty-third discourse of Fascicle 2, “if form were self, sickness and pain should not arise in form”: there it was said in terms of self, here in terms of permanence and suffering. The three discourses are three faces of one argument: if it were self, if it were permanent, if it were not suffering, there should be no sickness, pain, or thwarted wish; and there are, so it is not self, impermanent, suffering. The six discourses close in two ways: either “clinging to nothing, one is attached to nothing; attached to nothing, one realizes nirvāṇa for oneself,” or “I say he is liberated from birth, aging, sickness, death, grief, lamentation, distress, and pain, the whole great mass of suffering.” The first speaks from within; the second from the result.

XII. How to Read the Fascicle

Fascicle 3 can be read as a map of arising. The fifty-ninth discourse gives three roads in; the sixty-fifth through sixty-eighth stretch the road into a chain; the sixty-fourth says consciousness grasps at the four stations and grows; the sixty-ninth through seventy-third say it again under the names “the existing body” and “the burden”; the eighty-first gathers the whole matter into “there is a cause, there is a condition,” set against the outsider’s “no cause, no condition.”

The other line is cutting off. The sixtieth discourse says not delighting, not praising, not clinging, not being attached; the seventy-seventh says cut off desire and craving and form is cut off, like a palm tree with its crown cut; the eightieth says that to be free of conceit one must contemplate where self and what belongs to self come from. What is cut is not form but the craving and delight, the desire and craving, the grasping at form. The bearer in the seventy-third discourse is the person; the arhat in the seventy-second is one whose reckonings are extinguished forever. The one who lays down the burden does not vanish; he is simply no longer counted by those numbers.

Reading this fascicle, one need not remember the name of every discourse. Two sentences are enough: “the arising of craving and delight is the arising of form,” and “there is a cause, there is a condition, for beings to be purified.” The first says where defilement comes from; the second says purity too has a road, and the two roads begin at the same form.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The Compendium of Topics, in its section on the discourses, has mātṛkā for many discourses of this fascicle. For the three arisings and three ceasings of the fifty-ninth, the treatise says: “by the arising of delight, by the arising of contact, by the arising of name-and-form, as each applies, the arising of form, the arising of feeling and the rest, the arising of consciousness,” matching the sūtra’s three pairings word for word. For the sixty-fourth, fear where there is nothing to fear and the four stations of consciousness, it explains: “it is only mind that abides in the four stations of consciousness, with turning and with stain; and it is only mind that cuts off the four stations of consciousness, without turning and without stain.” For the path to the arising of the existing body in the sixty-ninth: “the practice leading to the arising of the existing body is the practice leading to the arising of suffering; the practice leading to the ceasing of the existing body is the practice leading to the ceasing of suffering.” For the seventy-second, what is to be known, knowledge, and the knower, it gathers them under three heads: “by the dharma to be fully known, by full knowing, and by the one who accomplishes full knowing.” For the burden of the seventy-third it distinguishes three: “what is carried, what carries, and the time of carrying,” and says “the fool takes all formations as what is carried”; in reading the bearer, the treatise too sets up no self outside the aggregates. For the eightieth, where emptiness, signlessness, and nothingness still leave conceit, it locates the conceit: “I am now able to cultivate and realize emptiness; emptiness is mine. Because of this emptiness I reckon myself superior. As with emptiness, so with signlessness and nothingness,” so the conceit lies not in the dharma contemplated but in the one who reckons himself its cultivator and realizer. For the eighty-first, no cause and no condition, the treatise says: “outsider teachers, for their disciples, rely on no cause or on an unequal cause,” and “by four aspects, know that formations are not fixedly suffering and stained,” which is the sūtra’s point that form is neither wholly suffering nor wholly pleasant. For the reasoning of the eighty-sixth and eighty-seventh, that there should be no sickness or pain, it says: “formations by nature arise from many conditions, are not their own masters, and have no ruler. If there were a ruler, all formations, though impermanent by nature, should flow on without end as he pleased, or he should prevent their arising.”

Fascicle 1 spoke of contemplation; Fascicle 2 asked what the aggregates of clinging are; Fascicle 3 asked where they come from. Fascicle 5 has only eight discourses, but each is long, each is a dialogue, and the questioners have changed: a bhikṣu sick in bed, a bhikṣu holding a wrong view, wanderers of other sects, a householder of a hundred and twenty years, bhikṣus about to return west, a debater before five hundred Licchavis. What they ask is really one thing: the one who says “not self,” what does he have to face illness, death, debate, and old age? The words of the bhikṣu Kṣemaka in Discourse 103 are the starting point of the fascicle: “I contemplate the five aggregates of clinging as not self and not mine, yet I am not an arhat: with regard to the conceit ‘I am,’ the desire ‘I am,’ the fetter ‘I am,’ I have not cut them off, not fully known them, not left them, not spat them out.” After seeing not self, a little something remains. The eight discourses of this fascicle set to work at that remainder.

I. Kṣemaka: Right Contemplation of Not Self, with a Lingering Trace (Discourse 103)

In Discourse 103 the World-Honored One does not appear at all. The bhikṣu Kṣemaka is gravely ill; the elders send the bhikṣu Dāsaka back and forth with messages, asking whether he can contemplate the five aggregates of clinging as not self and not mine. He says he can. The elders ask again: then you are an arhat whose outflows are exhausted? He says he is not. The elders say this contradicts itself. Kṣemaka answers: it does not. To contemplate not self is one thing; “the conceit ‘I am,’ the desire ‘I am,’ the fetter ‘I am,’ not cut off, not fully known, not left, not spat out” is another. The elders press once more: “You say there is an I. Where is this I?” Is form the self, or is the self other than form? Kṣemaka says: neither. “I do not say that form is the self, or that the self is other than form,” yet that trace of conceit is still there.

Not wishing to make Dāsaka run back and forth any longer, he takes a staff and walks himself to the elders, and offers two similes. The first is the scent of flowers: the blue lotus, the red lotus, the white water-lily, the white lotus; “is the scent the root? Is the scent other than the root?” The elders answer: it is not the root, nor apart from the root; “it is the scent of the flower.” Kṣemaka says: “form is not the self, yet I am not apart from form,” and so with the conceit: it is not on any one aggregate, nor outside the five, but it is there. The second is the washing of clothes: a garment washed in lye, the dirt gone, “still has a lingering smell,” and must be perfumed with incense before it fades. “The learned noble disciple, though he rightly contemplates the five aggregates of clinging as not self and not mine,” still has the lingering trace; then he contemplates arising and ceasing further, this form, the arising of this form, the ceasing of this form, and “having thus contemplated the arising and ceasing of the five aggregates of clinging, the conceit ‘I am,’ the desire ‘I am,’ the fetter ‘I am’ are all removed; this is called true right contemplation.”

The two similes describe the same order: first see not self, then remove the lingering conceit; and the way to remove it is not to go looking for that self again, but to turn back and contemplate arising and ceasing. When Kṣemaka has finished, the elders attain the pure Dharma-eye, and he himself, “through the benefit of joy in the Dharma, is cured of his bodily illness.” At the end the elders say that they asked again and again not because they did not understand, but to draw out his subtle eloquence. It is a rare discourse in the Saṃyukta Āgama: the sick man teaches, and the healthy listen.

II. Yamaka: Where Does One Whose Outflows Are Exhausted Go at Death? (Discourse 104)

In Discourse 104 the bhikṣu Yamaka says: “an arhat whose outflows are exhausted, when the body breaks up and life ends, is nothing more at all.” The bhikṣus urge him three times to give up this wrong view; he says “only this is true, anything else is false.” They go to Śāriputra. Śāriputra does not tell him he is wrong directly; he first asks the sequence familiar from Fascicle 1: is form impermanent? Is what is impermanent suffering? In what is impermanent, suffering, of a nature to change, does one see self, other than self, within one another? Then he asks it again under another name: is form the Tathāgata? Is there a Tathāgata apart from form? Is the Tathāgata in form? Is form in the Tathāgata? Is there a Tathāgata who is neither form nor feeling, perception, formations, consciousness? To each Yamaka answers no. Śāriputra says: “The Tathāgata sees the Dharma as it really is, abiding as it is, with nothing obtained and nothing posited.” You cannot find the Tathāgata in the five aggregates, outside them, or between them; how then can you say that at the breaking up of the body he is “nothing more at all”?

That question changes how Yamaka speaks. He says that if asked in future he will answer: “The form of an arhat whose outflows are exhausted is impermanent; what is impermanent is suffering; and that suffering is stilled, cooled, and gone forever.” Śāriputra approves. “Nothing more at all” says that a person has ceased to be; “stilled, cooled, and gone forever” says that suffering has ceased. One word apart, one view apart. Yamaka’s error was to assume first that there is an arhat who can be counted, and then to ask where he is after death. This discourse lies on one line with Discourse 72 of Fascicle 3, “all reckonings are forever extinguished”: not that the person vanishes, but that there is nothing left by which to count him.

At the end Śāriputra gives the simile of the householder and the enemy: an enemy pretends to be a friend, serves him for a long time, and then takes a knife and kills his master. The ordinary person “takes the five aggregates of clinging as permanent, as safe, as free of illness, as self, as mine,” guards and cherishes them, and “is in the end killed by these five aggregates of clinging, his enemy.” The noble disciple contemplates the five aggregates of clinging “as a disease, as a boil, as a thorn, as a killer, impermanent, suffering, empty, not self,” is not attached and does not take them up, and “not being attached, he realizes nirvāṇa for himself.” This discourse answers the one before it: Kṣemaka says “the conceit is not yet cut off,” Yamaka says “one whose outflows are exhausted is nothing more.” One is the lingering trace of conceit; the other mistakes the view of annihilation for not self. Both have to be set straight.

III. Śreṇika: Three Kinds of Teacher, and Declaring Rebirth (Discourse 105)

The question of the wanderer Śreṇika in Discourse 105 is concrete. When the disciples of the six teachers die, their teachers do not declare where they are reborn; the ascetic Gautama declares “this one is born there, that one is born here.” On what grounds? The World-Honored One answers: “there are three kinds of teacher.” The first sees that in the present life there truly is a self, and does not know what happens after death; “this is called the view of annihilation.” The second sees that there truly is a self both in this life and the next; “this is the view of permanence.” The third does not see that there truly is a self in the present life, nor after death; this is what the Tathāgata teaches, “in this very life the ending of craving, the fading of desire, cessation, nirvāṇa.” Śreṇika says: having heard this, I doubt all the more. The World-Honored One says: “You should doubt the more,” for “beings have long held different views, different acceptances, different seekings, different wishes.”

Then the World-Honored One asks Śreṇika the very sequence Śāriputra put to Yamaka: is form the Tathāgata? Is there a Tathāgata apart from form? In form, in the Tathāgata, neither form nor the rest? The answers are the same. Only then does he answer the question about declaring rebirth. Disciples who hear the Dharma “do not fully understand its meaning and so do not attain unbroken comprehension of conceit”; the conceit is not cut off, and when they leave these aggregates they continue on with aggregates; so he can declare that they are born in this place or that, “because they still have a remainder of conceit.” Those who understand the meaning attain unbroken comprehension of conceit; the conceits are cut off, and at the breaking up of the body there is no continuing; of them he does not say where they are born, “because there is no cause or condition by which to declare it.” If one must declare something, one can only say: “he has cut off all craving and desire, left the bonds of existence forever, his mind rightly liberated, and reached the end of suffering.” At the last the World-Honored One says that from of old until now he has “always taught the root of conceit, the arising of conceit, the birth of conceit, the rising up of conceit; one who contemplates conceit with unbroken comprehension, for him the many sufferings do not arise.”

This discourse joins Kṣemaka’s lingering conceit to birth and death. Where there is a remainder of conceit, there is a destination that can be declared; where conceit is exhausted, there is none. What declaring rebirth rests on is whether that trace of conceit is still there. Śreṇika hears the Dharma, goes forth, and becomes an arhat.

IV. Anurādha: The Undeclared, and Knowing as It Really Is (Discourse 106)

In Discourse 106 wanderers of other sects ask Anurādha: after death, does the Tathāgata exist? Not exist? Both? Neither? To each he answers: “As the World-Honored One says, this is undeclared.” The wanderers are not satisfied: if all four are undeclared, then does the ascetic Gautama not know and not see? Anurādha says: “The World-Honored One is not one who does not know, not one who does not see.” The wanderers go off cursing. Anurādha goes to ask the Buddha: in answering this way, did I slander the World-Honored One? The World-Honored One does not say right or wrong directly; he asks him the sequence of the Yamaka discourse, “as expounded at length in the Yamaka sūtra,” and then says that to answer so is “in accordance with the teachings, no slander of the Tathāgata.” Why? “I know form as it really is; I know the arising of form, the ceasing of form, the path to the ceasing of form as they really are.” And: “If one abandons what the Tathāgata has done and speaks of not knowing and not seeing, that is not a fitting way of speaking.”

The undeclared is not ignorance. The Tathāgata knows as it really is the arising of form, its ceasing, and the path to its ceasing; what he does not answer is a question that takes “the Tathāgata” as a real entity. Read Discourses 104, 105, and 106 together: Yamaka asks about one whose outflows are exhausted after death, Śreṇika about disciples after death, the wanderers about the Tathāgata after death; in all three the answer is the same set of questions, “is form the Tathāgata?”, and what follows in each has its own emphasis: in Discourse 104, “The Tathāgata sees the Dharma as it really is, abiding as it is, with nothing obtained and nothing posited”; in Discourse 105, “unbroken comprehension of the conceits”; in Discourse 106, “I know form as it really is.” When the question points the wrong way, the answer turns it back.

V. Nakula: The Body Afflicted, the Mind Not Afflicted (Discourse 107)

In Discourse 107 the householder Nakula, a hundred and twenty years old, “weak and racked with illness,” comes by his own effort to see the World-Honored One. The World-Honored One says one sentence: “In a body afflicted with suffering, you should always train so that the mind is not afflicted with suffering.” He instructs, teaches, illuminates, gladdens him, and falls silent. The householder goes to Śāriputra, who asks: why did you not ask the World-Honored One further, what is a body afflicted and a mind afflicted, what is a body afflicted and a mind not afflicted? The householder says: that is just what I have come for. Śāriputra says: “the foolish, unlearned ordinary person does not know as it really is the arising of form, the ceasing of form, the danger in form, the gratification in form, the escape from form,” and so he loves and delights in form, says form is self and mine, and when form breaks up or changes, “his mind and consciousness turn with it, and distress and suffering arise,” fear, obstruction, longing, grief, attachment: “this is called body and mind afflicted with suffering.” The learned noble disciple knows as it really is and does not love or delight; when form changes, “his mind does not turn with it, and distress and suffering do not arise”: “this is called the body afflicted, the mind not afflicted.”

This discourse returns to Kṣemaka’s illness. Kṣemaka was a bhikṣu, asking about the conceit that lingers after contemplating not self; Nakula is an old layman, asking how to live in a body that is old and sick. The answer is the same line: when form breaks up, the mind turns with it because there was first “this is self, this is mine”; when the mind does not turn with it, it is not that one is not ill, but that one does not take the illness as oneself. The householder attains the pure Dharma-eye and takes refuge in the Three Jewels.

VI. The Bhikṣus from the West: The Teacher Teaches Only the Taming of Desire and Craving (Discourse 108)

In Discourse 108 many bhikṣus from the west are about to return there for the rains retreat; the World-Honored One tells them first to take leave of Śāriputra. Śāriputra asks: when you go back, the different communities of different lands will surely ask what your teacher teaches; can you answer? Then he sets the answers out for them. Asked how the teacher teaches, answer: “The teacher teaches only the taming of desire and craving.” Asked in what things, answer: in the aggregates of form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. Asked what fault there is in desire and craving: “if with regard to form desire is not cut off, craving is not cut off, love is not cut off, longing is not cut off, thirst is not cut off, then when that form changes or alters, sorrow, lamentation, distress, and suffering arise.” Asked what benefit there is in cutting them off: when form changes, no sorrow, lamentation, distress, or suffering arises.

Śāriputra adds one more layer. If taking up unwholesome things brought a happy abiding in this life and birth in a good place, the World-Honored One would not say “cut off unwholesome things”; if taking up wholesome things brought suffering in this life and fall into a bad destination, he would not say “take up wholesome things.” Because the facts are the reverse, “the World-Honored One says: cut off unwholesome things, practise the pure conduct in the Buddha’s Dharma, end suffering evenly, and reach the end of suffering.” This is the shortest teaching in the fascicle and the easiest to carry away: the teacher teaches only the taming of desire and craving. Fascicle 2 asked how an aggregate becomes an aggregate of clinging, and the answer was desire and craving; Fascicle 5 asks what to tell people when you go home, and the answer is desire and craving again.

VII. The Pond: The Suffering Cut Off by One Who Has Seen the Truths, and the Twenty Views of Self (Discourse 109)

In Discourse 109 the World-Honored One first gives the simile of the pond: a pond fifty leagues across; a man dips water from it with a hair, a blade of grass, a fingernail; what he takes is “too little to mention.” “The suffering cut off by one who has seen the truths is like that pond: in future lives it never arises again.” Having said this, the World-Honored One withdraws to his cell to meditate. Śāriputra then expounds it to the bhikṣus: “the noble disciple who has fully seen the truths and attained the fruit of unbroken comprehension” has his worldly wrong views, the root of the view of the body, its arising, its birth, its rising up, cut off “like a palm tree felled,” never to grow again.

What are the “many wrong views” that seeing the truths cuts off? Śāriputra unfolds, one by one, the formula Fascicle 1 repeated countless times, “sees form as self, other than self, self in form, form in self.” Form is self: that is the clinging of one who, in the attainment on the earth-sphere, thinks “earth is I, I am earth.” Form is other than self: one sees feeling as self and form as mine. Form in self: one sees feeling as self and form within the self. Self in form: one sees feeling as self, abiding in form, “pervading its four limbs.” Four for each of feeling, perception, formations, consciousness: twenty sentences in all. This passage is this fascicle’s most detailed anatomy of the view of self, and every sentence makes the same point: the view of self is not an abstract mistake but a concrete clinging that lands on a particular aggregate and relates it in a particular way to another.

When these twenty are cut off, the noble disciple sees the four truths, and of all form, gathered together, contemplates: “all is impermanent, all is suffering, all is empty, all is not self; it should not be loved and delighted in, taken up, or held on to”; with the mind fixed, energetic, at ease, still, “cut off and not arising again, not clinging and not attached, he realizes nirvāṇa for himself.” Sixty bhikṣus hearing this end their outflows. The pond is future suffering; the tip of the hair is what remains after it has been cut off. In the summary verse this discourse is called “the tip of a hair,” after this very simile.

VIII. Satyaka: Form Is the Self, So Who Is in Charge? (Discourse 110)

Discourse 110 is the longest. Satyaka the Nirgrantha of Vaiśālī, who boasts that “no ascetic or brahmin is a match for me,” hears from Aśvajit that the World-Honored One teaches his disciples “to contemplate form as not self,” does not believe it, and brings five hundred Licchavis to debate with the World-Honored One. His thesis: “just as everything made in the world depends on the earth,” so “form is the person, the self, and good and evil arise from it,” and likewise feeling, perception, formations, consciousness. The World-Honored One first asks: is this your own thesis, or everyone’s? “Set up your own thesis; why drag in the crowd?” Satyaka says: form truly is the self.

The World-Honored One does not say “not self.” He first asks about a king: in his own country, a king can kill and bind, reward and punish; can he do as he wills? He can. “Is everyone who is a master able to do as he wills?” Yes. Then: “You say form is self, feeling, perception, formations, consciousness are self; can you do with them as you will, make them thus and not thus?” “Satyaka the Nirgrantha remained silent.” Asked a second and third time, still silent. A thunderbolt spirit appears in the air. Satyaka answers: no.

The questions that follow are Fascicle 1’s impermanence, suffering, not self, together with Fascicle 2’s being free or not free of craving. “If with regard to form one has not left craving, desire, longing, love, thirst, when that form changes or alters, does sorrow, lamentation, distress, and suffering arise?” It does. And if one has left them? It does not. Then comes the simile of the plantain: a man goes into the mountains with an axe seeking solid timber, sees a great plantain, strips it to the end, and finds “no solid core at all, like the plantain tree.” So is your thesis. The World-Honored One bares his chest: look, who “can move a single hair of the Tathāgata”? Satyaka bows his head, pale with shame.

Satyaka changes the question: how does the World-Honored One teach his disciples to leave doubt? How does he teach them to end the outflows? The World-Honored One answers with the same sentence: of all form, past, future, present, inner, outer, coarse, fine, fair, foul, far, near, “he contemplates all of it as it really is: not self, not other than self, not within one another.” For one in training, “his footing will surely not be broken; he is fit to accomplish, has the knowledge and vision of weariness, guards the door of the deathless, and though he has not yet reached the end in every way, he is heading toward nirvāṇa”; for one whose outflows are exhausted, three things unsurpassed are accomplished, “unsurpassed knowledge, unsurpassed liberation, unsurpassed knowledge and vision of liberation.” Satyaka says: “from Gautama’s hand in debate it is hard to escape,” and invites the Buddha to a meal the next day.

After the meal the World-Honored One speaks a verse of rejoicing that ends: “among gods and humans in the ten directions, the Fully Awakened One is supreme.” On the road the bhikṣus discuss: the five hundred Licchavis provided the food; “what merit do those Licchavis gain?” What merit does Satyaka gain? The World-Honored One answers: the Licchavis gain merit through Satyaka as the condition, and Satyaka gains merit through the Buddha’s virtue; the Licchavis’ gift goes to one with greed, hatred, and delusion, while “Satyaka the Nirgrantha gains the fruit of a gift to one free of greed, hatred, and delusion.” The man who lost the debate, by giving to the Buddha, gains the fruit of giving to one free of greed, hatred, and delusion. A discourse that begins in debate ends in giving.

Satyaka’s thesis was “form is the self.” The World-Honored One asked only one thing: are you in charge of it? If you cannot command it, you are not its master. This is the simplest test this fascicle gives for a self: a self is not a name, it is a kind of mastery, and there is no such mastery in the five aggregates.

IX. How to Read the Fascicle

Fascicle 5 can be read in three groups. The first is within the community: Kṣemaka (103) and Yamaka (104). One contemplates not self with conceit not yet exhausted; the other takes annihilation for not self; Śāriputra and the elders set each straight. The second is toward other sects: Śreṇika (105), Anurādha (106), Satyaka (110). All three ask where “the Tathāgata” or “the self” is, and all three are answered with the same set of questions: is form the Tathāgata? Can you command form? The third is instruction for disciples: Nakula (107), the bhikṣus from the west (108), the pond (109): how to live in an old and sick body, what to say when you go home, what seeing the truths cuts off. The answers all fall from Śāriputra’s mouth.

The thread of the fascicle is Kṣemaka’s phrase, “not cut off, not fully known, not left, not spat out.” After seeing not self, what remains? Conceit remains. How is it removed? By contemplating arising and ceasing (103), by contemplating that the Tathāgata cannot be found (104–106), by contemplating that form cannot be commanded (110). And after it is removed? There is no rebirth to declare (105), the body is afflicted but the mind is not (107), future suffering, like the pond, never arises again (109). This fascicle no longer repeats “form is impermanent.” It speaks of what the one who has already said “form is impermanent” is to do next.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The Compendium of Topics, in its section on the discourses, has mātṛkā for much of this fascicle. For Kṣemaka’s lingering conceit, the treatise sets out four wrong graspings, the second being conceit: “Wrong grasping by conceit is to give rise to the conceit ‘I am’ with regard to formations. The former, wrong grasping by view, obstructs the direct realization of the truths; the latter, wrong grasping by the conceit ‘I am,’ obstructs the cutting off of the defilements to be cut off by cultivation,” which is exactly the order Kṣemaka describes: view cut off, conceit not yet. The simile of the enemy in the Yamaka discourse the treatise also tells: “It is as when a man, knowing he has not the strength to harm his enemy, and fearing to be harmed by him, first draws close to him and serves him with what he likes; and when the enemy knows he has drawn close, he kills him,” and the treatise uses it for the one who has not cut off the view of the body and, toward that very view which can harm him, “sees only virtue and no fault, drawing close to it with all his heart”; the sūtra makes the five aggregates of clinging the enemy, the treatise makes the view of the body the enemy, and the harm is the same. For the three teachers of the Śreṇika discourse, the treatise, where it treats the doubt about declaring whether disciples are reborn, likewise lists three: “In the world three teachers are found at present: first, those who hold permanence; second, those who hold annihilation; third, the Tathāgata.” For Nakula’s body and mind, the treatise lists two cessations of suffering: “the cessation of mental suffering, and the cessation of bodily suffering.” The plantain of the Satyaka discourse has no direct treatment in the treatise; elsewhere the treatise matches five similes to the five aggregates, the plantain to formations, and though what is compared differs, the point is the same lack of a solid core: “because the root, the view of the body, is cut off; because the many kinds of own-being differ in their causes; because after a moment nothing abides, like unto that: one awakens to the formations as the plantain trunk.”

Fascicle 1 spoke of contemplation; Fascicle 2 asked what the aggregates of clinging are; Fascicle 3 asked where they come from; Fascicle 5 asked what remains after seeing not self. Fascicle 7 has forty-seven discourses, but they are really three kinds. The first thirty-one (139 to 171; 140 and 141, and 143 and 144, each share one heading, one heading being one discourse) ask a single question: “Because what exists does what arise? Bound to what, attached to what, in what does one see a self?” And the answer is a single sentence: “Because form exists, form arises; being bound and attached to form, one sees a self in form.” What changes is only the clause that follows the question: sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering; conceit; the three feelings; the eight worldly dharmas; superior, equal, inferior; permanence; annihilation; no cause; the seven bodies; Great Brahmā; the fourteen undeclared points; final nirvāṇa in this very life; the right cutting-off of self. More than thirty views, one root. The two in the middle (172 and 173) say: “whatever is impermanent should be cut off.” The last fourteen (174 to 187) say that to cut off the impermanent one should seek the teacher and cultivate the factors of the path; after each discourse comes a string of “likewise as above,” and the discourses abbreviated are counted by eights, by thirty-twos, by ninety-sixes. This fascicle argues against no view. What it asks is: where do views come from?

I. Because What Exists (Discourse 139)

Discourse 139 is the root of the whole fascicle. The World-Honored One asks the bhikṣus: “Because what exists does what arise? Bound to what, attached to what, in what does one see a self, so that sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering not yet arisen are made to arise, and those already arisen are made to grow and spread?” The bhikṣus ask him to explain. He answers: “Because form exists, form arises; being bound and attached to form, one sees a self in form, and sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering not yet arisen are made to arise, and those already arisen are made to grow and spread. Feeling, perception, formations and consciousness are likewise.” The question has four layers: existing, arising, being bound and attached, seeing a self. Seeing a self is not the first step but the last. First there is form; because there is form, form arises; because it arises, one is bound and attached; only when bound and attached does one see a self in it. Sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering come after the seeing of self.

Then follows the exchange familiar from Fascicle 1: is form permanent or impermanent? Impermanent. Is what is impermanent suffering? It is suffering. And the World-Honored One joins the two: “if what is impermanent is suffering, then because that suffering exists, this thing arises, is bound, is attached, and a self is seen.” The first passage said that because form exists one sees a self; this one says that because suffering exists one sees a self. The thing in which a self is seen is precisely the impermanent, suffering thing.

Then comes “right wisdom,” in four sentences. The first concerns the five aggregates: all form, past, future or present, inner or outer, coarse or fine, fair or foul, far or near, “all of it is not self, not other than self, not within one another; this is called right wisdom.” The second concerns what is acquired: “whatever is seen, heard, sensed or cognized, whatever is arisen at, sought, recollected, reflected on or contemplated, all of it is not self, not other than self, not within one another; this is called right wisdom.” The third concerns the view of permanence: “if one holds that there is a self, there is a world, there is this world and the other world, permanent, constant, not subject to change, all of it is not self, not other than self, not within one another; this is called right wisdom.” The fourth concerns the view of annihilation: “if one holds that there is no self of this world, nothing of this world that is mine, no self to come, nothing to come that is mine, all of it is not self, not other than self, not within one another; this is called right wisdom.” The four sentences end alike and begin differently: the five aggregates, what is seen and heard, the view of permanence, the view of annihilation. The standpoints of view are not only the five aggregates; they are also in what is seen and heard, and in the two views “there is a self” and “there is no self” themselves. Only when one sees “not self, not other than self, not within one another” in all these places is it called right wisdom.

Last comes the fruit: “if a learned noble disciple contemplates these six standpoints of view as not self and not mine, contemplating thus, his doubt about the Buddha is cut off, his doubt about the Dharma and the Saṅgha is cut off,” he “is no longer capable of doing deeds of body, speech and mind that lead to the three evil destinies,” and he “is certain to be directed toward saṃbodhi, goes back and forth among gods and humans for seven rebirths, and makes an end of suffering.” The sūtra does not itself enumerate the “six standpoints of view”; what can be seen is that the places on which view depends are only these few kinds. Discourses 140 and 141 record only the difference: “the difference is that doubt about suffering, its arising, its cessation and the path is cut off”; “the difference is that doubt about the Buddha, the Dharma, the Saṅgha, suffering, its arising, its cessation and the path is cut off.” Taken together, the three discourses say one thing: contemplate not self at the standpoints of view, and doubt is cut off.

II. The Many Views on One Root (Discourses 142 to 171)

From Discourse 142 on, the question does not change; only its final clause changes. The answer is always “expounded at length, in the sequence of the three discourses above,” that is, the answer of Discourses 139 to 141.

First come the things that arise after seeing a self. Discourse 142 asks about “the fetters of ‘I’, ‘mine’ and conceit, binding and attaching, not yet arisen made to arise, already arisen made to grow and spread.” Discourse 139 spoke of sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering; this one speaks of ‘I’, ‘mine’ and conceit. Discourses 143 and 144 are “the second and third discourses, likewise as above.” Discourse 145 asks about “outflows, obstruction, burning, sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering.” Discourses 146 to 148 ask about “the three feelings turning in the world,” “making the three sufferings turn in the world,” “making the eight worldly dharmas turn in the world.” Feeling, suffering, the eight worldly dharmas: the world turns because of the seeing of self.

Then come three comparisons: “I am superior, I am equal, I am inferior” (149); “there is one superior to me, one equal to me, one inferior to me” (150); “there is none superior to me, none equal to me, none inferior to me” (151). Measuring others by oneself, measuring oneself by others, not measuring at all: all three require a self first.

Then come two forms of the view of permanence: “there is a self, there is this world, there is the other world, permanent, constant, not subject to change, abiding just so” (152); “this self and that are entirely not two, not different, not perishing” (153).

Then comes a group of wrong views. Discourse 154: “there is no giving, no sacrificial gathering, no teaching; there is no fruit of good or evil deeds in good or bad destinies; there is no this world or other world; there is no mother, no father, no beings, no arhat in the world who has rightly arrived and rightly gone.” Discourse 155 is the doctrine of no power: “there is no power, no effort, no power and effort, no human endeavour, no human striving, no human endeavour and striving, nothing self-made, nothing made by another, nothing made by self and another,” and all beings, “by fixed allotment, continuity and transformation, experience pleasure and pain in the six destinies.” Discourse 156 is the doctrine of annihilation: “beings live in this world and after death are destroyed and are nothing at all,” “earth returns to earth, water to water, fire to fire, wind to wind,” and “whether foolish or wise, after death and in the other world, all are destroyed and are nothing at all.” Discourses 157 to 159 are the doctrine of no cause: “the defilement of beings is without cause, without condition,” “the purity of beings is without cause, without condition,” “the ignorance and blindness of beings is without cause, without condition.” Discourse 160 stops at “making beings hold such a view and speak thus”; the content of the view is not recorded in the base text.

Then come the schools of the other sects. Discourse 161 is the doctrine of the seven bodies: “the seven bodies are not made, not made by a maker, not transformed, not transformed by a transformer, not slain, unmoving, solid”; the seven bodies are “the body of earth, the body of water, the body of fire, the body of wind, pleasure, pain and life,” and so “a blade passing back and forth between the seven bodies does not harm life.” Discourse 162 is the doctrine of no deed: “doing and causing to do, cutting and causing to cut, cooking and causing to cook, killing and causing to kill” are none of them evil, and “one who goes slaughtering south of the Ganges and comes back holding a great gathering north of the Ganges incurs by neither of them merit or evil.” Discourse 163 is the doctrine of fixed measure: counting from “fourteen hundred thousand gateways of birth,” “through these eighty-four thousand great eons, whether foolish or wise, they pass back and forth and reach the end of suffering,” “as when a ball of thread is thrown into the air and gradually comes down, and stops of itself when it reaches the ground.” The ball is thrown, the thread runs out, and it stops, not an inch more or less. Discourse 164: “wind does not blow, fire does not burn, water does not flow, arrows are not shot.” Discourse 165: “this Great Brahmā is sovereign, creating of his own nature, the father of beings.”

Then come the doctrines of self and the undeclared points. Discourse 166 has eight sentences of “form is the self, and the rest is empty name”: form, the formless, form and the formless, neither form nor formless; finite, infinite, finite and infinite, neither finite nor infinite. Each sentence says that the self is this, and everything else is only a name; after the eight come perception and feeling: “one perception, various perceptions, many perceptions, measureless perception,” wholly pleasant, wholly painful, pleasant and painful, neither painful nor pleasant. I am of one perception, of many perceptions, wholly pleasant, wholly painful; the rest is still empty name. Discourse 167 changes the final clause to “form is the self, and the rest is false imagining”; the syntax is shared but the list differs: of the four sentences on form, the first, “form is the self,” remains, and the rest shrink to the one sentence “not form and not not-form is the self,” the list of perceptions has “few perceptions” where the earlier discourse had “many perceptions,” and the list of pleasure and pain is as before. The self these two discourses reckon is not only in form and in limits; it is also in perception and feeling. Discourse 168 is the full list of the fourteen undeclared points: the world is eternal or not eternal, finite or infinite, “the life-principle is the body, the life-principle is one thing and the body another; the Tathāgata exists after death, the Tathāgata does not exist after death, both exists and does not exist, neither exists nor does not exist.” Discourse 169 puts a “self” in front of each: the world and the self are eternal, the self and suffering are eternal, “the world and the self are self-made, are made by another, are made by self and another.”

The last two: one is the doctrine of final nirvāṇa in this very life, “if there is no enjoyment of the five sensual pleasures, that is final nirvāṇa seen in this very life,” and “entering the first dhyāna, up to the fourth dhyāna, is final nirvāṇa in the ultimate sense” (170); the other is the view of annihilation set out in detail, “if the coarse form of the four great elements is destroyed and is nothing at all, this is called the right cutting-off of self,” and likewise for the desire realm, the form realm and the four formless attainments, each called the right cutting-off of self after death (171).

In these twenty-nine discourses, not one refutes the view it lists. Where the doctrine of the seven bodies goes wrong, why Great Brahmā is not the father of beings, how the doctrine of fixed measure and the doctrine of no cause contradict each other: the sūtra does not say a word. It asks only one thing: because what exists do these views arise? Bound to what? And the answer is the same sentence: because form exists, because one is bound and attached to form, one sees a self in form. Great Brahmā, the seven bodies, annihilation: the doctrines contradict one another, but the root is one. First a self is set up on the five aggregates, and then an origin, a destination and a master are sought for that self. So this fascicle does not argue view by view; it pulls up the root. The root is in being bound and attached.

III. Whatever Is Impermanent Should Be Cut Off (Discourses 172 and 173)

Discourse 172 is short: “Whatever dharma is impermanent should be cut off. Having cut off that dharma, for one’s benefit and welfare, there is happiness through the long night. What dharma is impermanent? Form is impermanent; feeling, perception, formations and consciousness are impermanent.” The preceding thirty-one discourses asked where views arise, and the answer was being bound and attached; this one says what to do about being bound and attached: cut off what is impermanent. To cut it off is not to annihilate form; it is to cut off the attachment that rides on form. Discourse 173 makes this clear: “past form is an impermanent dharma, past desire is an impermanent dharma; that dharma should be cut off.” What is cut off is past form, and also the desire for past form. The abbreviation that follows says: “likewise the future, the present, the past and present, the future and present, the past and future, the past, future and present.” The time-aspects run from one period to the combinations of three. “For one’s benefit and welfare, happiness through the long night” is the reason these two discourses give: not because form is evil, but because cutting off is beneficial.

IV. A Head-Cloth on Fire (Discourses 174 and 175)

Discourse 174: “In order to cut off impermanent dharmas, one should seek the teacher.” The abbreviation that follows replaces “the teacher” with a long string of names: “various teachings, following, peace, wide peace, universal peace, guidance, wide guidance, ultimate guidance, teaching, wide teaching, teaching that follows, second companion, true friend, like-minded one,” and again “the foundations of mindfulness, right exertion, the faculties, the powers, the factors of awakening, the path, calm, insight, mindfulness of the body, right recollection.” What is sought runs from a person to the dharmas, one discourse to each name, each in eight time-aspects. To seek the teacher is to seek these.

Discourse 175 gives the simile of the fascicle. The World-Honored One asks: “Suppose a man’s head-cloth were on fire; how should he put it out?” The bhikṣus answer: “He should arouse heightened desire and, with earnest effort, put it out at once.” The World-Honored One says: “A burning head-cloth can still be forgotten for a moment; the blazing fire of impermanence must be utterly removed, cut off and extinguished. In order to cut off the fire of impermanence, diligently seek the teacher.” When the cloth on one’s head catches fire, everyone knows to put it out at once; the World-Honored One says that this can still be set aside for a moment, but the fire of impermanence cannot. The fire on the head-cloth burns the head; the fire of impermanence burns form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness: it burns the very thing a person takes as “I.” From here on, Discourses 177 to 186 open with this exchange and change only the clause after “in order to cut off the fire of impermanence”; Discourse 176, between them, is the World-Honored One speaking directly, “in order to cut off impermanence,” without the question.

V. The Factors of the Path, Multiplied (Discourses 176 to 186)

The body of each of these eleven discourses is short; the length lies in the abbreviations that follow. Discourse 176: “In order to cut off impermanence, one should dwell in contemplation of the body as body, internally.” The abbreviation: “as with the sense of cutting off impermanence one cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness, so for the sense of knowing, exhausting, spitting out, stopping, relinquishing, ceasing and vanishing, one cultivates the four foundations of mindfulness.” Discourse 177 opens with the burning head-cloth, and is again the four foundations of mindfulness; its abbreviation counts the discourses: “as with the ninety-six discourses on what should be cut off as impermanent, so for what should be known, spat out, exhausted, stopped, relinquished, ceased and made to vanish, ninety-six discourses each.” Body, feeling, mind and dharmas are four; internal, external, and internal and external are three; twelve in all, each in eight time-aspects: ninety-six. And beyond cutting off there are seven further senses, knowing, spitting out, exhausting, stopping, relinquishing, ceasing and vanishing, ninety-six each.

Each following discourse takes one group of path factors: Discourse 178 the four right exertions, “evil and unwholesome things already arisen should be cut off; arouse desire and striving, and gather the mind so that it grows”; Discourse 179 the bases of spiritual power, “one should cultivate the basis of spiritual power accomplished by concentration of desire and the exertion of abandoning”; Discourse 180 the five faculties, “one should cultivate the faculty of faith”; Discourse 181 the five powers, “one should cultivate the power of faith”; Discourse 182 the seven factors of awakening, “cultivate the awakening factor of mindfulness”; Discourse 183 the eightfold right path, “one should cultivate right view”; Discourse 184 the four paths, “one should cultivate the path of painful practice to exhaustion,” with the abbreviation listing “the painful path to exhaustion, the pleasant path not to exhaustion, the pleasant path to exhaustion”; Discourse 185 the three Dharma-phrases, “one should cultivate the Dharma-phrase of non-greed,” with the abbreviation “the phrases of non-hatred and non-delusion, the right phrases, the Dharma-phrases”; Discourse 186 calm and insight, “one should cultivate calm,” and “as with the eight discourses on cultivating calm, so with the eight discourses on cultivating insight.” After each group the abbreviation counts again: thirty-two, forty, fifty-six, sixty-four, twenty-four, sixteen.

This is the compilers’ multiplication: the factors of the path, the eight time-aspects and the eight senses, multiplied together. The sūtra states the numbers itself. What the numbers describe is the abbreviated structure of the text as it stands: any one of the thirty-seven factors of the path can be used to cut off impermanence, and the one sense of cutting off can be exchanged for any of the senses of knowing, spitting out, exhausting, stopping, relinquishing, ceasing or vanishing. How is the fire of impermanence to be put out? The whole of the path is a means of putting out the fire.

VI. A Hundred Names for Impermanence (End of Discourse 186)

After the words “rejoiced and put it into practice” in Discourse 186, a further passage follows within the same discourse. It replaces “impermanence” with a long string of names: “as with impermanence, so with wavering, whirling, sickly, breaking, fleeting, rotting, tottering, not constant, unsafe, changing, distress and suffering, calamity, Māra’s deceit, Māra’s power, Māra’s instrument, like foam, like a bubble, like a plantain, like an illusion”; further down come “the dharma of birth, the dharma of ageing, the dharma of sickness, the dharma of death, the dharma of sorrow and lamentation, the dharma of distress and suffering” and their kind; further down “like a poisonous snake, like a dream, like something borrowed, like the fruit of a tree, like a slaughterer of cattle, like a killer of men” and their kind; and it ends at “stirred by the defilements.” Then it says: “up to cutting off the past, future and present impermanent, up to ceasing and vanishing, one should cultivate calm and insight.” Every one of these names can be put in the place of “impermanence” in the eleven discourses that say “in order to cut off the fire of impermanence.” At the end this passage returns to the sentence of Fascicle 1: knowing as it really is that all form is not self, not other than self, not within one another, “he grows weary of form, grows weary of feeling, perception, formations and consciousness; being weary he does not delight; not delighting, he is liberated.”

These hundred-odd names fall into three kinds. One kind is states of the five aggregates: wavering, breaking, not constant, changing. One kind is similes: foam, a bubble, a plantain, an illusion, a poisonous snake, a dream, a slaughterer of cattle. One kind is dharmas: the dharma of birth, of ageing, of sickness, of death, the dharma that has greed, the dharma that has hatred, the dharma of the fire-pit. Discourse 175 spoke of “the blazing fire of impermanence”; this passage says what impermanence is: it is these hundred-odd aspects. In the Satyaka discourse of Fascicle 5 the plantain was a simile for a thesis without substance; here the plantain is one name for the five aggregates. One need not explain this passage name by name; it is enough to know that when the word “impermanence” has been heard so often that it no longer hurts, one can change the name and hear it again.

VII. Accomplished in One Dharma (Discourse 187)

The last discourse changes the form of the question. “Because one is accomplished in one dharma, one is no longer able to know that form is impermanent, to know that feeling, perception, formations and consciousness are impermanent. What is the one dharma one is accomplished in? Greed.” And the reverse: “one accomplished in the dharma of non-greed is able to know that form is impermanent.” Then follow two strings of abbreviation. One is of verbs: “as with accomplished and not accomplished, so with knowing and not knowing, close and not close, clear and not clear.” The other substitutes for “the one dharma”: “as with greed, so with hatred, delusion, anger, resentment, scorn, grasping, envy, stinginess, deceit, flattery, shamelessness, lack of moral dread, conceit, overbearing conceit, excessive conceit, the conceit ‘I am’, overweening conceit, wrong conceit, the conceit of inferiority, arrogant conceit,” passing through “the view of the body, the view of extremes, wrong view, clinging to views, clinging to precepts,” and ending in “grief and distress and suffering.” Then the sūtra itself takes the last name to conclude: “because one is veiled by distress and suffering, one is unable to realize the complete cessation of form”; “because one is not veiled by the one dharma, one is able to realize the complete cessation of form.”

One dharma is enough. All five hindrances need not arise; one greed present, and one cannot see that form is impermanent; one distress present, and one cannot realize the cessation of form. To be “veiled” is to be covered over: the dharma is still there, only something is in the way and it cannot be seen. Read this discourse against the opening: Discourse 139 asked where sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering arise, and the answer was that because form exists one sees a self; Discourse 187 says that when distress is present, one cannot realize the cessation of form. Head and tail join: seeing a self gives rise to distress, and distress in turn veils the seeing of impermanence. View and suffering are each other’s cause; cut through one dharma, and both ends open.

VIII. How to Read the Fascicle

Fascicle 7 can be read in three parts. The first (139 to 171) asks about the root of views. More than thirty views, from sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering to Great Brahmā, the seven bodies and the fourteen undeclared points; the World-Honored One argues with none of them, asking only “because what exists?” and answering “because form exists.” Reading this part, one need not remember the content of each view discourse by discourse; remember the answer: views arise from being bound and attached, and being bound and attached arises from the existence of form. The second part (172 to 175) says what to do: whatever is impermanent should be cut off; to cut it off, seek the teacher, as urgently as putting out a fire on one’s head. The third part (176 to 187) says what to cut it off with: the thirty-seven factors of the path, times eight senses, times eight time-aspects; impermanence has a hundred-odd names, and a single greed is enough to veil them all.

Fascicle 5 asked who is in charge; Fascicle 7 answers: where the thought of being in charge comes from. The permanence and annihilation, cause and no cause, self-made and made by another over which the other sects contend are the branches and leaves of views; beneath the branches and leaves there is only one root: because form exists, one sees a self in form. The way to pull up the root is not in debate but in the factors of the path; and before the factors of the path, one must first, like a man whose head is on fire, know that this is urgent.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The Compendium of Topics, in its section on the discourses, has no mātṛkā that glosses the forty-seven discourses of this fascicle directly. Where the treatise speaks of the views and of the work of a teacher in ways that bear on what this fascicle says, it is recorded here for reference, not as correspondence. On the views sharing one root, the treatise says: “with the twenty-fold view of the body as their support, there arise the sixty-two kinds of evil views, imagining the past and the future, and the wholesale denial that is wrong view.” This fascicle answers more than thirty views with the one sentence “because form exists one sees a self”; the treatise makes the view of the body the support of all views; what is said is one. The treatise also divides the sixty-two views: “the four doctrines of permanence, the four doctrines of partial permanence, the two doctrines of no cause, the four doctrines of finite and infinite perception, the four doctrines of evasive equivocation: these eighteen evil views are the doctrines of self that reckon the past”; “further, the sixteen doctrines of perception, the eight doctrines of non-perception, the eight doctrines of neither perception nor non-perception, the seven doctrines of annihilation, the five doctrines of nirvāṇa in this present life: these forty-four evil views are the doctrines of self that reckon the future”; and these are “further reduced to three: the doctrine of permanence, the doctrine of annihilation, the doctrine of nirvāṇa in this present life.” The permanence of Discourses 152 and 153, the annihilation of 156 and 171, the nirvāṇa in this very life of 170, the no cause of 157 to 159, the finite and infinite of 166 and 167 are all in its list; the treatise’s classification and the sūtra’s sequence do not wholly coincide, and what each gathers is broader or narrower.

On the self-made and made-by-another of Discourse 169 the treatise explains: “if one holds that all is made by past causes, this is called the doctrine of the self-made. If one holds that all is made by the transforming cause of the Sovereign and the like, this is called the doctrine of the made-by-another. If one holds that a part is made by the transforming cause of the Sovereign and the like, and a part is not, this is called the doctrine of the made-by-both. The doctrine of no cause is called the doctrine of the made-by-neither.” The sovereign Great Brahmā of Discourse 165 falls under the doctrine of the made-by-another. The superior, equal and inferior of Discourses 149 to 151 the treatise lists as a suffering: “measuring oneself by others, one holds oneself superior, or equal, or lower; exalting oneself, one despises others. This is called the third suffering, that of contending for superiority.” Of the no cause of Discourses 157 to 159 the treatise says that the teachers of other sects “set up, establish and reveal their path for their disciples relying on no cause and on unequal causes.” For the seeking of the teacher in Discourses 174 and 175 the treatise lists what a teacher does: “the teacher, toward the śrāvakas, has in brief five kinds of work proper to a teacher: first, right subduing; second, right taking in; third, right reproof; fourth, right teaching of defilement; fifth, right teaching of purification.” The sūtra says that to cut off impermanence one should seek the teacher; the treatise says what the teacher does.

Fascicle 7 asked where views come from. Fascicle 10 has seventeen discourses and is the last fascicle of the Connected Discourses on the Five Aggregates of Clinging. It falls into two parts. In the first seven discourses (256 to 262) the World-Honored One does not appear: Mahākauṣṭhila questions Śāriputra four times, Śāriputra questions Ānanda, Ānanda repeats what Pūrṇa said to him when young, and Ānanda teaches Chanda. Four words are asked about: ignorance, knowledge, unbroken comprehension, cessation. In the last ten discourses (263 to 272) the World-Honored One speaks himself, and each discourse carries at least one simile: the brooding hen, the small lump of earth, the mass of foam, the dog tied to a post, the many-colored bird, the river from the mountain ravine, the trees in the Jeta Grove, the farmer ploughing deep, the two men on one road, the brand from a corpse-fire. The first question at the head of the fascicle is: “What is called ignorance? What is ignorance? Who has this ignorance?” The answer: “Ignorance is not knowing; not knowing is ignorance.” The next question: “Not knowing what?” All seventeen discourses of this fascicle answer that one question.

I. Not Knowing What (Discourses 256 to 258)

Three discourses share one scene: Śāriputra and Mahākauṣṭhila are on Vulture Peak; Mahākauṣṭhila rises from meditation in the afternoon and comes to ask. The questions are the same: what is ignorance, who has ignorance; what is knowledge, who has knowledge. The first half of the answer is also the same: “Ignorance is not knowing; not knowing is ignorance.” What differs in the three discourses is the answer to “not knowing what?”

The first discourse answers: “That form is impermanent, one does not know as it really is; that form is a thing that wears away, one does not know as it really is; that form is a thing that arises and ceases, one does not know as it really is.” Feeling, perception, formations and consciousness are likewise. The conclusion: “Regarding these five aggregates of clinging one does not know as it really is, does not see, has no unbroken comprehension, is foolish, dark, unclear; this is called ignorance, and one who is accomplished in this is said to have ignorance.” Knowledge is the reverse: “What is called knowledge is knowing; knowing is called knowledge.” “Regarding these five aggregates of clinging one knows as it really is, sees, knows clearly, awakens, is wise, comprehends without a break; this is called knowledge, and one who is accomplished in this dharma is said to have knowledge.” The second discourse changes what is known: “Form one knows as it really is; the arising of form, the cessation of form, the path leading to the cessation of form one knows as it really is.” Form, arising, cessation, path: four turnings. The third discourse changes it again: “Form one does not know as it really is; the arising of form, the cessation of form, the gratification in form, the danger in form, the escape from form one does not know as it really is.” Arising, cessation, gratification, danger, escape: the seven skilful points from Fascicle 2, minus the path.

The three discourses give three answers: impermanent, wearing away, arising and ceasing; arising, cessation, path; arising, cessation, gratification, danger, escape. Taken together, ignorance is not failure to know some one doctrine; it is not knowing the five aggregates of clinging as they really are, and what is not known can be said from three sides. “Who has this ignorance?” The answer is “one who is accomplished in this is said to have ignorance.” Ignorance is not a thing attached to a person. When not-knowing is accomplished, that is called having ignorance; when knowing is accomplished, that is called having knowledge. The one who has ignorance is the one who does not know the five aggregates of clinging. The third discourse gives the shortest answer: “Not knowing is ignorance.” “Knowing is knowledge.”

II. Unbroken Comprehension and Cessation (Discourses 259 and 260)

In Discourse 259 Mahākauṣṭhila changes the question: “If a bhikṣu has not attained the dharma of unbroken comprehension and wishes to seek the dharma of unbroken comprehension, how should he seek it? What dharmas should he reflect upon?” Śāriputra answers: “He should reflect diligently: the five aggregates of clinging are a disease, a boil, a thorn, a killer, impermanent, suffering, empty, not self. Why? Because that is the proper place.” Then question follows answer: having attained stream-entry and wishing for the fruit of once-returning, what should he reflect upon; having attained once-returning and wishing for non-returning; having attained non-returning and wishing for arhatship. The answer is always the same sentence: these five aggregates of clinging are a disease, a boil, a thorn, a killer, impermanent, suffering, empty, not self, “why? because that is the proper place.” The last question: having attained arhatship, what does he reflect upon further? The answer: “The arhat too reflects: these five aggregates of clinging are a disease, a boil, a thorn, a killer, impermanent, suffering, empty, not self. Why? To attain what is not yet attained, to realize what is not yet realized, to dwell happily in the Dharma seen.” The four fruits and what comes after the fruits reflect upon one and the same sentence. Before the first fruit one thinks this way, and the arhat still thinks this way; only the reason differs. The first four passages say “because that is the proper place”; the last says “to dwell happily in the Dharma seen.” There is no higher teaching to exchange it for.

Discourse 260 moves to Śrāvastī. Śāriputra asks Ānanda: “What is called cessation? What is cessation? Who has this cessation?” Ānanda answers: “The five aggregates of clinging are made by former activity, formerly intended and wished for; they are impermanent, things subject to cessation; because those things cease, it is called cessation.” Śāriputra approves and adds one sentence: “If these five aggregates of clinging were not made by former activity, not formerly intended and wished for, how could they cease?” Cessation is possible precisely because the five aggregates of clinging are made by activity and wished for by intention. They were produced, and so they will cease. If they were not produced, there would be nothing to say about cessation. The head of the fascicle asked about ignorance; here cessation is asked about; the answer is still the five aggregates of clinging.

III. One Reckons as Self What Is Born (Discourse 261)

Discourse 261 is Ānanda’s own account. Ānanda tells the bhikṣus that Pūrṇa Maitrāyaṇīputra, when he was young and newly gone forth, spoke the deep Dharma to him. Pūrṇa’s words: “One reckons as self what is born, not what is unborn.” “Form is born; what is born one reckons as self, not what is unborn.” The simile: “It is like a man who holds a bright mirror or a mirror of clear water and sees his own face appear; because it appears, he sees it, and not otherwise.” A person looks into a mirror; the face appears in the mirror, and then he sees the face. If nothing appeared, there would be nothing to see. Reckoning a self is the same: form has arisen, and then on the form that has arisen one reckons a self; on what has not arisen there is nowhere to reckon it. Then follows the exchange of Fascicle 1: is form permanent or impermanent? “He answered: Impermanent.” Is what is impermanent suffering? It is suffering. Of what is impermanent, suffering, subject to change, does the noble disciple reckon that it is self, other than self, or that they are within one another? He does not. The one who answers here is the young Ānanda answering Pūrṇa. Pūrṇa concludes: “One who contemplates thus, the noble disciple, grows weary of form, becomes dispassionate, is freed.”

Ānanda says at the end: “That venerable one was of great benefit to me. Having heard the Dharma from that venerable one, I became far from dust and free of stain, and attained the pure Dharma-eye.” “From then on I have always taught this Dharma to the fourfold assembly, and not to the other outsiders, the ascetics and brāhmaṇas gone forth.” This discourse records the occasion on which Ānanda attained the pure Dharma-eye, and the teacher was not the World-Honored One but Pūrṇa. What was taught was not a new teaching; it is still the impermanent, suffering, not self of Fascicle 1, with one sentence added, “one reckons as self what is born,” which points out where the self is reckoned.

IV. Chanda (Discourse 262)

Discourse 262 is set not long after the Buddha’s final nirvāṇa. The elder Chanda, holding his door-key, goes from grove to grove and from dwelling to dwelling, asking the bhikṣus everywhere: “Instruct me, teach me the Dharma, so that I may know the Dharma and see the Dharma; I will know according to the Dharma and contemplate according to the Dharma.” The bhikṣus say: “Form is impermanent; feeling, perception, formations and consciousness are impermanent; all formations are impermanent, all dharmas are not self, nirvāṇa is stilled.” Chanda says that he already knows this. What he does not like to hear is: “All formations are empty and still, unobtainable; the ending of craving, dispassion, nirvāṇa.” His question is: “In that, how is there a self, such that one says: knowing thus, seeing thus, is called seeing the Dharma?” If everything is empty and still and unobtainable, who is it that knows and sees? Who is the one that knows the Dharma and sees the Dharma? A second and a third time it goes the same way; no one can answer. Chanda thinks of Ānanda and travels to Kauśāmbī.

Ānanda first praises him: “I rejoice that you can, before those who live the pure conduct, hide nothing and break the thorn of falsehood.” To say aloud what one does not like to hear is to break the thorn of falsehood. Then Ānanda does not speak in his own name; he repeats what he heard from the Buddha himself, the Buddha’s teaching to Mahākātyāyana: “Worldly people, upside down, rely on the two extremes, existence and non-existence; worldly people take hold of objects, and the mind reckons and clings.” “If one does not receive, does not take hold, does not dwell, does not reckon a self, then this suffering arises when it arises and ceases when it ceases.” “One who rightly contemplates the arising of the world as it really is does not give rise to the view that the world does not exist; one who rightly contemplates the cessation of the world as it really is does not give rise to the view that the world exists.” “The Tathāgata, free of the two extremes, teaches the middle way: because this exists, that exists; because this arises, that arises,” conditioned by ignorance there are formations, up to the arising of birth, aging, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering; because this does not exist, that does not exist, because this ceases, that ceases; when ignorance ceases, formations cease, up to the cessation of birth, aging, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering.

Chanda’s question was “in that, how is there a self.” The answer Ānanda quotes says neither that there is a self nor that there is none. It says: suffering arises when it arises and ceases when it ceases. To know the Dharma and see the Dharma, one does not first need a self standing there to do the knowing and the seeing. Without reckoning a self, suffering arises and ceases all the same, and right view arises all the same. Existence and non-existence are the two extremes: seeing the arising of the world, one will not say the world does not exist; seeing the cessation of the world, one will not say the world exists. Chanda “no longer sees a self, and sees only the right Dharma,” and attains the pure Dharma-eye. Ānanda says: “You have now gained great benefit; in the profound Buddha-Dharma you have attained the noble eye of wisdom.”

After the discourse there is a summary verse: “Śroṇa, three; ignorance, also three,” “Unbroken comprehension and cessation; Pūrṇa; Chanda.” The three on ignorance, unbroken comprehension, cessation, Pūrṇa and Chanda are the seven discourses 256 to 262. The three discourses on Śroṇa are not included in this fascicle; so stands the base text.

V. Because of Knowing and Seeing (Discourse 263)

From here the World-Honored One speaks himself. Discourse 263 opens: “It is because of knowing and seeing that I attained the ending of all outflows, not without knowing and seeing.” What is known and seen is “this form, the arising of this form, the cessation of this form,” and likewise feeling, perception, formations and consciousness. Then a certain kind of bhikṣu is described: “He does not cultivate the means, does not accord with and accomplish them, yet he sets his mind on seeking: may my outflows be ended, may my mind be freed. Know that that bhikṣu will never attain the ending of outflows and liberation. Why? Because he does not cultivate.” What he does not cultivate is “the foundations of mindfulness, the right exertions, the bases of spiritual power, the faculties, the powers, the factors of awakening, the path.”

There are four similes. The brooding hen: “It is like a brooding hen with many eggs who cannot brood and warm them at the right times, regulating cold and warmth, yet wishes her chicks to peck the eggs open with beak and claw and come out by themselves”; the chicks have no strength of their own to come out of the shell. The reverse: the hen who tends her eggs well, “though she does not wish her chicks to peck their way out of the eggs by themselves, yet her chicks are able of themselves to come safely out of the shell.” The correspondence: “If a bhikṣu cultivates and accords with and accomplishes, then though he does not wish for the ending of outflows and liberation, that bhikṣu’s outflows are ended of themselves and his mind is freed.” The axe-handle: “He holds the axe-handle, grasping it without letting go, and gradually it wears down a little until the marks of his fingers appear, yet he does not notice the slight wearing of the axe-handle, though the worn place appears”; the bhikṣu “does not himself know and see how much of his outflows is ended today and how much tomorrow, yet that bhikṣu knows that the outflows are being ended.” The great ship: “It is like a great ship on the seashore which, through the six months of summer, is blown by wind and scorched by sun, and its rattan bindings gradually break”; the bhikṣu’s “bonds, fetters, defilements and entanglements are gradually loosened.” As this Dharma was taught, “sixty bhikṣus did not give rise to outflows and their minds were freed.”

This discourse speaks of the relation between wishing and cultivating. Wishing for the ending of outflows is useless; having cultivated, one’s outflows end even without wishing. A hen does not hatch her chicks by willing it; when the brooding and the warmth are right, the chicks come out by themselves. The wearing of the axe-handle is not seen; only the result is seen. All four similes say one thing: the ending of outflows is the natural result of cultivation, not something obtained by asking. The head of the fascicle asked “not knowing what?”; this discourse has the World-Honored One say of himself that “it is because of knowing and seeing that I attained the ending of all outflows.” Knowing and seeing come from cultivation.

VI. The Small Lump of Earth (Discourse 264)

In Discourse 264 a certain bhikṣu reflects in meditation: “Is there any form that is permanent, constant, not subject to change, rightly abiding?” He comes to ask the World-Honored One. The World-Honored One takes a small lump of earth in his hand and asks: “Do you see the lump of earth in my hand?” Then he says: “Bhikṣu, even this little bit of earth, a self cannot be found. If a self could be found, then it would be a permanent, constant, unchanging, rightly abiding dharma.” The bhikṣu asked whether there is any permanent form; the World-Honored One answers that not even a self as big as this bit of earth can be found. If even a little bit of self could be found, that would be the permanent dharma.

Then the World-Honored One recounts his own past lives: “For seven years I cultivated a mind of loving-kindness, and through seven eons of formation and destruction I did not return to this world.” “In an empty palace I was Great Brahmā King, unsurpassed, supreme, ruling a thousand worlds.” “Thirty-six times I was Śakra, lord of the gods; a hundred thousand times I was a wheel-turning king ruling the four continents.” Then come the eighty-four thousands of the anointed king: elephants, horses, chariots, cities, palaces, couches, garments, jewel-women, foods. Each item is eighty-four thousand, and “of the eighty-four thousand jewel-women, only one attended me; of the eighty-four thousand jeweled garments, I wore only one; of the eighty-four thousand jeweled couches, I lay on only one.” What karma brought this? “First, giving; second, taming; third, cultivating the path.” Then one sentence: “The ordinary person, steeped in the five sense pleasures, is never satisfied; the noble one, perfected in wisdom, is always content.” The conclusion: “All formations of the past are wholly ceased, the past has changed; those naturally arising possessions and that renown have all worn away. Therefore, bhikṣu, bring all formations to rest for good; grow weary, cut off desire, be freed.”

The passage is long, but it says one thing. The World-Honored One sets out the greatest bodies he has had, Great Brahmā King, Śakra, the wheel-turning king with everything complete in eighty-four thousands, to answer “is there any form that is permanent?” All of them have worn away. The bhikṣu asked whether there is a permanent form; the World-Honored One first says that a self cannot be found, then says that the greatest form he ever had has worn away down to its very name. Then comes the exchange of Fascicle 1, impermanent, suffering, not self, and the bhikṣu “always kept in mind the teaching of the simile of the lump of earth, dwelt alone in a quiet place, and reflected diligently,” and became an arhat. The small lump of earth is the smallest simile in this fascicle and the eighty-four thousand the largest; the two say the same sentence.

VII. A Mass of Foam (Discourse 265)

Discourse 265 is set on the bank of the Ganges. Five similes for the five aggregates, each in the same form. Form is like a mass of foam: “It is like the great waters of the Ganges rising in flood and a mass of foam drifting with the current; a clear-eyed man closely examines and discerns it, and as he closely examines and discerns it, there is nothing there, nothing firm, nothing substantial, nothing solid.” So with form: “closely examine, reflect and discern, and there is nothing there, nothing firm, nothing substantial, nothing solid; it is a disease, a boil, a thorn, a killer, impermanent, suffering, empty, not self. Why? Because form has no solidity.” Feeling is like a water-bubble: “It is like a bubble in heavy rain that arises and bursts in a moment.” Perception is like a mirage: “It is like the end of spring and the beginning of summer, when there are no clouds and no rain and the sun is at its height, and a mirage shimmers.” Formations are like a plantain: a clear-eyed man seeking solid timber goes into the mountain forest and sees a great plantain tree, “cuts it at the root, lops off its crown, and peels it layer by layer, and there is nothing solid at all.” Consciousness is like an illusion: “It is like a magician or a magician’s apprentice at a crossroads conjuring up elephants, horses, chariots and foot-soldiers.” After the five similes the World-Honored One restates the meaning in verse: “Contemplate form as a mass of foam, feeling as a bubble on the water,” “perception as a mirage in spring, formations as a plantain,” “the dharmas of consciousness as an illusion: so the Honored One of the Solar line has taught.” The second half of the verse speaks of the body: “life, warmth, and consciousness; apart from these the rest of the body,” “is cast away for good among the burial mounds, like wood without consciousness or perception.” It ends with practice: “The bhikṣu diligently cultivates, contemplating this body of aggregates,” “the conditioned formations are stilled for good, and he attains the place of coolness forever.”

Each simile takes something of its own. Foam is on the water; it looks like a mass, and there is nothing inside. A bubble arises and bursts. A mirage is heat; from afar it looks like water, and when one comes near there is none. A plantain peeled layer by layer has no core. The magician’s elephants, horses, chariots and foot-soldiers are conjured. The five similes share one verdict: “nothing there, nothing firm, nothing substantial, nothing solid.” Discourse 259 said the five aggregates of clinging are “a disease, a boil, a thorn, a killer,” and here after the five similes the same follows: “a disease, a boil, a thorn, a killer.” It is the same set of words: in Discourse 259 Śāriputra teaches people to reflect on it; in Discourse 265 the World-Honored One says it through similes. At the end of Fascicle 7 the four names “like foam, like a bubble, like a plantain, like an illusion” stood among the hundred names for impermanence; this discourse gives them their home.

VIII. Covered by Ignorance, Bound by the Bond of Craving (Discourses 266 and 267)

Discourse 266: “In beginningless birth and death, covered by ignorance, bound by the bond of craving, through the long night they turn in the round, not knowing the first beginning of suffering.” Then four scenes of the great eons: “There is a time when for long no rain falls, and all the grains, grasses and trees that grow from the earth wither”; “there is a time when through the long night no rain falls and the waters of the great ocean all dry up”; “there is a time when through the long night Sumeru, king of mountains, wholly collapses”; “there is a time when through the long night this great earth is wholly destroyed.” After each scene the same sentence: beings, “the bond of craving not cut, do not make an end of suffering.” Grasses wither, the ocean dries, Sumeru collapses, the earth is destroyed; all these come to an end. If the bond of craving is not cut, suffering has no end. Then the dog: “It is like a dog tied to a post; the tie not broken, through the long night it circles the post, turning round and round.” The foolish person who does not know as it really is the arising, cessation, gratification, danger and escape of form “through the long night turns in the round, turning along with form”; “because he turns along with form, he is not freed from form.” The noble disciple knows as it really is, and “because he does not turn along with it, he is freed from form.”

Discourse 267 has the same opening, and the simile of the dog is told again: “It is like a dog tied by a rope to a post; because the knot is not undone, it turns following the post; whether standing or lying down, it does not leave the post.” Then it turns to the mind: “You should reflect well and contemplate the mind. Why? Because through the long night the mind has been stained by greed, stained by hatred and delusion. Bhikṣus, because the mind is afflicted, beings are afflicted; because the mind is pure, beings are pure.” The World-Honored One says: “I do not see any form so varied as a mottled bird, yet the mind surpasses even that.” He asks the bhikṣu whether he has seen the jielanna bird, and the bhikṣu says he has. “As the jielanna bird is of many varied colors, so I say the mind is many and varied.” The bird’s colors are varied because its mind is varied: “Because the jielanna bird’s mind is of many kinds, its colors are of many kinds.” One more simile: “It is like a painter or a painter’s apprentice who well prepares the blank ground, has all the colors ready, and paints whatever kinds of images he pleases.” The correspondence: the foolish person does not know form as it really is, “delights in and clings to form; because he delights in and clings to form, he gives rise again to future forms”; the noble disciple knows as it really is, and “because he does not delight in it, he does not give rise to future form.”

The “covered by ignorance, bound by the bond of craving” of the two discourses is a pair: covered by ignorance, and so one does not know; bound by the bond of craving, and so one does not leave. The three discourses at the head of the fascicle said that ignorance is not knowing the five aggregates of clinging; these two say what follows from not knowing: one circles the post, tied. The dog does not circle because the post pulls it, but because the rope is not cut. Discourse 267 goes one layer further in: what circles the post is the mind. Afflicted mind, afflicted beings; pure mind, pure beings. The mind is more varied than the jielanna bird, and the mind is like a painter: the forms of the future are what it paints. “Because he delights in and clings to form, he gives rise again to future forms”: the future aggregates are not given by someone else; they are painted by the present delighting.

IX. The River and the Jeta Grove (Discourses 268 and 269)

Discourse 268: “It is like a river rushing out of a mountain ravine; its waters are deep and swift, its current violent, and it sweeps away many things.” The grasses and trees on both banks are flattened by the water; people trying to cross are swept away, “and meeting a wave near the bank, they grasp at the grass and trees, and the grass and trees break, and they are carried off again with the current.” The correspondence: the foolish person does not know form as it really is, “delights in and clings to form, says ‘form is self’, and that form breaks off.” The person carried by the water clutches the grass on the bank; the grass breaks, and he goes with it. To “say form is self” is to clutch the grass; the form breaks off, and the person goes with it. The noble disciple does not delight in it, and “thus he knows for himself and attains final nirvāṇa.”

Discourse 269 says it the other way round: “What is not fitting for you should be wholly relinquished; having relinquished those things, there is happiness through the long night.” What is not fitting for you is form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness. The simile: “It is like the trees in the Jeta Grove: if someone cuts the branches and carries them away, you are not grieved. Why? Because those trees are not self and not mine.” When someone cuts branches from the trees in the park and carries them off, the bhikṣus are not grieved, because the trees are not their own. Then the exchange of Fascicle 1, ending: “The noble disciple contemplates these five aggregates of clinging as not self and not mine. Contemplating thus, he takes hold of nothing in the whole world; taking hold of nothing, he attains nirvāṇa of himself.”

The two similes face each other. The grass one grasps breaks, and the one who grasps is carried off; the trees that are not one’s own are cut, and one is not grieved. The difference is not between grass and trees but between grasping and not grasping. The river is birth and death; the grasses and trees are the five aggregates; the one who says form is self holds on, and does not let go even when the grass breaks. The trees in the Jeta Grove are the five aggregates just the same; knowing them to be not self and not mine, one loses nothing when they are cut and carried off. “Not fitting for you”: this discourse says that the aggregates are not something the bhikṣu should take hold of; it does not say that they do not exist.

X. The Perception of Impermanence (Discourse 270)

Discourse 270 has one sentence, said nine times: “The perception of impermanence, cultivated and much cultivated, can cut off all craving for sensual pleasure, craving for form, craving for the formless, restlessness, conceit, and ignorance.” There are eight similes. “It is like a farmer who at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn ploughs his field deep, turning up the roots and cutting the grass.” “It is like a man who mows grass, takes hold of its ends, lifts it and shakes it, so that the withered and dry falls away and he keeps what is long.” “It is like mango fruits on a tree when a fierce wind shakes the branches and the fruits all fall.” “It is like a tower whose central pillar is solid, on which all the timbers depend, which holds them together so that they do not scatter.” “It is like the footprints of all living beings: the elephant’s footprint is the largest, because it can contain them.” “It is like all the rivers of Jambudvīpa flowing to the great ocean; the great ocean is foremost, because it contains them all.” “It is like the sun rising and dispelling all the darkness of the world.” “It is like a wheel-turning king, highest and most excellent among all the lesser kings.” At the end it says how to cultivate it: “If a bhikṣu, in an open place or among forest trees, reflects well and rightly, contemplating that form is impermanent and that feeling, perception, formations and consciousness are impermanent.” Why can it cut these off? “The perception of impermanence can establish the perception of not self; the noble disciple dwelling in the perception of not self, his mind is free of conceit and goes on to nirvāṇa.”

The eight similes are of two kinds. The first three, ploughing deep, shaking the grass, wind shaking the fruit, speak of cutting off: roots turned up, the withered falling, the fruit all down. The last five, the central pillar, the elephant’s footprint, the great ocean, the sunrise, the wheel-turning king, speak of containing: one dharma stands, and all dharmas belong to it. The perception of impermanence on one side cuts off craving, restlessness, conceit and ignorance, and on the other side contains every practice. The last of the six things cut off is ignorance. The head of the fascicle said that ignorance is not knowing that form is impermanent; this discourse says that the perception of impermanence cuts off ignorance. Head and tail meet: not knowing impermanence is ignorance; cultivate the perception of impermanence, and ignorance is cut off. What lies between is the perception of not self: the perception of impermanence can establish the perception of not self, and dwelling in the perception of not self the mind is free of conceit. Impermanence is the door; not self is what one enters.

XI. Tiṣya (Discourse 271)

In Discourse 271 the bhikṣu Tiṣya says before the assembly in the dining hall: “Venerable ones, I do not discern the Dharma, I take no delight in living the pure conduct, I delight much in sleep, and I am in doubt about the Dharma.” A bhikṣu reports this to the World-Honored One. The World-Honored One first says that Tiṣya “does not guard the sense-doors, knows no measure in food, in the first and last watches of the night his mind is not awake, he is idle and lazy, not diligent, and does not well contemplate and reflect on wholesome dharmas”; for such a one to delight in discerning the Dharma, to be free of sleep and have no doubt about the Dharma, “there is no such possibility”; the reverse, “there is such a possibility.” Then he sends someone: “The teacher calls you.”

Tiṣya comes. The World-Honored One first asks whether it is true, and Tiṣya says it is. Then the World-Honored One does not preach; he asks: “If with regard to form one is not free of greed, not free of desire, not free of craving, not free of longing, not free of thirst, and that form changes and alters, what do you think: will sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering arise or not?” Tiṣya answers: they will. The World-Honored One says: “Good, good, Tiṣya! It is just so: this is the teaching for one not free of greed.” The same is asked of feeling, perception, formations and consciousness, and the same is answered. Then the reverse is asked: if with regard to form one is free of greed, desire, craving, longing and thirst, and that form changes and alters, will sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering arise? “No, World-Honored One!” Four questions, four answers, and three times the World-Honored One says good.

Then the World-Honored One says: “Now I shall give a simile; the wise understand by means of a simile.” “It is like two men travelling together on one road, one who knows the way well and one who does not know it.” The one who does not know asks the way, and the one who knows says: ahead you will see two roads; “leave the left and take the right and go on”; there will be pits, ravines and channels, leave the left and take the right; there will be a thicket, leave the left and take the right; go on little by little, and you will reach the city. The World-Honored One explains it himself: “The one who does not know the way stands for the foolish ordinary person. The one who knows the way stands for the Tathāgata, the Arhat, the Perfectly Awakened One. The two roads ahead are the doubt of beings.” “The left road is the three unwholesome things: the thoughts of greed, hatred, and harming. The right road is the three wholesome thoughts: the thought of renunciation and dispassion, of non-hatred, of non-harming.” Going on along the left road is the eightfold wrong path; along the right, the eightfold right path. “The pits, ravines and channels are hatred, hindrance, sorrow, and lamentation. The thicket is the five strands of sense pleasure. The city is final nirvāṇa.” At the end: “The Buddha is the teacher; for the śrāvakas what should be done has been done,” “you today should do what should be done: under a tree, or in an open place, or in a mountain cave, spread grass for a seat, reflect well with right mindfulness, cultivate heedfulness, and do not let there be regret in the mind later on. This is my instruction to you.”

Tiṣya says that he is in doubt about the Dharma and takes no delight in the pure conduct. The World-Honored One does not resolve his doubt for him; he lets him answer for himself. Not free of greed for form, when form changes, will there be suffering? He says yes. And when free of greed? He says no. The Dharma comes out of his own mouth, and the World-Honored One says only “it is just so.” Then he gives him a map of the road: at every fork, “leave the left and take the right”; the pits are hatred, sorrow and lamentation, the thicket the five sense pleasures, the city nirvāṇa. The discourse begins by saying that Tiṣya does not guard the sense-doors and knows no measure in food: the root of his doubt about the Dharma is not in the Dharma but in not guarding the sense-doors. The last words of the map are “this is my instruction to you.” The teacher calls you; the teacher instructs you; the road that follows is walked by oneself.

XII. Rebuking the Bhikṣus (Discourse 272)

The last discourse. There is a small dispute in the assembly, and the World-Honored One rebukes the bhikṣus; then he goes into the Andha Grove, sits alone, and thinks: “But in that assembly there are many young bhikṣus, not long gone forth, who, not seeing the teacher, may feel regret and be sorrowful and unhappy. Through the long night I have had a mind of compassion for the bhikṣus; now I should return and gather in that assembly, out of compassion.” The Great Brahmā King knows the Buddha’s thought, and “in the time it takes a strong man to bend and stretch his arm, vanishes from the Brahmā heaven and stands before the Buddha,” urging the World-Honored One to return and gather in the bhikṣus; the World-Honored One “consents by remaining silent.” He returns to the Jeta Grove, spreads his seat and sits upright, “and shows a subtle sign, so that the bhikṣus dare to come and see him.” The bhikṣus come, “with shame on their faces.”

The World-Honored One first says what going forth is: “One who has gone forth lives a lowly livelihood: head shaven, bowl in hand, begging food from house to house, as if under a spell.” Why so? “To seek the higher goal, to cross over birth, aging, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering, to make an end of suffering altogether.” “You did not go forth because you were driven by kings or robbers, nor as debtors, nor from fear, nor to save your lives.” Having gone forth for the higher goal, “how is it that among you there is still some foolish ordinary person who gives rise to greed and is deeply stained, who is violent in hatred, idle and base, who loses mindfulness and is unsettled, whose faculties are confused?” Two similes: “It is like a man who goes from darkness into darkness, from gloom into gloom, who comes out of the privy and falls into the privy again, who washes blood with blood, who leaves evil behind and takes up evil again.” “Again, it is like a brand from a corpse-fire, thrown away among the graves, which not even the woodcutters will pick up.” A piece of wood that has burned a corpse, thrown away in the burial ground: not even those gathering firewood will pick it up.

Then he speaks of the three unwholesome thoughts: “the thought of greed, the thought of hatred, the thought of harming; these three thoughts arise from perception.” Perception is of countless kinds; the perceptions of greed, hatred and harming, and from them the unwholesome thoughts arise. How are they ended altogether? “Fix the mind on the four foundations of mindfulness, dwell in the signless samādhi, cultivate it and cultivate it much, and evil and unwholesome things cease from this and are ended without remainder; it is precisely by this dharma.” “Cultivating the signless samādhi, having cultivated it much, one dwells at the door of the deathless, and so on to the deathless nirvāṇa at the end.” But with one condition: “I do not say that this deathless nirvāṇa belongs to one who relies on the three views.” The three views are “the life-principle is the body,” “the life-principle is one thing and the body another,” and “form is self, without duality, without difference, lasting forever and unchanging.” The learned noble disciple reflects: “Is there in the world any one thing that could be taken hold of without fault?” Having reflected, “he sees not one thing that could be taken hold of without fault.” To take hold of form is a fault; to take hold of feeling, perception, formations or consciousness is a fault. “Knowing this, he takes hold of nothing in the whole world; taking hold of nothing, he awakens to nirvāṇa of himself.”

The first half of this discourse is a matter between the World-Honored One and the community: he rebuked them, he left, he thought of the young bhikṣus’ regret, he came back. The Great Brahmā King came to urge him, but the World-Honored One had already decided, and consented in silence. The second half is the content of the rebuke. What is rebuked is not the dispute itself but this: why do those who went forth for the higher goal still give rise to greed, hatred and laziness? Out of the privy and into the privy again, washing blood with blood: going forth was the coming out, and they have gone back in. At the end it returns to the theme of the whole Connected Discourses on the Five Aggregates of Clinging: the deathless nirvāṇa does not belong to one who relies on the three views; there is not one thing in the world that can be taken hold of without fault; taking hold of nothing, one awakens to nirvāṇa of oneself. “Taking hold of nothing” is the closing sentence of this collection from Fascicle 1 to here.

XIII. How to Read the Fascicle

Fascicle 10 can be read from the one question at its head: “Not knowing what?” The first three discourses answer: not knowing that the five aggregates of clinging are impermanent, wear away, arise and cease; not knowing their arising, cessation and path; not knowing their arising, cessation, gratification, danger and escape. Every discourse that follows is some face of that answer. Not knowing, and so to seek unbroken comprehension one must reflect on the five aggregates of clinging (259); not knowing that the five aggregates of clinging are made by activity, and so not knowing what cessation is (260); not knowing what is born, and so reckoning a self on what is born (261); not knowing the middle way, and so asking “in that, how is there a self” (262); not knowing cultivation, and so setting the mind on the ending of outflows and not attaining it (263); not knowing that a self cannot be found, and so asking whether there is permanent form (264); not knowing that the five aggregates are like foam, a bubble, a mirage, a plantain, an illusion (265); covered by ignorance, and so circling the post (266 and 267); not knowing that form is not self, and so clutching the grass (268); not knowing what is not fitting for oneself, and so not relinquishing it (269); and the perception of impermanence, cultivated and much cultivated, cuts off ignorance (270); Tiṣya is in doubt about the Dharma, and the root is in not guarding the sense-doors (271); the young bhikṣus give rise to greed and hatred, not knowing why they went forth (272).

The closing summary verse: “To be taught; the small lump of earth; foam and bubbles; the two on not knowing,” “The river; the Jeta Grove; the tree; Tiṣya; the rebuke; the perceptions.” The small lump of earth is 264, foam and bubbles 265, the two on not knowing are the two discourses 266 and 267 on “not knowing as it really is,” the river 268, the Jeta Grove 269, the tree 270, Tiṣya 271, the rebuke 272. “To be taught” should point to 263, though the text has no such two words together; “the perceptions” should point to the perceptions of greed, hatred and harming at the end of 272, or to the perception of impermanence in 270. The base text does not explain itself, and both readings stand.

Fascicle 7 asked where views come from, and answered: because form exists, one sees a self. Fascicle 10 asks “not knowing what,” and answers: not knowing the five aggregates of clinging. A view is something set up; ignorance is something lacking. What is set up has to be pulled out; what is lacking has to be supplied. The way to supply it the discourses have said: reflect on the five aggregates of clinging as a disease and a boil (259); cultivate the foundations of mindfulness and the right exertions up to the eightfold path (263); cultivate and much cultivate the perception of impermanence (270); fix the mind on the four foundations of mindfulness and dwell in the signless samādhi (272). The six fascicles of the Connected Discourses on the Five Aggregates of Clinging begin with “contemplate form as impermanent” and end with “taking hold of nothing, he awakens to nirvāṇa of himself.”

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The Compendium of Topics, in its selection on formations, has no discourse-by-discourse mātṛkā for the seventeen discourses of this fascicle. Where what the treatise says touches what this fascicle says, it is recorded here for reference, without claiming correspondence. On the middle way of Discourse 262, the treatise speaks of how to answer: “If one posits that there is a being who is born and who ceases, this is one extreme, the extreme of over-affirming. If one posits that birth and ceasing do not exist at all, this is the second extreme, the extreme of denying. Only to establish birth and ceasing with regard to formations is the middle way, free of the two extremes.” The discourse says “one who rightly contemplates the arising of the world as it really is does not give rise to the view that the world does not exist; one who rightly contemplates the cessation of the world as it really is does not give rise to the view that the world exists,” and the treatise explains it with the two extremes of over-affirming and denying: that a being is born and ceases is over-affirming, that there is no birth or ceasing at all is denying, and to establish birth and ceasing with regard to formations is the middle way. Chanda’s question, “in that, how is there a self,” is by the treatise’s account a question from the extreme of over-affirming.

On the five similes of Discourse 265, the treatise says: “One comprehends that forms are like a mass of foam.” “One comprehends that feelings are like a floating bubble.” “One comprehends that perceptions are the same as a mirage.” “One comprehends that formations are like the trunk of a plantain.” “One comprehends that consciousnesses are comparable to an illusion.” And it explains the point of each simile: form, “because it is born from the water element, because it appears as self though there is no self, because it does not stay and is not made according to one’s wish”; feeling, “because it resembles what is born from the meeting of three”; perception, “because it resembles what can display, can burn, and can cause confusion in the object known”; formations, “because the root of the view of the body is cut, because the causes of the many kinds of self-nature differ, because they resemble what does not stay even for a moment after its instant”; consciousness, “because, resting on the four stations of consciousness, it resembles what gives rise to various self-natures that follow along.” The discourse uses the similes to say there is nothing solid; the treatise says what likeness each simile takes.

On the perception of impermanence of Discourse 270, the treatise lists its fruit: “Cultivating this perception can dispel all craving for sensual pleasure, craving for form, and craving for the formless, restlessness, conceit, and ignorance.” And it speaks of three root defilements with three companions: “The defilement of craving for sensual pleasure has restlessness as its companion; the defilement of craving for form has conceit as its companion; the delusion of craving for the formless has ignorance as its companion.” The discourse lists six things cut off; the treatise reads them as three pairs: restlessness accompanies craving for sensual pleasure, conceit accompanies craving for form, ignorance accompanies craving for the formless. The treatise also speaks of the way to cultivate it: “Dwelling alone in a quiet place, with undistorted attention again and again, one contemplates the impermanent nature of formations. Through the perception of impermanence one dwells in the perception of not self.” The discourse says “the perception of impermanence can establish the perception of not self; the noble disciple dwelling in the perception of not self,” and the treatise’s words are the same.

The mirror simile of Discourse 261 has a different use in the treatise: “It is like the surface of a clean round mirror: resting on the original, an image arises; resting on the image, with regard to one’s own basis there arise the perceptions of inferior, middling and superior.” The discourse uses the mirror to say that because it appears one sees it; the treatise uses the mirror to say that from the view of self conceit arises: the original gives rise to the image, and the image gives rise to perceptions of superior and inferior. The two uses differ, but both take the image in the mirror as something that arises in dependence on another. For the “bound by the bond of craving” of Discourses 266 and 267, the treatise distinguishes bond from chain: “If with regard to that object one is bound by the bond of craving, this is called running about; if with regard to that object one is bound by the chain of craving, this is called turning in the round.” And it says: “Here ignorance is called the cause of craving.” The discourse says covered by ignorance and bound by the bond of craving; the treatise makes ignorance the cause of craving. For the signless samādhi and the door of the deathless of Discourse 272, the treatise says: “In order to cut off the wrong perceptions, one cultivates the signless samādhi of the mind.” “That is, when one cultivates it, one is able to realize the signless concentration of the mind and to dwell at the excellent door of the deathless of the two realms, namely the realm of cutting off and the realm of no desire.” The discourse says that the three thoughts arise from perception, that dwelling in the signless samādhi ends them, and that one dwells at the door of the deathless; the treatise says that the signless concentration cuts off wrong perceptions, and that the door of the deathless is the realm of cutting off and the realm of no desire. For the chicks coming out of the shell in Discourse 263, the treatise has the words “making the dharmas of the learner break the eggshell of ignorance and go on to the stage of the one beyond learning,” using the shell as a figure for ignorance; the discourse uses the chicks breaking out of the shell as a figure for the ending of outflows. The figures differ, but both take the breaking of the shell and the coming out.

The six fascicles of the Connected Discourses on the Five Aggregates of Clinging asked about form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness. From Fascicle 8 the question changes: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. Of the forty-two discourses of Fascicle 8, thirty are spoken at Śrāvastī, in the Jeta Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park; three others at the Gayāśīrṣa shrine, on Vulture Peak at Rājagṛha, and in the Kalandaka Bamboo Grove at Rājagṛha; and nine at Vaiśālī, in the Mango Grove of Jīvaka Kumāra the Physician. Most are addressed to the bhikṣus; three to Rāhula (198 to 200), two to Ānanda (204 and 205), one to Pūrṇa (215), one to a thousand bhikṣus (197). The first sentence of the fascicle is “One should rightly contemplate the eye as impermanent”; the last is “the supramundane: this is called a thing without outflows.” The forty discourses in between all begin from the eye; each one, having spoken of the eye, goes on to ear, nose, tongue, body and mind.

The form of teaching in this fascicle is very fixed: first a teaching is set out, then it is unfolded over the six sense bases, then the fruit of contemplating these six is stated. The fruit is mostly one of three sentences: “I say the mind is rightly liberated”; “able to rightly end suffering”; “one knows for oneself that one will not take up any further existence.” The teaching set out changes; the form does not. So in reading this fascicle, what one has to watch is what teaching each discourse sets out, and what it takes as the object of contemplation.

I. One Should Rightly Contemplate the Eye as Impermanent (Discourses 188 to 194)

Seven discourses, one setting, one speaker, one form. The first says: “One should rightly contemplate the eye as impermanent. One who contemplates thus is said to have right view. Through right contemplation weariness arises; through weariness one leaves delight and leaves craving; having left delight and craving, I say the mind is rightly liberated.” Ear, nose, tongue, body and mind likewise. The last sentence of the discourse: “As with impermanent, so with suffering, empty and not self: it is spoken the same way.” One discourse is four. The order of contemplation is: right contemplation, right view, weariness arising, leaving delight and craving, the mind rightly liberated. The second discourse changes to “right reflection”: “One should rightly reflect on the eye and contemplate it as impermanent. Why? Because one rightly reflects on the eye and contemplates it as impermanent, desire and craving for the eye are cut off; desire and craving being cut off, I say the mind is rightly liberated.” The first discourse says leaving delight and leaving craving; the second says desire and craving cut off. The same thing.

The third and fourth discourses speak from the negative side. “If one does not cognize, does not know, does not cut off and does not become free of desire toward the eye, one is not able to rightly end suffering.” Four negatives: not cognize, not know, not cut off, not free of desire. Cognizing and knowing belong to seeing; cutting off and freedom from desire belong to cultivation. Lacking any one of the four, one is not able to rightly end suffering. The fourth discourse replaces “rightly end suffering” with “cross beyond the suffering of birth, old age, sickness, and death”; the rest is the same. The fifth and sixth discourses change the set again: “If one is not free of desire toward the eye and the mind is not liberated, one is not able to rightly end suffering.” The sixth adds one word: “If one is not free of desire toward the eye and forms, and the mind is not liberated, one is not able to cross beyond the suffering of birth, old age, sickness, and death.” The fifth speaks of the eye, the sixth of the eye and forms. The object of contemplation widens from the internal sense base to the external, and this fascicle widens it this way many times further on.

The seventh discourse speaks of delight: “One who delights in the eye delights in suffering; one who delights in suffering, I say, is not liberated from suffering.” To delight in the eye is to delight in suffering. This sentence sets the eye and suffering as equal. The first six discourses say the eye is impermanent and say to be free of desire toward the eye; the seventh gives the reason: the eye itself is suffering, and to delight in the eye is to delight in suffering.

II. All Is Impermanent (Discourses 195 and 196)

The eighth discourse asks: “All is impermanent. What is it that is all impermanent? The eye is impermanent; forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant, these too are impermanent.” In this fascicle “all” has a definition: the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, the three feelings. Each of the six sense bases likewise. The discourse does not say “all things”; it says “all,” and then lists what all is. The learned noble disciple grows weary of this all: “weary, one does not delight; not delighting, one is liberated.”

The ninth discourse says it again, the object the same, the fruit changed to “I say that one is liberated from birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering.” At the end of the discourse comes a long passage: “As all is said to be impermanent, so all is suffering, all is empty, all is not self, all is a thing of empty activity, all is a thing that breaks, all is a thing of birth, all is a thing of old age, all is a thing of sickness, all is a thing of death, all is a thing of grief, all is a thing of affliction, all is a thing of arising, all is a thing of cessation, all is a thing to be known, all is a thing to be cognized, all is a thing to be cut off, all is a thing to be awakened to, all is to be realized, all is Māra, all is Māra’s power, all is Māra’s instrument, all is kindled, all is blazing, all is burning: all as broadly spoken in the two discourses above.” Twenty-four occurrences of “all,” each replacing “impermanent” in the first sentence, the rest of the text unchanged. All is Māra, all is Māra’s instrument, all is burning: what is spoken of is still the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact and feeling. This passage lists in advance the discourses to come: “all is burning” is the next discourse; “all is a thing to be known, all is a thing to be cognized” is Discourse 222.

III. All Is Burning (Discourse 197)

The tenth discourse has a different setting. “The Buddha was staying at the Gayāśīrṣa shrine together with a thousand bhikṣus, all of them former matted-hair brahmins.” For the thousand bhikṣus the World-Honored One performs three displays: “the display of supernormal power and transformation, the display of others’ minds, the display of instruction.” The display of supernormal power is entering the fire samādhi, “emitting fire-light of every kind, blue, yellow, red, white, crimson, the colour of crystal, water and fire appearing together”; the display of others’ minds is “as is their mind, as is their intent, as is their consciousness: this they should think, this they should not think”; the display of instruction is simply teaching the Dharma: “Bhikṣus, all is burning. What is it that is all burning? The eye is burning; forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant, these too are burning.” Burning with what? “Burning with the fire of craving, burning with the fire of hatred, burning with the fire of delusion, burning with the fire of birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering.” Hearing this, the thousand bhikṣus “gave rise to no outflows, and their minds were liberated.”

Of the three displays, the first two are supernormal transformations; the third is teaching. The discourse calls teaching too a display, set side by side with supernormal power and others’ minds. The fire samādhi emits fire: that is the display of supernormal power. Saying that all is burning: that is the display of instruction. The former displays fire; the latter displays what the fire burns. For matted-hair brahmins who had once served the fire, the form of teaching of this fascicle, the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact and feeling, is used here, and the “all” it speaks of is exactly what the fire they worshipped burns.

IV. Rāhula (Discourses 198 to 200)

Three discourses are spoken to Rāhula. In the first Rāhula asks: “How should I know, how should I see this conscious body within and all external signs, so that I, mine, and the fetter of conceit that binds do not arise?” The World-Honored One answers: “The eye, whether past, future or present, internal or external, coarse or fine, fair or foul, far or near, all of it one knows as it really is to be not self, not other than self, not within one another.” Knowing and seeing thus, “this is called cutting off craving, turning away the bonds, rightly attaining unbroken comprehension, and reaching the utter end of suffering.” A passage at the end widens the object: “As with the internal sense bases, so with the external sense bases, forms, sounds, odours, tastes, tangibles and mental objects; eye-consciousness, and ear-, nose-, tongue-, body- and mind-consciousness; eye-contact, and ear-, nose-, tongue-, body- and mind-contact; feeling born of eye-contact, and feeling born of ear-, nose-, tongue-, body- and mind-contact; perception born of eye-contact, and perception born of ear-, nose-, tongue-, body- and mind-contact; volition born of eye-contact, and volition born of ear-, nose-, tongue-, body- and mind-contact; craving born of eye-contact, and craving born of ear-, nose-, tongue-, body- and mind-contact: all as said above.” Internal sense bases, external sense bases, consciousness, contact, feeling, perception, volition, craving: eight classes, each of six kinds. These eight classes are the whole of what this fascicle contemplates in the six sense bases, listed in full here for the first time.

The second discourse has the same question and the same answer, with one more sentence in the fruit: “Thus the bhikṣu goes beyond the two, leaves all signs, and is liberated in quiescence.” “Goes beyond the two”: what the two are, the discourse does not itself explain; Discourse 213 below says “the eye and forms are the two,” which may be consulted. The third discourse is the longest in the fascicle. Rāhula asks the World-Honored One to teach him the Dharma, wishing to “dwell alone in a quiet place, reflect with full attention, and abide heedfully.” The World-Honored One observes that Rāhula’s “wisdom of liberation is not yet ripe; he is not yet able to receive the higher teaching,” and asks: “Have you taught people the five aggregates of clinging?” Not yet. “You should expound the five aggregates of clinging to people.” He does, and comes again to ask for the Dharma; the World-Honored One observes again and asks again: “Have you taught people the six sense bases?” Not yet. “You should expound the six sense bases to people.” He does, and comes again; then he is asked about the nidāna teaching. After these three rounds of teaching others, the World-Honored One tells him, “on the teachings spoken above, alone in a quiet place, reflect with full attention and contemplate their meaning.” Rāhula reflects and weighs them, and thinks: “All these teachings tend toward nirvāṇa, flow into nirvāṇa, and come to rest in nirvāṇa.” The World-Honored One observes his mind, “the knowledge of liberation is ripe; he is able to receive the higher teaching,” and only then says: “Rāhula, all is impermanent. What things are impermanent? The eye is impermanent; forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact…” as broadly spoken above. Rāhula reflects alone in a quiet place and becomes an arhat.

The sequence of this discourse has to be watched: the five aggregates of clinging, the six sense bases, the nidānas, first taught to others, then reflected on oneself, and only then is one able to receive the higher teaching. What does the higher teaching say? “All is impermanent. What things are impermanent? The eye is impermanent.” The same sentence as Discourse 195, differing only in the wording of the question. The same sentence, not spoken while the knowledge of liberation is unripe, spoken once it is ripe. The five aggregates of clinging are the preceding six fascicles; the six sense bases are this fascicle; the nidānas come after. The three classes of teaching Rāhula had expounded are what the first three collections of the Saṃyukta Āgama teach.

V. Swiftly Attaining the Exhaustion of Outflows in Due Order (Discourses 201 and 202)

A certain bhikṣu asks: “How should one know, how should one see, so as swiftly to attain the exhaustion of outflows in due order?” The answer: “One should rightly contemplate impermanence. What things are impermanent? The eye is impermanent; forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant: one should contemplate them as impermanent.” Knowing and seeing thus, one “exhausts the outflows in due order.” A passage at the end, “if there is a difference,” lists other ways of asking the same question: “How should one know, how should one see, so as in due order to exhaust all bonds, to cut off all bindings, cut off all fetters, cut off all upper defilements, cut off all bonds, cut off the floods, cut off the yokes, cut off the clingings, cut off the contacts, cut off the hindrances, cut off the entanglements, cut off the stains, cut off the cravings, cut off the intentions, cut off wrong view and give rise to right view, cut off ignorance and give rise to knowledge?” Bonds, bindings, fetters, upper defilements, floods, yokes, clingings, contacts, hindrances, entanglements, stains, cravings, intentions, with wrong view and ignorance added. The answer is entirely the same: contemplate the eye as impermanent. Sixteen items, bonds appearing twice, fifteen kinds of question, one answer.

The second discourse asks how “in due order the view of self is cut off and the view of not self arises,” and answers: “One rightly contemplates the eye as not self; forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant, these too one rightly contemplates as not self.” The former discourse contemplates impermanence to cut off the outflows; this one contemplates not self to cut off the view of self. What is cut off differs; the object contemplated is the same: the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, feeling.

VI. Cutting Off One Thing (Discourses 203 to 205)

The setting moves to Vaiśālī. The World-Honored One says: “If a bhikṣu can cut off one thing, he attains right knowledge and can declare of himself: ‘My birth is exhausted, the pure conduct is established, what was to be done is done, I know for myself that I will not take up any further existence.’” The bhikṣus ask him to explain. “What one thing is it, by cutting off which one attains, and so on up to, not taking up any further existence? Ignorance: with freedom from desire, knowledge arises and one attains right knowledge.” The one thing is ignorance. A certain bhikṣu asks further: “How should one know, how should one see ignorance, so that with freedom from desire knowledge arises?” The answer: “One should rightly contemplate the eye as impermanent; forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant, these too one rightly contemplates as impermanent.” Fascicle 10 asked what it is that one does not know, and answered: not knowing the five aggregates of clinging as impermanent. Here the question is how to cut off ignorance, and the answer is to contemplate the eye as impermanent. Ignorance is not knowing impermanence; cutting off ignorance is contemplating impermanence. The object changes from the five aggregates to the six sense bases; the answer is the same.

The second discourse is to Ānanda: “One should know the eye as it really is and see it as it really is; the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant, these too one knows as they really are and sees as they really are.” Knowing and seeing as it really is, weariness arises; “weary, one does not delight; not delighting, one is liberated.” In the third, “the World-Honored One, having spoken all the udāna verses,” tells Ānanda: “The eye is impermanent, suffering, changing, of a differing nature; forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant, these too are impermanent, suffering, changing, of a differing nature.” Impermanent, suffering, changing, of a differing nature: four words spoken together. The content of the udāna verses the base text does not record.

VII. Skilful Means and Meditative Reflection (Discourses 206 to 208)

Three discourses speak of cultivation. “One should strive with skilful means in meditative reflection, inwardly stilling the mind. Why? Bhikṣu, with skilful means in meditative reflection, inwardly stilling the mind, things thus become manifest to knowledge as it really is. In what do they become manifest to knowledge as it really is? In the eye they become manifest to knowledge as it really is; forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant, these too become manifest to knowledge as it really is.” The last sentence: “These things are impermanent and conditioned; this too becomes manifest to knowledge as it really is.” What meditative reflection and inward stilling yield is “becoming manifest to knowledge as it really is”: the eye and the rest, up to feeling, become manifest as they really are, manifest as impermanent and conditioned. The second discourse changes to “one should cultivate the measureless samādhi, diligently binding mindfulness”; the rest is the same. Meditative reflection and samādhi: the two discourses give two names for one thing.

The third discourse speaks of the three times: “The past and future eye are impermanent, how much more the present eye. The learned noble disciple who contemplates thus does not look back to the past eye, does not long for the future eye, and toward the present eye is weary, does not delight, is free of desire, and turns toward weariness.” The past and future eye are impermanent; the present eye needs no saying. Not looking back and not longing are toward the past and future; weariness, not delighting and freedom from desire are toward the present. The end of the discourse says this one discourse is four: “As with impermanent, so with suffering, empty and not self: it is spoken the same way.” And: “As the four discourses on the internal sense bases, so four discourses on the external sense bases, forms, sounds, odours, tastes, tangibles and mental objects, and four discourses on the internal and external sense bases: they are spoken the same way.” One discourse is twelve.

VIII. The Six Sense Bases of Contact (Discourses 209 to 211)

The twenty-second discourse sets out a name: “There are six sense bases of contact. What are the six? The eye as sense base of contact; the ear, nose, tongue, body and mind as sense bases of contact.” Ascetics and brahmins who “do not know as they really are the arising, cessation, gratification, danger and escape of these six sense bases of contact, know that such ascetics and brahmins are far from my Dharma and Discipline, as the sky is from the earth.” A certain bhikṣu rises and says that he himself fully knows this as it really is. The World-Honored One asks: “Do you see the eye as sense base of contact as self, as other than self, as within one another?” He answers no. The World-Honored One says, well done: “one who knows and sees as it really is that this eye as sense base of contact is not self, not other than self, not within one another, gives rise to no outflows, the mind is not defiled, the mind is liberated; this is called the first sense base of contact already cut off, already known, cut off at its root, like a palmyra tree cut off at the crown, never to arise again in future, namely eye-consciousness and forms.” Arising, cessation, gratification, danger and escape are the form of the question; not self, not other than self, not within one another are the form of the answer. The bhikṣu says he knows arising, cessation, gratification, danger and escape; the World-Honored One tests him with not self. The palmyra tree cut off at the crown first appears in this fascicle here.

The twenty-third discourse speaks of the hell of the six sense bases of contact and the heaven of the six sense bases of contact. “Do not delight, do not grieve. Why? There is a hell of the six sense bases of contact; beings born in that hell see with the eye only unlovely forms and do not see lovely forms,” and for this reason they experience only sorrow and suffering; conversely, “there are six sense bases of contact where beings born there see with the eye what is lovely and do not see what is unlovely,” and they long experience only delight and happiness. Hell and heaven are both spoken of through the six sense bases of contact: only what is seen is lovely or unlovely. The opening four words, “do not delight, do not grieve”: neither delight nor grieve, because delight and grief are both the six sense bases of contact.

In the twenty-fourth discourse the World-Honored One speaks of himself: “Before, when I had not yet attained right awakening, alone in a quiet place, in meditative reflection I considered: ‘Toward what does my mind mostly turn when I observe it?’ My mind mostly chased after the five strands of sense pleasure of the past, little after those of the present, and toward the future world still less.” Seeing that his mind mostly chased after the past five strands of sense pleasure, he “made utmost effort and diligently guarded himself,” and gradually drew near to awakening. Then he tells the bhikṣus the reason: “With the eye seeing forms as condition, an inner feeling arises, painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant.” “Therefore, bhikṣus, be mindful and aware of those sense bases: when the eye ceases, the perception of forms departs. When ear, nose, tongue, body and mind cease, the perception of mental objects departs.” The Buddha says: “Be mindful of the six sense bases.” He enters his dwelling and sits in meditation. The many bhikṣus do not understand the brief saying and go to ask Ānanda. Ānanda says: “What the World-Honored One said in brief is a teaching with a remainder, on the cessation of the six sense bases; hence he said: ‘When the eye as sense base ceases, the perception of forms departs; when the ear, nose, tongue, body and mind as sense bases cease, the perception of mental objects departs.’”

This discourse is the doctrinal centre of the fascicle. The World-Honored One’s own practice is to observe where the mind chases; seeing it chase the past five strands of sense pleasure, he guards himself. Why is guarding effective? Because feeling arises with the eye seeing forms as condition: not chasing the five strands of sense pleasure, one does not give rise to defiled feeling following the eye and forms. “Be mindful of the six sense bases” is the brief saying; Ānanda’s expansion adds only one sentence: this is “a teaching with a remainder, on the cessation of the six sense bases.” What is spoken of is the cessation of the six sense bases. When the eye ceases, the perception of forms departs; it is not forms that cease, it is the eye. This fascicle has spoken of contemplating the eye as impermanent, being free of desire toward the eye, the eye as not self; here it speaks of the eye ceasing. Ānanda says no more, because what the World-Honored One said was already enough.

IX. Heedful Conduct (Discourse 212)

Back to Śrāvastī. “I do not teach heedful conduct to all bhikṣus, nor do I fail to teach heedful conduct to all bhikṣus.” Those to whom he does not teach it are the arhats, “those bhikṣus have already practised heedfulness and are no longer capable of any heedless act.” Those to whom he teaches it are bhikṣus “still at the stage of training, who have not yet attained the higher security of mind and intent, and dwell turned toward nirvāṇa.” Why must it be taught to bhikṣus at the stage of training? “Those forms that eye-consciousness can delight in and be defiled by, that bhikṣu, having seen them, does not delight in, does not praise, is not defiled by, does not dwell bound to; because he does not delight, does not praise, is not defiled, does not dwell attached, he advances with full attention, body and mind come to rest, the mind abides utterly secure and does not forget, is constantly concentrated and unified, with measureless joy in the Dharma; he only attains the foremost samādhi attainment and never falls back to follow the eye and forms.” Heedful conduct falls on the lovely forms of eye-consciousness: having seen them, not delighting, not praising, not defiled, not attached. The difference between the stage of training and the stage beyond training lies in whether there is still work to be done at this one point.

X. The Two Things (Discourses 213 and 214)

“I will expound to you the two things. Listen closely, consider well. What are the two? The eye and forms are the two. Ear and sounds, nose and odours, tongue and tastes, body and tangibles, mind and mental objects are the two: these are called the two things.” There are ascetics and brahmins who say “these are not two”; the World-Honored One says of them, “they have only words; asked, they do not know, and their doubt only increases, because it is not their domain.” Then he says why they are two: “Conditioned by the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises; the meeting of the three is contact; conditioned by contact, from contact arises feeling, painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant. One who does not know as they really are the arising of this feeling, its cessation, its gratification, its danger and the escape from it, sows the bodily contact of desire, the bodily contact of hatred, the bodily contact of clinging to precepts, the bodily contact of the view of self, and also sows and increases every evil and unwholesome thing. Thus the whole mass of suffering arises from arising.” Conversely, knowing as it really is, one “does not sow the bodily contact of desire, the bodily contact of hatred, the bodily contact of clinging to precepts, the bodily contact of the view of self, does not sow evil and unwholesome things. Thus evil and unwholesome things cease, and the whole mass of suffering ceases.”

The two things are the eye and forms. Conditioned by the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises; the meeting of the three is contact; from contact arises feeling. Earlier in this fascicle, “the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition” was always just a list; only in this discourse is it said how they join: condition, meeting, condition. Once joined, the fork is at feeling: knowing or not knowing feeling as it really is. Not knowing, one sows four bodily contacts, desire, hatred, clinging to precepts, the view of self; knowing, one does not sow. The word “sows” is exact: what is sown by not knowing feeling as it really is are the defilements that follow.

The second discourse: “There are two conditions for the arising of consciousness. What are the two? The eye and forms, ear and sounds, nose and odours, tongue and tastes, body and tangibles, mind and mental objects.” Then it states the nature of the three: “With the eye and forms as condition eye-consciousness arises, and it is impermanent, conditioned, arisen from the mind as condition; forms, the eye, and consciousness are impermanent, conditioned, arisen from the mind as condition; the meeting of these three is contact, from contact feeling, from feeling volition, from volition perception, and all these things are impermanent, conditioned, arisen from the mind as condition, namely contact, perception, volition.” Eye, forms and consciousness are impermanent, conditioned, arisen from the mind as condition; the contact of the three meeting, and feeling, volition and perception, are likewise impermanent, conditioned, arisen from the mind as condition. What arises from conditions is impermanent, and what the impermanent conditions is impermanent too. This discourse gathers everything listed before into the six words “impermanent, conditioned, arisen from the mind as condition.”

XI. Directly Visible (Discourse 215)

Pūrṇa asks about six phrases: “The World-Honored One speaks of what is directly visible, of quenching the burning, of not dependent on time, of rightly directed, of to be seen right here, of realized for oneself. World-Honored One, what is ‘directly visible,’ and so on up to ‘realized for oneself’?” The World-Honored One answers: “A bhikṣu, having seen forms with the eye, is aware of the forms and aware of craving for the forms: within me there is craving for forms in eye-consciousness, and that within me there is craving for forms in eye-consciousness he knows as it really is.” This is the directly visible teaching. The other five phrases are answered together: “A bhikṣu, having seen forms with the eye, is aware of the forms and gives rise to no awareness of craving for forms: within me there is no craving for forms in eye-consciousness, no awareness of craving for forms arises, and this he knows as it really is.” Knowing as it really is that one gives rise to no craving for forms, “this is called quenching the burning, not dependent on time, rightly directed, to be seen right here, realized for oneself.”

The six phrases are often used in praise of the Dharma; this discourse asks what the six are, and the answer has only two levels: the eye sees forms, one knows there is craving for forms within, and knows it as it really is: this is directly visible; the eye sees forms, one knows there is no craving for forms within, and knows it as it really is: this is quenching the burning and the rest, up to realized for oneself. Directly visible is directly seeing that one has craving; quenching the burning and the rest is directly seeing that one has none. Whether there is or is not, both are knowing as it really is. The sentence “within me there is craving for forms in eye-consciousness” says that the craving is within, in eye-consciousness, not in the forms.

XII. The Ocean (Discourses 216 and 217)

Two discourses speak of the ocean. The first: “What is called the great ocean is what fools say, not what the noble ones say; this is only a large or small body of water. What is the ocean as the noble ones speak of it? When the eye has cognized forms, there is fond attachment, deep clinging, delight in the activities of body, speech and mind: this is called the ocean.” All the world “sinks in it, delighting, like a dog’s belly, like a tangle of grass, in this world and the next bound and chained.” The ocean fools speak of is water; the ocean the noble ones speak of is the fond attachment that follows the eye cognizing forms. The end of the discourse says this one discourse is many: “As with the activities of body, speech and mind, so with craving, hatred and delusion, old age, sickness and death: they are spoken the same way. As the three discourses on the five faculties, so the three discourses on the six faculties: they are spoken the same way.”

The second discourse puts it another way: “The eye is a person’s great ocean, and forms are its surging waves. One who can bear the surging waves of forms crosses the great ocean of the eye, and comes through the waves, the whirling waters, fierce creatures, and rākṣasī demons.” In the former discourse the ocean is attachment; in this one the ocean is the eye and forms are the waves. The eye itself is the ocean; forms strike against it as waves. Bearing the waves, one crosses the ocean. The verse: “The great ocean’s surging waves, the terror of fierce creatures and rākṣasas: hard to cross, yet one can cross; the arising left behind, forever without remainder; able to cut off all suffering, not taking up any remaining existence, gone forever to final nirvāṇa, never again returning to heedlessness.” “The arising left behind, forever without remainder” answers the fond attachment and deep clinging of the first discourse; when the arising is left behind, the ocean is crossed.

Reading the two together: the ocean is the eye, and it is also the attachment after the eye cognizes forms; the waves are forms. A person is in the ocean not because the water is deep but because there is an eye. This is the same point as Discourse 194, “one who delights in the eye delights in suffering,” put more vividly.

XIII. The Path Leading To (Discourses 218 to 221)

Four discourses speak of the path leading to. The first speaks of the path leading to the arising of suffering and the path leading to the cessation of suffering: “Conditioned by the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises; the meeting of the three is contact; conditioned by contact, feeling; conditioned by feeling, craving; conditioned by craving, clinging; conditioned by clinging, existence; conditioned by existence, birth; conditioned by birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering arise: thus the whole mass of suffering arises.” The cessation: “When contact ceases, feeling ceases; when feeling ceases, craving ceases; when craving ceases, clinging ceases; when clinging ceases, existence ceases; when existence ceases, birth ceases; when birth ceases, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, distress and suffering cease: thus the whole mass of suffering ceases.” This is dependent arising spoken from the six sense bases: eye, forms, consciousness, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, existence, birth, old age and death. Discourse 213 earlier went as far as contact and feeling and then divided knowing as it really is from not knowing; this discourse does not divide, but goes straight from feeling to craving, clinging, existence and birth. Both arising and cessation begin from contact.

The second: “I will now speak of the path leading to nirvāṇa. What is the path leading to nirvāṇa? Contemplating the eye as impermanent; forms, eye-consciousness, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant, these too are impermanent.” The path leading to nirvāṇa is contemplating the eye as impermanent. The third: “There is a path that resembles the one leading to nirvāṇa. What is the path that resembles the one leading to nirvāṇa? Contemplating the eye as not self; forms, eye-consciousness, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant, these too one contemplates as impermanent.” The path leading to nirvāṇa contemplates impermanence; the path that resembles it contemplates not self together with impermanence. The word “resembles” the base text does not itself explain; the two discourses stand side by side: contemplating impermanence is the path leading to nirvāṇa, contemplating not self is the path that resembles it. The fourth: “There is a path leading to all clinging. What is the path leading to all clinging? Conditioned by the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises; the meeting of the three is contact; conditioned by contact, feeling; conditioned by feeling, craving; conditioned by craving, clinging; because of clinging to what is clung to.” The path cutting off all clinging is “when contact ceases, feeling ceases; when feeling ceases, craving ceases; when craving ceases, clinging ceases.” Discourse 218 went on to existence, birth, old age and death; this one stops at clinging. Leading to clinging and cutting off clinging are both spoken from contact and feeling.

XIV. Things to Be Known, Things to Be Cognized, and Not Reckoning (Discourses 222 to 227)

Six discourses form a group. “One should know all things to be known, all things to be cognized.” What is all? “The eye is a thing to be known, a thing to be cognized; forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant, all these are things to be known, things to be cognized.” The next discourse: “I do not say that one reaches the utter end of suffering without knowing and cognizing even one thing.” The one thing means the eye and the rest, up to feeling. Discourse 224: “All things of desire are to be cut off. What are all the things of desire to be cut off? The eye is a thing of desire to be cut off.” Discourse 225: “I do not say that one reaches the utter end of suffering without knowing and cutting off even one thing.” Four discourses, two pairs: things to be known and cognized, and without knowing and cognizing one does not reach the end of suffering; things of desire to be cut off, and without knowing and cutting off one does not reach the end of suffering. Knowing is one pair, cutting off the other. What is to be known is the eye and the rest, up to feeling; what is to be cut off is likewise the eye and the rest. To say “the eye is a thing of desire to be cut off” is not to say that the eye is cut off; it says the eye is a thing of desire, and desire for it is to be cut off.

Discourse 226 speaks of not reckoning: “What is not reckoning? Not reckoning ‘I see forms,’ not reckoning the eye as mine, not reckoning them as belonging together; forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant, with these too one does not reckon pleasure as I or mine, does not reckon pleasure as belonging together.” Not reckoning “I see forms,” not reckoning the eye as mine, not reckoning them as belonging together. “One who does not reckon thus never clings to anything in the world; not clinging, one is not attached; not attached, one realizes nirvāṇa for oneself.” The last discourse of Fascicle 10 said “one who clings to nothing realizes nirvāṇa for oneself”; here there is one more step: not reckoning, therefore not clinging. Discourse 227 speaks of the danger of reckoning: “Reckoning is a disease, reckoning is a boil, reckoning is a thorn; because the Tathāgata dwells without reckoning, he is free of disease, free of boils, free of thorns.” A bhikṣu who wishes to dwell without reckoning should “not reckon the eye as I or mine, not reckon the eye as belonging.” The three similes of disease, boil and thorn were applied in the first six fascicles to the five aggregates of clinging; here they are applied to “reckoning.” Reckoning is the disease, not the eye.

XV. Increase and Decrease, With Outflows and Without (Discourses 228 and 229)

The second-to-last discourse: “I will now speak of the teaching on increase and the teaching on decrease. What is the teaching on increase? Conditioned by the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises; the meeting of the three is contact; conditioned by contact, feeling…” broadly spoken up to the whole mass of suffering arising: this is the teaching on increase; “when contact ceases, feeling ceases,” up to the whole mass of suffering ceasing: this is the teaching on decrease. Discourse 218 called them the path leading to the arising of suffering and the path leading to its cessation; here they are called the teaching on increase and the teaching on decrease, the same chain. The end of the discourse: “As with increase and decrease, so with things that arise, things that change in their base, things of arising, things of cessation: they are spoken as above.”

The last discourse: “What are things with outflows? The eye and forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant; the ear, nose, tongue, body, and the mind and mental objects, mind-consciousness, mind-contact, and the feeling arisen with mind-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant: the worldly, this is called a thing with outflows.” “What are things without outflows? The supramundane mind, and mental objects, mind-consciousness, mind-contact, and the feeling arisen with mind-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant: the supramundane, this is called a thing without outflows.” Things with outflows are all six sense bases, with the words “the worldly” added; things without outflows are the mind alone, with the word “supramundane” added. Eye, ear, nose, tongue and body are worldly; the mind is of two kinds, the worldly mind with outflows, the supramundane mind without. What is without outflows is not in eye, ear, nose, tongue or body; it is only in the mind. The forty-two discourses of this fascicle begin from the eye, and when the last discourse is reached, the eye is not among the things without outflows; the mind is. The fascicle opens with “one should rightly contemplate the eye as impermanent” and closes with “the supramundane mind.”

XVI. How to Read the Fascicle

The forty-two discourses of Fascicle 8 have only one set of objects: the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, the three feelings, each of the six sense bases alike, with perception, volition and craving added in Discourse 198. From beginning to end the text changes the teaching spoken on this one set: impermanent, suffering, empty, not self (188); right reflection (189); cognizing, knowing, cutting off, freedom from desire (190, 191); freedom from desire and the mind liberated (192, 193); not giving rise to delight (194); all (195, 196); burning (197); not self, not other than self, not within one another (198, 199); tending toward nirvāṇa (200); cutting off outflows and cutting off the view of self (201, 202); cutting off ignorance (203); knowing and seeing as it really is (204, 205); manifest through meditative reflection (206, 207); the three times (208); the six sense bases of contact (209 to 211); heedfulness (212); the two things and the meeting of the three (213, 214); directly visible (215); the ocean (216, 217); the path leading to (218 to 221); knowing, cutting off, not reckoning (222 to 227); increase and decrease, with outflows and without (228, 229).

The object does not change while what is said changes: this is the form of the fascicle. The six fascicles of the Connected Discourses on the Five Aggregates of Clinging were the same: the object was form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness, and what was said changed. The first sentence of Fascicle 1 is “one should contemplate form as impermanent”; the first sentence of Fascicle 8 is “one should rightly contemplate the eye as impermanent.” What changes between the two is only the object: form becomes the eye. In Discourse 200 the World-Honored One has Rāhula first teach the five aggregates of clinging, then the six sense bases, then the nidānas, and then speaks of all being impermanent; after the three classes of teaching, the “all is impermanent” that is spoken is the same sentence. The five aggregates of clinging and the six sense bases are two ways of listing; what both list is “all.”

The fascicle gives its own reading. In Discourse 211 the World-Honored One says in brief: “Be mindful of the six sense bases.” Ānanda expands: this is “a teaching with a remainder, on the cessation of the six sense bases.” When the eye ceases, the perception of forms departs. The whole fascicle speaks of contemplating the eye as impermanent, being free of desire toward the eye, the eye as not self, the eye as the ocean, the eye as a thing to be known, to be cognized, a thing of desire; and at this sentence what is spoken of is the eye ceasing. The eye ceasing is not the eye destroyed; this commentary reads it by taking Discourse 215’s “within me there is no craving for forms in eye-consciousness,” Discourse 212’s “never falls back to follow the eye and forms,” and Discourse 229’s “the supramundane mind.” To be mindful of the six sense bases is to be mindful at the eye and forms; once mindful, the eye and forms are still there, and the mind that followed the eye and forms is not.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The Compendium of Topics, in its Selection on the Sense Bases within the section on the discourses, marks its own scope: “Thus the selection on formations has been spoken. The selection on the sense bases I will now speak.” The general summary verse: “First establishing and so on, knowledge, sameness, and last, to be known, freedom from desire and so on.” The first particular summary verse: “Establishing, with difference, confused, not confused, instruction, liberation, defilements, deeds: all to be known as broadly spoken.” The treatise has no discourse-by-discourse mātṛkā for the forty-two discourses of this fascicle; where its topics touch the text of this fascicle, they are recorded here for reference, without claiming correspondence.

The topic of establishing speaks of feeling: “By five aspects one should know the establishing of the differences among feelings: first, by their own nature; second, by their basis; third, by their object; fourth, by their accompaniment; fifth, by that which they follow.” “By their own nature: there are three feelings, painful, pleasant, and neither painful nor pleasant. By their basis: there are six, namely eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. By their object: the six objects, forms and the rest.” The treatise takes feeling as centre; the six sense bases are the basis of feeling, the six objects are its object. Every discourse of this fascicle lists “the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, the feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant,” which is exactly basis, object, feeling, the three feelings. The topic of difference speaks of eight: “first, the difference of the internal sense bases; second, the difference of the external sense bases; third, the difference of the six classes of consciousness; fourth, the difference of the six classes of contact; fifth, the difference of the six classes of feeling; sixth, the difference of the six classes of perception; seventh, the difference of the six classes of volition; eighth, the difference of the six classes of craving.” The closing passage of Discourse 198 lists the internal sense bases, the external sense bases, consciousness, contact, feeling, perception, volition and craving, eight classes, in exactly the same order as these eight differences. The treatise gives the reason for the arrangement: “By the sense of the meeting of the three, the first three differences are established. By the sense of being the condition for feeling, the fourth difference is established. By the sense of the fruit of contact from the meeting of the three, the fifth difference is established.” Discourse 213, “conditioned by the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises; the meeting of the three is contact; conditioned by contact, from contact arises feeling,” is the sense of the meeting of the three.

The treatise further speaks of two kinds of all: “One should know that in brief there are two kinds of all: first, the partial all; second, the all of all. When it is said that all is impermanent, know that this rests on the partial all, only all formations, since it excludes the unconditioned. When it is said that all things are not self, know that this rests on the all of all.” Discourses 195 and 196 say “all is impermanent” and themselves define it as the eye and the rest, up to feeling; the treatise calls this the partial all, all formations. The topic of confusion speaks of three aspects: “Confusion by its own nature: by way of active entanglement, it is forgetting in the present life; by way of latent tendency, it is the forgetting that is to come. Confusion by its cause: in the establishing of feeling by five aspects, one is unable to realize that they are impermanent and so on.” Not confused, one “in the establishing of feeling by five aspects, is well able to realize their own marks and shared marks, and by this is able to cut off all defilements, awaken to the noble truths, and realize nirvāṇa.” Discourses 190 and 191 say that one who does not cognize, know, cut off and become free of desire toward the eye is not able to rightly end suffering, and that one who does is able; the treatise speaks of this as confusion and non-confusion.

The topic of instruction: “The Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, and the Buddha’s noble disciples, by three aspects rightly instruct the assembly of disciples. What are the three? First, instruction that leads; second, instruction that settles them on the object as is fitting; third, instruction that lets those taught attain their own good. These instructions, in this order, should be known as the three supernormal transformations.” In Discourse 197 the World-Honored One performs three displays for the thousand bhikṣus: supernormal power, others’ minds, instruction. The treatise takes the three instructions to be the three supernormal transformations, so that instruction too is one of the transformations; the discourse sets the three displays side by side, with teaching as the third display. Both take teaching the Dharma as a supernormal transformation. The topic of liberation speaks of those in training and beyond training: “In brief there are two kinds of accomplishment of liberation: first, of one in training; second, of one beyond training. One in training is one who possesses the samādhi likened to a diamond.” Discourse 212 distinguishes arhats from bhikṣus at the stage of training, and teaches heedful conduct to those at the stage of training.

The topic of defilements lists the nine bonds, the three bindings, the latent tendencies and so on: “There are nine kinds of thing that can bring about union; know that by these the differences of the nine bonds are established.” “Because one is bound by the binding of craving, toward objects that accord with pleasant feeling the mind cannot let go. So too, bound by the binding of hatred, toward objects that accord with painful feeling the mind cannot let go; bound by the binding of delusion, toward middling objects that accord with feeling neither painful nor pleasant the mind cannot let go. For this reason the three bindings are established.” The differential passage of Discourse 201 lists bonds, bindings, fetters, upper defilements, floods, yokes, clingings, contacts, hindrances, entanglements, stains and cravings, names that touch what the treatise lists under the topic of defilements; the treatise matches the three bindings to the three feelings, the binding of craving to pleasant feeling, the binding of hatred to painful feeling, the binding of delusion to feeling neither painful nor pleasant. Every discourse of this fascicle lists the three feelings; the treatise shows where the binding lies.

Fascicle 90 of the Selection on the Sense Bases speaks of the ocean: “The ocean is of two kinds: first, the ocean of water; second, the ocean of birth and death. By three aspects one should know how the ocean of water and the ocean of birth and death are not the same.” “The great ocean of water has for its nature one portion of form, and so has limit and measure; the great ocean of birth and death has for its nature all formations, and so is without limit or measure.” It also speaks of crossing over: “The great ocean of birth and death is established in three parts. For those not yet free of desire, by the difference of the five lovely objects; for those already free of desire, by the difference of the lovely things cognized by the mind; for those in training, by the difference of the six internal sense bases.” “One in training knows the six sense bases everywhere as suffering, and on that very object cultivates the right path.” Discourse 216 says that the ocean fools speak of is water, and the ocean the noble ones speak of is the fond attachment that follows the eye cognizing forms; Discourse 217 says the eye is a person’s great ocean. The treatise divides the ocean of water from the ocean of birth and death, and divides the ocean of birth and death into three by the five lovely objects, the things cognized by the mind, and the six internal sense bases; the discourse takes the eye as ocean and forms as waves, the treatise takes the six sense bases as the ocean that one in training must cross.

Fascicle 8 taught contemplating the eye as impermanent. In the twenty-six discourses of Fascicle 9 the question changes by one word: the world. In the first three discourses of the fascicle Sanmiliti asks three times, “What is called the world?” and the World-Honored One answers three times, and each answer is the eye. In the last discourse of the fascicle the brāhmaṇa Luxizhe asks, “What is a ‘door’?” and Mahākātyāyana answers: “The eye is a door, because it sees forms.” From the world to the door, the twenty-odd discourses in between say one thing: the world is on the eye, and the door is on the eye too.

The speaker in this fascicle is not only the World-Honored One. Of the twenty-six discourses, seventeen are spoken by the World-Honored One; in Discourse 234 the World-Honored One speaks in brief and Ānanda expounds; in Discourse 248 Ānanda questions Cunda; in Discourse 249 Ānanda questions Śāriputra; in Discourses 250 and 251 Mahākauṣṭhila questions Śāriputra; in Discourse 252 Śāriputra is with Upasena, and in the latter part the Buddha speaks the protective verse; in Discourse 253 Udāyin speaks for a brāhmaṇa woman; in Discourse 254 Śroṇa Koṭīkarṇa himself declares liberation in six respects; in Discourse 255 Mahākātyāyana speaks for the brāhmaṇa Luxizhe. The settings are many too: eight discourses at Śrāvastī, in the Jeta Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park; eight at Vaiśālī, in the Two-Storied Lecture Hall beside the Monkey Pond; six at Rājagṛha, on Vulture Peak and in the Kalandaka Bamboo Grove; the remaining four in the Kuru country, at Pāṭaliputra, in Kośala, and in Avanti. What is contemplated is still the six sense bases; the speakers and the places have changed, and so has the manner of teaching: this fascicle has many dialogues, many similes, and verses in ten places.

I. The World (Discourses 230 to 233)

Sanmiliti asks: “World-Honored One, what is spoken of as the world: what is called the world?” The World-Honored One answers: “The eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant. The ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, mental objects, mind-consciousness, mind-contact, and feeling arisen with mind-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant: this is called the world.” The world is the same set that Fascicle 8 contemplated. Why? “When the six sense bases arise, contact arises, and so on up to: the whole great mass of suffering arises.” Put the other way round: “If there were no eye, no forms, no eye-consciousness, no eye-contact, no feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition,” then “there would be no world, nor would any world be designated.” No eye, no world. It is not that the world vanishes; it is that there is nothing from which a world could be designated. The last sentence of the discourse: “As with the world, so with beings, and so with Māra: it is spoken the same way.” Beings, Māra: the same answer as for the world. Māra will appear many times later in this fascicle; here it is said first that Māra is the eye and so on up to feeling.

The second discourse asks the same question, and the answer changes one word: “Fragile, liable to break and perish: this is called the world.” “The eye is something fragile, liable to break and perish”; forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, feeling, “all of these too are fragile, liable to break and perish.” The third discourse asks about “the world is empty,” and the answer is: “The eye is empty, empty of what is permanent, constant, and not liable to change, empty of what is mine. Why? Such is its nature.” Empty of what? Empty of permanence, empty of constancy, empty of what is not liable to change, empty of what is mine. Why empty? “Such is its nature”: the nature of the eye is just so; no one makes it empty. Three discourses, three answers: the world is the eye and so on up to feeling; it is fragile, liable to break and perish; it is empty.

In the fourth discourse the World-Honored One speaks four sentences of his own accord: “I will now teach the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the path leading to the cessation of the world.” “What is the world? The six internal sense bases.” “What is the origin of the world? Craving for future existence, together with delight and craving, clinging here and there.” “What is the cessation of the world? When craving for future existence, together with delight and craving, clinging here and there, is cut off without remainder, abandoned, vomited out, exhausted, free from desire, ceased, stilled, gone.” “What is the path leading to the cessation of the world? The eightfold noble path.” This is the form of the four noble truths, with suffering replaced by the world. The world is the six internal sense bases; the origin of the world is craving; the cessation of the world is the cutting off of craving; the path is the eightfold noble path. The first three discourses say what the world is; the fourth says where it comes from and where it goes. It comes from craving, not from the eye.

II. Reaching the End of the World (Discourse 234)

The World-Honored One says one sentence in brief: “I do not say that anyone reaches the end of the world by travelling, nor do I say that without reaching the end of the world one makes an end of suffering.” Having said it, he enters his dwelling and sits in meditation. Both halves are “I do not say”: he does not say that anyone walks to the end of the world, and he does not say that one can end suffering without reaching the end of the world. The many bhikṣus do not understand, and they discuss it and ask Ānanda. Ānanda first says what the world is: “The world, the name of the world, the perception of the world, the words for the world, the speech about the world: all of these are counted as the world.” “The eye is the world, the name of the world, the perception of the world, the words for the world, the speech about the world: all of these are counted as the world.” The world, the name of the world, the perception of the world, the words that speak of the world: all count as the world, and all are on the eye. Then he says how one reaches the end: “The learned noble disciple knows as it really is the arising, the cessation, the gratification, the danger, and the escape in regard to the six sense bases: this is called the noble disciple who reaches the end of the world, knows the world, what the world values, and crosses beyond the world.” Reaching the end of the world is not walking there; it is knowing as it really is the arising, cessation, gratification, danger, and escape in regard to the six sense bases. The verse says: “Not one who walks about can reach the end of the world; not reaching the end of the world, one cannot escape the mass of suffering”; “the end of the world is only this: right knowledge sees it truly.” Two sentences of “I do not say” from the World-Honored One; Ānanda resolves them into one: the end of the world is reached by right knowledge, not by walking.

In Discourse 211 of Fascicle 8 the World-Honored One said in brief, “Be mindful of the six sense bases,” and it was Ānanda who expounded there too. Each of the two fascicles has one discourse where the World-Honored One speaks in brief and enters his dwelling and Ānanda expounds, and both expositions land on the six sense bases.

III. With a Teacher and with Attendant Disciples (Discourse 235)

“With a teacher and with attendant disciples, one dwells alone in suffering; without a teacher and without attendant disciples, one dwells alone in happiness.” With a teacher is suffering, without a teacher is happiness: to read this sentence one has to see how the discourse defines the teacher. “With the eye and forms as condition, evil, unwholesome thoughts arise, together with greed, hatred, and delusion; if a bhikṣu practises this, he is said to have a teacher; if he dwells beside it, he is said to be an attendant disciple.” The teacher is the evil, unwholesome thought that arises with the eye and forms as condition; when a bhikṣu practises it, the evil, unwholesome thought is his teacher; when he dwells beside the evil, unwholesome thought, he is its attendant disciple. “If that bhikṣu does not practise it, he is said to have no teacher; if he does not dwell depending on it, he is said to have no attendant disciples.” Of the bhikṣu with no teacher and no disciples, “I say that he attains the merit of pure conduct,” and “he establishes pure conduct under me, is able to rightly end suffering, and makes an end of suffering.” This discourse uses teacher and disciples as a simile, and what it likens is the relation between a person and his own evil thought: to practise it is to take it as one’s teacher; to dwell depending on it is to be its disciple. To dwell alone in happiness is not to take this teacher.

IV. The Pure Alms-Food Dwelling (Discourse 236)

After sitting in meditation during the day Śāriputra comes to see the World-Honored One. The World-Honored One asks which dwelling in meditation he entered, and Śāriputra answers: “World-Honored One, in the forest just now I entered the dwelling in the samādhi of emptiness.” The World-Honored One says: “Good, good, Śāriputra! You have now entered the dwelling in meditation of the elders and sat in meditation.” Śāriputra says the samādhi of emptiness; the World-Honored One says the dwelling in meditation of the elders: one dwelling, two names. Then he says how a bhikṣu who wishes to enter the meditation of the elders should train: “When entering the town, when going for alms, when leaving the town, he should reflect thus”: “Just now, as my eye saw forms, did desire, affection, or fond attachment arise?” The meditation of the elders is not only sitting in the forest; entering the town, on the almsround, leaving the town, one also asks oneself: when the eye saw forms, did fond attachment arise or not? If it arose, “that bhikṣu, in order to cut off what is evil and unwholesome, should diligently make effort, be able to fix his mindfulness, and train”; “just as when a person’s head or clothes are on fire, in order to put it out he should make heightened effort and diligently work to extinguish it.” If it did not arise, “that bhikṣu, by this root of goodness of joy and happiness, should day and night strive diligently, fix his mindfulness, and cultivate.” The discourse names itself: “This is called the bhikṣu purifying his alms-food while walking, standing, sitting, and lying down; therefore this discourse is called the Pure Alms-Food Dwelling.” The samādhi of emptiness, the dwelling in meditation of the elders, the Pure Alms-Food Dwelling: three names for one thing, knowing whether fond attachment is present when the eye sees forms. Dwelling in emptiness does not leave the almsround.

V. Final Nirvāṇa in This Very Life (Discourses 237 and 238)

The householder Ugra asks: “Why does one bhikṣu attain final nirvāṇa in this very life, and why does another bhikṣu not attain final nirvāṇa in this very life?” The answer: “If a bhikṣu, with eye-consciousness in regard to forms, is fondly attached and defiled, then because of that fond attachment and defilement he constantly depends on consciousness; being bound by it, being clung to by it, he does not attain final nirvāṇa in this very life.” With eye-consciousness in regard to forms fondly attached and defiled, one constantly depends on consciousness; depending on consciousness, one is bound and clung to. Conversely, “one who does not delight in and is not defiled by them does not depend on consciousness; not touching, not attaching, not clinging, these bhikṣus attain final nirvāṇa in this very life.” Attaining final nirvāṇa in this very life or not: the difference lies only in whether eye-consciousness is attached to forms. The end of the discourse says this discourse has three versions: “As with the discourse asked by the householder, so the discourse asked by Ānanda and the discourse spoken by the Buddha himself to the bhikṣus are spoken as above.” Asked by the householder, asked by Ānanda, spoken by the Buddha himself: the answer is entirely the same.

In the second discourse a certain bhikṣu asks: “By what cause and what condition does eye-consciousness arise?” The answer: “With the eye as cause and forms as condition, eye-consciousness arises. Why? When eye-consciousness arises, it is always with the eye and forms as cause and condition.” And so on to “all mind-consciousness arises with the mind and mental objects as cause and condition.” Consciousness comes from the eye and forms. The previous discourse said that depending on consciousness one is bound; this discourse says consciousness itself arises with the eye and forms as cause and condition. To depend on consciousness is to depend on something arisen from causes and conditions.

VI. Things Bound by the Bonds, and the Bonds (Discourses 239 and 240)

Two discourses of one form, each with a single answer. “What are things bound by the bonds? The eye and forms, the ear and sounds, the nose and odours, the tongue and tastes, the body and tangibles, the mind and mental objects: these are called things bound by the bonds. What are the bonds? Desire and craving: these are called the bonds.” “What are things clung to? The eye and forms, the ear and sounds, the nose and odours, the tongue and tastes, the body and tangibles, the mind and mental objects: these are called things clung to. What is clinging? Desire and craving: this is called clinging.” What is bound is the six sense bases and their six objects; the bond is desire and craving. What is clung to is the six sense bases and their six objects; the clinging is desire and craving. The eye and forms are not the bond; desire and craving are the bond. These two discourses are short, but the simile of the black ox and the white ox in Discourse 250 later in this fascicle says exactly this sentence.

VII. Rather a Copper Skewer Heated by Fire (Discourses 241 and 242)

The World-Honored One says: “For the foolish, unlearned worldling, bhikṣus, it would be better to burn out his eyes with a copper skewer heated by fire, setting them ablaze, than to grasp with eye-consciousness at the signs of forms and grasp at the secondary features. Why? Because by grasping at the signs of forms and grasping at the secondary features, one falls into the evil destinations like a sinking iron ball.” For the ear, rather a burning iron spike; for the nose and tongue, rather cutting with a sharp knife; for the body, rather piercing with a sharp spear of hard iron: one simile for each of the five bases. Then he speaks of sleep: “Bhikṣus, sleep is the life of the foolish, the livelihood of the deluded, without benefit, without merit; yet, bhikṣus, it would be better to sleep than to arouse thoughts toward those forms. If one arouses thoughts, one is sure to give rise to entanglement and dispute, to cause many to raise what is not meaningful, and to be unable to benefit and bring happiness to gods and humans.” Better to burn the eyes than grasp at the signs of forms; better to sleep than to arouse thoughts. Two “betters,” saying that the harm of grasping at signs and arousing thoughts is greater than the harm of blindness and of sleep.

The second half turns to the learned noble disciple. The noble disciple trains thus: “I would rather pierce my eyes with a blazing iron spear than grasp with eye-consciousness at the signs of forms and fall into the three evil destinations, suffering for a long night. From this day on I will reflect rightly”: “contemplating the eye as impermanent, conditioned, a thing arisen from the mind as condition; and forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant: these too are impermanent, conditioned, things arisen from the mind as condition.” The worldling’s “rather” is spoken for him by the World-Honored One; the noble disciple’s “rather” is spoken by himself, and he follows it with the sentence, “From this day on I will reflect rightly.” What is contemplated is “impermanent, conditioned, a thing arisen from the mind as condition.” This is the first place in the fascicle where “a thing arisen from the mind as condition” is said: the eye and forms, consciousness, contact, and feeling are all arisen with the mind as condition. For one who contemplates thus, “weariness arises toward the eye”; “through weariness one takes no delight; taking no delight, one is liberated.”

The second discourse has four phrases: “If one does not cognize, does not know, does not cut off, and does not become free of desire toward the eye, one is not able to rightly end suffering; if one cognizes, knows, cuts off, and becomes free of desire toward the eye, one is able to rightly end suffering.” It has the same form as Discourse 190 of Fascicle 8. The end of the discourse: “As with the four discourses on the eye, so up to the mind, twenty-four discourses, are spoken as above.” One discourse is twenty-four.

VIII. Māra (Discourses 243 to 247)

Five discourses speak of Māra. “If any bhikṣus relish the eye, it should be known that such ascetics and brāhmaṇas are not free, not released from Māra’s hand; bound by Māra’s bondage, they enter Māra’s snare.” Relishing the eye, one enters Māra’s snare; “one who does not relish the eye” “does not follow Māra, is released from Māra’s hand, and does not enter Māra’s snare.” The end of the discourse lists the same pattern: “As with relishing, so with rejoicing, praising, being defiled, standing firm, delighting, and hating: it is spoken the same way. As with the seven discourses on the internal sense bases, so the seven discourses on the external sense bases are spoken the same way.” Relishing, rejoicing, praising, being defiled, standing firm, delighting, hating: all seven are roads into Māra’s snare. The second discourse gives a name: “There are six hooks of Māra. What are the six? When the eye relishes and is attached to forms, this is a hook of Māra,” and so on to the mind relishing and being attached to mental objects. “If an ascetic or brāhmaṇa’s eye relishes and is attached to forms, it should be known that this ascetic or brāhmaṇa has Māra’s hook hooked in his throat, and is not free from Māra.” Hooked in the throat: the look of a fish caught on a hook.

The third discourse, spoken in the Kuru country, is the Discourse on the Four Kinds of Dharma. “There are forms cognized by the eye that are lovely, pleasing, delightful, attractive; a bhikṣu, having seen them, rejoices, praises, delights in, and stands firm in them. There are forms cognized by the eye that are unlovely, displeasing, undelightful, painful and repulsive; a bhikṣu, having seen them, feels anger and aversion. Such a bhikṣu is not free from Māra.” Rejoicing at the lovely, anger at the unlovely: both ends are in Māra’s hand. Conversely, “a bhikṣu, having seen them, knows them with joy but does not praise them, does not delight in or stand firm in them,” and toward the unlovely “does not feel anger or aversion”; “such a bhikṣu does not follow Māra; he is free.” The four kinds are: lovely and rejoicing, unlovely and angry, lovely and not praising, unlovely and not angry. The first two kinds enter Māra; the last two do not follow Māra.

In the fourth discourse Māra himself comes. Māra Pāpīyas transforms himself into a cart-driver, hair dishevelled, an ox-goad in his hand, and asks: “Gautama, have you seen my oxen?” The World-Honored One knows this is the evil Māra and asks: “Evil Māra, where are there oxen? What would you use oxen for?” Māra says to the Buddha: “Gautama, the eye’s sense base of contact is what I ride. The ear’s, nose’s, tongue’s, body’s, and mind’s sense bases of contact are what I ride.” Māra’s oxen are the six sense bases of contact. He asks again where the World-Honored One is going. The World-Honored One answers: “You have the eye’s sense base of contact, and the ear’s, nose’s, tongue’s, body’s, and mind’s sense bases of contact. Where there is no eye’s sense base of contact, no ear’s, nose’s, tongue’s, body’s, or mind’s sense base of contact: there you cannot reach, and there I go.” Māra has the six sense bases of contact; where the World-Honored One goes is where there are no six sense bases of contact, and Māra cannot get there. Māra’s verse says: “If there is always a self, all of that is mine; everything belongs to me: Gautama, where will you go?” The World-Honored One answers in verse: “If one says there is a self, what he speaks of as self is not; therefore know, Pāpīyas, that you have fallen into defeat by yourself.” Māra says that if there is a self then everything belongs to him; the World-Honored One says that the self which one speaks of as a self is no self, and Māra has fallen into defeat by himself. Māra asks again why he does not go alone but teaches others, and the World-Honored One answers: “If there are those who are free of Māra and ask the way to the far shore, for them I teach evenly, truly, forever without remainder; practising it in time, not heedless, they are forever free from Māra’s power.” In his last verse Māra likens himself to a hungry crow: “There is a stone like a lump of flesh; a hungry crow flies up wishing to eat it”; “now I am like the crow, and Gautama is like the stone”; “inwardly harbouring grief and poison, right there he vanished and was not seen.” Of the five discourses on Māra in this fascicle, only in this one does Māra appear in person, and he says himself what he rides: the six sense bases of contact. The end of Discourse 230 said, “and so with Māra: it is spoken the same way”; Māra is the eye and so on up to feeling, and here Māra confirms it himself.

The fifth discourse closes: “If an ascetic or brāhmaṇa’s eye keeps close to forms, he follows Māra’s power, and so on, and is not liberated from Māra’s snare.” If it does not keep close, he “does not follow Māra; he is free, and so on, and is liberated from Māra’s snare.” The end of the discourse lists the same pattern: “As with keeping close, so with being bound and attached, so with relishing, so with the neighbouring village; if one takes up and is bound and attached, what I seek and desire, thick and not relinquished, is spoken as above.”

IX. Consciousness Is Not Self (Discourse 248)

Ānanda asks the great Cunda: “As the World-Honored One, the Tathāgata, the Arhat, the Perfectly Awakened One knows and sees, he teaches that form made of the four great elements is designated and made manifest, and that this form of the four great elements is not self. Does the Tathāgata, the Arhat, the Perfectly Awakened One, as he knows and sees, also teach that consciousness is not self?” That form of the four great elements is not self, the World-Honored One has taught; has he taught that consciousness is not self? Cunda asks Ānanda to say it himself. Ānanda says it by question and answer: “Is there an eye, are there forms, is there eye-consciousness?” There is. “With the eye and forms as condition, does eye-consciousness arise?” It does. “If eye-consciousness arises from the eye and forms, is that cause, that condition, permanent or impermanent?” Impermanent. “That cause, that condition, gives rise to eye-consciousness; when that cause, that condition, is impermanent and changes, does that consciousness remain?” It does not remain. “When that thing can be known as arising and ceasing, would the learned noble disciple see in it a self, something other than self, or the one in the other?” He would not. Each of the six consciousnesses is asked once. The conclusion: “Therefore, venerable one, the Tathāgata, the Arhat, the Perfectly Awakened One, as he knows and sees, teaches that consciousness too is impermanent.”

Ānanda’s way of asking has a sequence: there are the eye, forms, and consciousness; consciousness arises with the eye and forms as condition; the cause and condition are impermanent; when the cause and condition change, consciousness does not remain; what can be known as arising and ceasing is not self. That consciousness is not self is not stated directly; it is inferred from the conditions of consciousness: the conditions are impermanent, consciousness cannot remain, its arising and ceasing can be seen, therefore it is not self. The simile is the plantain tree: “Just as a man takes an axe and goes into the mountains, sees a plantain tree, and thinks it fit for timber; he cuts the root, lops the leaves, hews the branches, and peels the bark, looking for its solid core; he peels it to the end and there is no solid part anywhere.” “So too the learned noble disciple rightly contemplates eye-consciousness, and ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-consciousness. When he rightly contemplates, there is nothing to grasp; since there is nothing to grasp, there is nothing to attach to; since there is nothing to attach to, he realizes nirvāṇa for himself.” This discourse answers Cunda’s question: the World-Honored One teaches that consciousness is not self, and this is how the teaching goes.

X. The Exhaustion of the Six Sense Bases of Contact (Discourse 249)

Ānanda asks Śāriputra: “When the six sense bases of contact are exhausted, free from desire, ceased, stilled, and gone, is there anything further remaining?” Śāriputra says: “Do not ask this.” He asks again, “Is there nothing remaining?” and again, “Is there both something remaining and nothing remaining, or neither something remaining nor nothing remaining?” and each time Śāriputra says that one should not ask thus. Ānanda asks why. Śāriputra answers: “When the six sense bases of contact are exhausted, free from desire, ceased, stilled, and gone, is there something remaining? That is empty talk. Is there nothing remaining? That is empty talk. Is there both something remaining and nothing remaining? That is empty talk. Is there neither something remaining nor nothing remaining? That is empty talk.” All four phrases are empty talk. Then what is not empty talk? “If one says: when the six sense bases of contact are exhausted, free from desire, ceased, stilled, and gone, free of all falsity, one attains final nirvāṇa: that is what the Buddha teaches.” Whether anything remains after the six sense bases of contact are exhausted cannot be asked in any of the four ways; the only thing that can be said is one sentence: free of all falsity, one attains final nirvāṇa. The four phrases are empty talk because all four ask about “remaining”: the six sense bases of contact are exhausted, and one still takes the language of the six sense bases of contact to ask. This discourse carries to its end what Discourse 230 at the head of the fascicle said, that with no eye there is no world, nor is any world designated: not designated means it cannot be asked about in terms of existence and non-existence.

XI. The Black Ox and the White Ox (Discourse 250)

Mahākauṣṭhila asks Śāriputra: “Does the eye bind forms, or do forms bind the eye?” and so on to “Does the mind bind mental objects, or do mental objects bind the mind?” Śāriputra answers: “The eye does not bind forms, nor do forms bind the eye, and so on to: the mind does not bind mental objects, nor do mental objects bind the mind. Venerable Mahākauṣṭhila, between them, if there is desire and craving, that is the bond.” The simile: “Just as two oxen, one black and one white, are bound together by one yoke and harness, and someone asks: ‘Does the black ox bind the white ox, or does the white ox bind the black ox?’ Is that a proper question?” Mahākauṣṭhila answers: “The black ox does not bind the white ox, nor does the white ox bind the black ox; but between them, the yoke and the harness, that is what binds them.” The eye and forms are the two oxen; neither binds the other. What binds is the yoke in between. The yoke is desire and craving. Discourse 239 said that the things bound by the bonds are the eye and forms and the bond is desire and craving; here the simile of the oxen makes it plain.

Then he says why this point matters: “If the eye bound forms, or forms bound the eye, and so on to: if the mind bound mental objects, or mental objects bound the mind, the World-Honored One would not teach people to establish pure conduct and make an end of suffering. Because the eye does not bind forms, nor forms the eye, and so on to: the mind does not bind mental objects, nor mental objects the mind, therefore the World-Honored One teaches people to establish pure conduct and make an end of suffering.” If the eye itself bound forms, pure conduct would be useless: the eye is there, forms are there, and the bond would be there. Because the bond is desire and craving in between, and desire and craving can be cut off, pure conduct is of use. The proof is the World-Honored One himself: “When the World-Honored One’s eye sees forms, whether good or bad, desire and craving do not arise; when the eyes of other beings see forms, whether good or bad, desire and craving arise. Therefore the World-Honored One teaches that one should cut off desire and craving, and then the mind is liberated.” The World-Honored One has eyes, sees forms, and desire and craving do not arise. The eye and forms are not the problem.

XII. Ignorance and Knowledge (Discourse 251)

Mahākauṣṭhila asks: “It is spoken of as ignorance. What is ignorance?” Śāriputra answers: “It is what is called not knowing; one who does not know is in ignorance. What is not knowing? Not knowing as it really is that the eye is impermanent: this is called not knowing. Not knowing as it really is that the eye is of a nature to arise and cease: this is called not knowing.” “Not knowing as they really are, not seeing, not comprehending without break, these six sense bases of contact, in darkness, in ignorance, in the great darkness: this is called ignorance.” He asks again about knowledge. “It is what is called knowing; one who knows has knowledge. Knowing what? That the eye is impermanent, knowing as it really is that the eye is impermanent; that the eye is of a nature to arise and cease, knowing as it really is that the eye is of a nature to arise and cease.” “Knowing as they really are, seeing, clarity, awakening, realization, wisdom, unbroken comprehension, in regard to these six sense bases of contact: this is called knowledge.” Ignorance is not knowing that the eye is impermanent; knowledge is knowing that the eye is impermanent. In Discourse 256 of Fascicle 10 Mahākauṣṭhila asked about ignorance, and Śāriputra answered, “Ignorance means not knowing; one who does not know is in ignorance,” and what is not known is that form is impermanent; here the object of contemplation has changed to the six sense bases of contact, and the answer is the same. Ignorance is not failing to know something deep; it is not knowing that the eye is impermanent.

XIII. Upasena (Discourse 252)

Upasena is sitting in meditation below Snake-Head Rock when a poisonous snake falls on his body. He calls to Śāriputra: “Tell the bhikṣus: a poisonous snake has fallen on my body and my body is poisoned. Come quickly, support my body, and carry it outside; do not let my body break up in here like a heap of chaff.” Śāriputra looks at him: “Now as I observe your complexion, your faculties are no different from usual, and yet you say you are poisoned.” Upasena answers: if someone said, “my eye is self, is mine,” and so on to “feeling, perception, formations, and the aggregate of consciousness are self, are mine,” then “his complexion and faculties would change. I am not so: the eye is not self, not mine; and so on to: the aggregate of consciousness is not self, not mine. Therefore my complexion and faculties do not change.” The six sense bases, the six objects, the six elements, the five aggregates: each one not self and not mine, and so the complexion and faculties do not change. Śāriputra confirms it: “If for a long night you have been free of self, of what is mine, and of the fetter of conceit that binds and attaches, having cut off their root like the cut-off top of a tāla tree, so that in future lives they will never arise again, how would your complexion and faculties change?” He is carried out of the cave, and his body breaks up like chaff. Śāriputra’s verse: “Long having planted pure conduct, well cultivating the eightfold noble path, he gave up his life rejoicing, as one throws away a bowl of poison.”

In the latter part Śāriputra reports to the World-Honored One, and the World-Honored One says, “If Upasena had recited this verse, he would not have been poisoned, and his body would not have broken up,” and he speaks the protective verse and the words and phrases of the protective spell. The verse first extends loving-kindness to the dragon kings; “loving-kindness and compassion for the footless, and for the two-footed, the four-footed and the many-footed, for all of them loving-kindness and compassion arises”; “loving-kindness for all beings, the measurable and the measureless”; then it speaks of the three jewels: “Lust, hatred, and delusion are the three poisons of the world; those three evil poisons forever removed is called the jewel of the Buddha; the jewel of the Dharma extinguishes all poisons, and the jewel of the Saṅgha leaves none remaining.” Śāriputra says: “Upasena had never heard this verse, never heard these words and phrases of the spell; the World-Honored One has spoken them today precisely for future generations.” The first part of this discourse speaks of not self: poisoned, yet the complexion does not change, because the eye and so on up to the aggregate of consciousness are not self and not mine. The protective verse in the latter part is spoken for future generations, not for Upasena. This exposition reads the first part.

XIV. Suffering and Happiness Arise Dependently (Discourse 253)

Udāyin is in Kośala. A brāhmaṇa woman of the Viṣṇukātyāyana clan three times invites him for a meal and asks for the teaching, and three times, “wearing fine leather sandals, with her head covered by her robe,” sits down in arrogance; three times Udāyin answers “It is not the time” and does not teach. A disciple says it plainly: “The venerable Udāyin, out of respect for the Dharma, left without teaching.” The brāhmaṇa woman “took off her sandals, straightened her clothing, and sat again on a lower seat,” and only then did Udāyin teach. She asks: “There are ascetics and brāhmaṇas who say that suffering and happiness are made by oneself; others say that suffering and happiness are made by another; others say that suffering and happiness are made by both oneself and another; others say that suffering and happiness are made by neither oneself nor another. Venerable one, what do you say?” He answers: “Sister, the Arhat teaches that suffering and happiness arise dependently; he does not teach it so.” “The Arhat teaches: ‘From their causes and conditions, suffering and happiness arise.’” None of the four views is what the Arhat teaches; the Arhat teaches that suffering and happiness arise from causes and conditions. Which causes and conditions? “Is there an eye?” There is. “Are there forms?” There are. “Are there eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant?” There are. “This is what the Arhat teaches: ‘From their causes and conditions, suffering and happiness arise.’” Suffering and happiness come from the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, and eye-contact; they are neither self-made nor made by another; they are produced by this set. He asks again about cessation: “When the eye, every eye, at every time, has ceased without remainder, is there still feeling arisen with eye-contact as condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant?” There is not. “This is what the Arhat teaches: ‘The suffering, happiness, and neither-suffering-nor-happiness that arise from causes and conditions cease.’” The brāhmaṇa woman attains the pure Dharma-eye.

Made by oneself, made by another, made by both, made by neither: the four phrases ask who makes suffering and happiness. The Arhat does not answer who; he answers from what they arise: the eye, forms, consciousness, contact. Suffering and happiness arise from causes and conditions; no one makes them. Discourse 233 said that the origin of the world is craving; this discourse says that the causes and conditions of suffering and happiness are the eye, forms, consciousness, and contact. The former speaks of origin, the latter of arising.

XV. Playing the Lute (Discourse 254)

Śroṇa Koṭīkarṇa practises with diligence but has not exhausted the outflows, and he thinks: “I would rather return to enjoy the five sense pleasures, and practise giving widely and make merit.” The World-Honored One knows his thought, summons him, and asks: “When you were a layman, were you good at playing the lute?” With the strings too tight, one does not get “a subtle, harmonious, and elegant sound”; with the strings too slack, one does not get it either; “with the strings of the lute well tuned, neither slack nor tight, then it produces a subtle, harmonious, and elegant sound.” The World-Honored One says: “Effort that is too tight increases restlessness and remorse; effort that is too slack makes one lazy. Therefore you should cultivate and take hold of it evenly: do not attach, do not be heedless, do not grasp at signs.” Śroṇa Koṭīkarṇa constantly keeps this simile in mind, exhausts the outflows, and becomes an arhat.

Having become an arhat, he comes to declare what he has been liberated from: “At that time one is liberated in six respects. What are the six? Liberation through freedom from desire, liberation through freedom from ill will, liberation through seclusion, liberation through the exhaustion of craving, liberation from all clinging, and liberation through unforgetting mindfulness.” Of liberation in six respects, each has a false form: “If someone, relying on a little faith, speaks of liberation through freedom from desire, that is not fitting; the exhaustion of greed, hatred, and delusion is called true liberation through freedom from desire.” To speak of liberation through freedom from ill will relying on a little keeping of precepts, or of liberation through seclusion relying on seclusion from gain and offerings: these are not it. The true one has a single criterion: “the exhaustion of greed, hatred, and delusion.” “The exhaustion of greed, hatred, and delusion is also called freedom from craving, also called freedom from clinging, also called liberation through freedom from forgetfulness.” Six names, one thing. The bhikṣu in training is like an infant lying on its back whose faculties gradually grow: “at that time he comes to possess the faculties of a grown person.” And one beyond training? “Even if the eye constantly cognizes forms, it can never obstruct the liberation of mind and the liberation by wisdom, because the mind stands firm; inwardly he cultivates immeasurable good liberation, contemplating arising and ceasing, and so on to impermanence.” The eye still cognizes forms, and this does not obstruct liberation. The simile: “Just as a village near a great rock mountain that is unbroken, undamaged, unpierced, solid and dense all through: even if winds blow from the four directions, they cannot shake it or pass through it.” The verse: “Forms, sounds, odours, tastes, tangibles, and mental objects, the pleasing and the displeasing, the six sense bases constantly confronting: they cannot move his mind.” The World-Honored One confirms it: “One whose mind is well liberated should declare it thus, as Śroṇa Koṭīkarṇa has declared it with knowledge, neither exalting himself nor disparaging others, speaking its meaning rightly.”

The first half of this discourse is the simile of the lute; the second half is liberation in six respects. The lute speaks of the tightness and slackness of effort; liberation in six respects speaks of the eye and forms still being there after liberation, and the mind not moving. Joined together: effort neither slack nor tight arrives at the six sense bases constantly confronting and the mind not moving.

XVI. Guarding the Doors (Discourse 255)

Mahākātyāyana is dwelling in Avanti. The young disciples of the brāhmaṇa Luxizhe, playing and laughing beside his cave, say that “the shaven-headed ascetics” are “dark people.” Mahākātyāyana speaks a verse for them, saying that the brāhmaṇas of old “cultivated excellent precepts,” “always dwelt in loving-kindness and compassion, and closed the sense doors”; the brāhmaṇas of today “have abandoned the original true practice and keep to false things; they guard their clan and caste, they are heedless, and they follow the faculties into the six objects”; “not guarding the sense doors, like finding a treasure in a dream”; and at the end: “Well guarding one’s own body, pure and free of dust and stain, not harming any being: this is the way of the brāhmaṇa.” The youths are angry and report to Luxizhe; Luxizhe comes to ask, Mahākātyāyana expounds it for him, and Luxizhe is angry too. After a moment he asks: “Sir, you spoke of a ‘door.’ What is a ‘door’?” Mahākātyāyana answers: “The eye is a door, because it sees forms. The ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind are doors, because they cognize mental objects.”

He asks again about not guarding the doors. “When the foolish, unlearned worldling’s eye has seen forms, toward pleasing forms he gives rise to attachment, and toward displeasing forms he gives rise to anger. He does not dwell in mindfulness of the body, and so he has no knowledge, as it really is, of the liberation of mind and the liberation by wisdom.” Therefore “at the sense doors he is untamed, unguarded, uncultivated.” He asks again about guarding the doors well. “When the learned noble disciple’s eye has seen forms, toward pleasing forms he does not give rise to attachment, and toward displeasing forms he does not give rise to anger; he always collects his mind and dwells in mindfulness of the body, and knows as they really are the immeasurable liberation of mind and liberation by wisdom”; “this is called the first door, well tamed, guarded, and cultivated.” The key sentence in guarding the doors is “he always collects his mind and dwells in mindfulness of the body”: it is not closing the eyes and not seeing forms; it is the mind dwelling in mindfulness of the body while seeing forms. Luxizhe says: “Just as a man looking for a poisonous herb finds nectar instead, so it is with me now: I came and sat on this seat in anger, and Mahākātyāyana has rained the great rain of the Dharma upon my body, like a rain of nectar.”

This discourse answers the question at the head of the fascicle. At the head, the question is the world, and the answer is the eye; at the end, the question is the door, and the answer is the eye too. The world and the door are two ways of speaking of the one eye: the eye is the world because the eye, forms, consciousness, contact, and feeling all arise here; the eye is a door because forms come in here. Guarding the door is not shutting the door; it is not giving rise to attachment or anger when seeing forms.

XVII. How to Read the Fascicle

In the twenty-six discourses of Fascicle 9, what is contemplated is still the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and feeling, each complete over the six sense bases. What this fascicle changes is not the teaching that is taught but the manner of teaching: the forty-two discourses of Fascicle 8 are mostly the World-Honored One setting out one teaching to the bhikṣus and unfolding it over the six sense bases; this fascicle has dialogue, similes, verses, and events. The question of the world (230 to 234), the simile of teacher and disciples (235), the alms-food dwelling (236), final nirvāṇa in this very life and the conditions of consciousness (237 and 238), bonds and clinging (239 and 240), the simile of burning the eyes (241 and 242), five discourses on Māra (243 to 247), the simile of the plantain tree (248), the four phrases that should not be asked (249), the black ox and the white ox (250), ignorance and knowledge (251), the poisonous snake (252), suffering and happiness arising dependently (253), playing the lute (254), guarding the doors (255).

This fascicle has one sentence that separates what is contemplated from what is cut off: “The eye does not bind forms, nor do forms bind the eye, and so on to: the mind does not bind mental objects, nor do mental objects bind the mind; desire and craving in between, that is the bond.” The eye and forms are what is contemplated; desire and craving are what is cut off. Discourse 239 says the bond is desire and craving; Discourse 233 says the origin of the world is craving; Discourse 253 says suffering and happiness arise from causes and conditions and are not made by anyone; Discourse 254 says the eye constantly cognizing forms does not obstruct liberation; Discourse 255 says guarding the door is not giving rise to attachment when seeing forms. Every discourse lies on this line: the eye and forms are not the problem; desire and craving in between are. So the World-Honored One has eyes and sees forms and desire and craving do not arise; Śroṇa Koṭīkarṇa’s six sense bases constantly confront and his mind does not move; Upasena is poisoned and his complexion does not change. In reading this fascicle, this exposition takes this one sentence as its thread.

The end of Fascicle 8 spoke of the cessation of the eye and being mindful of the six sense bases; Discourse 249 of this fascicle says that after the six sense bases of contact are exhausted, the four phrases about something or nothing remaining are all empty talk. Read the two fascicles together: the cessation of the eye is not destroying the eye, and the exhaustion of the six sense bases of contact cannot be asked about in terms of existence and non-existence. Only one sentence can be said: “Free of all falsity, one attains final nirvāṇa: that is what the Buddha teaches.”

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The Compendium of Topics, in its Selection on the Sense Bases within the section on the discourses, has no discourse-by-discourse mātṛkā for the discourses of this fascicle; where its passages share wording with the text of this fascicle, they are recorded here for reference, without claiming correspondence. The treatise speaks of the world: “Further, in the desire realm, the receptacle world should be known as like the kingdom ruled by a king, the world of beings as like his ministers and people, and the evil Māra of the gods as like the sovereign.” The end of Discourse 230 says, “As with the world, so with beings, and so with Māra: it is spoken the same way”; the treatise speaks of the world, beings, and Māra by the three similes of kingdom, subjects, and sovereign. The treatise speaks of emptiness: “Further, emptiness is of two kinds: the conditioned and the unconditioned”; “here, the conditioned is empty of what is permanent, constant, lasting, abiding for long, and not liable to change, and of self and what is mine.” Discourse 232 says the eye is “empty of what is permanent, constant, and not liable to change, empty of what is mine”; the treatise calls this the emptiness of the conditioned. The treatise speaks of the end of the world: “Further, the Tathāgata does not deny that one can reach the end of all the world; he denies only that one can reach the end of the world by bodily travel”; “in regard to the six bases of contact, by giving rise to knowledge as it really is in the five turnings, this is called the means of reaching the end of the world.” In Discourse 234 the World-Honored One does not say that one reaches the end of the world by travelling, and Ānanda says that knowing as it really is the arising, cessation, gratification, danger, and escape in regard to the six sense bases is called reaching the end of the world; the treatise explains the first by “denying bodily travel” and the second by knowledge as it really is in the five turnings.

The treatise speaks of evil, unwholesome thought: “Whenever an evil, unwholesome thought that has not arisen arises, it is in every way an obstacle to pure conduct, as when, once arisen, it is firmly held and not relinquished”; “one should not make it a dwelling and support.” Discourse 235 uses the teacher and the attendant disciples as similes for evil, unwholesome thoughts; the treatise says one should not dwell in dependence on them. The treatise speaks of dwelling in emptiness: “Further, it should be known that there are, in brief, two kinds of dwelling in emptiness: the superior dwelling in emptiness, and the dwelling in emptiness that draws it forth”; “whether walking or standing, one knows as it really is whether the defilements are present or absent.” In Discourse 236 Śāriputra enters the dwelling in the samādhi of emptiness, the World-Honored One names it the dwelling in meditation of the elders, and he teaches one to observe on the almsround whether fond attachment is present or absent; the treatise explains dwelling in emptiness by knowing, walking or standing, whether the defilements are present or absent. The treatise speaks of causes and conditions: “For two reasons it is taught that the six classes of consciousness have the six internal bases as cause and the six external bases as condition.” Discourse 238 says that with the eye as cause and forms as condition eye-consciousness arises. The treatise speaks of defilement: “‘Own nature’ means desire and craving, because it is the root of all defilements”; “‘the course’ means the internal and external bases, because of the difference between what grasps and what is grasped.” Discourses 239 and 240 say that the bonds and the clinging are desire and craving, and that the things bound by the bonds and the things clung to are the six sense bases and their six objects; the treatise divides these as own nature and course.

The treatise speaks of preferring to be beaten: “That is, I would rather suffer all manner of beating and injury to my body at its several bases than let my mind perish in unwholesomeness and be born in the evil destinies.” Discourse 241 says one would rather burn the eyes than grasp at the signs of forms. The treatise speaks of Māra: “Further, there are many places of defiled attachment to which Māra resorts, where he sets his foot”; “further, there are two defilements: first, the defilement of external objects; second, the defilement of inner feeling”; “with contacts as support, greedy attachment to inner feeling is called the defilement of inner feeling.” Discourse 243 says that relishing the eye one enters Māra’s snare, and in Discourse 246 Māra says the six sense bases of contact are what he rides; the treatise says the places Māra resorts to are the places of defiled attachment. The treatise speaks of consciousness: “The noble disciples, by the consciousness of the same kind, enter into not self”; “in regard to the consciousness that depends on them, they enter into impermanence; what is impermanent is suffering, and what is suffering is not self.” In Discourse 248 Ānanda infers from the impermanence of the conditions that consciousness is impermanent and not self; the treatise names this “of the same kind.” The treatise speaks of the cessation of the six bases: “Further, in the cessation of the six bases, in the final stilling without proliferation,” “the four modes that go with proliferation should not be thought about, not discriminated, not questioned.” In Discourse 249 Śāriputra says the four phrases should not be asked; the treatise says the four modes should not be questioned. The treatise speaks of bondage: “Further, if there is desire and craving toward the internal and external bases, then whether the object is present or not present, the faculties cannot relinquish it; therefore it is called bondage”; “if there is no desire and craving, then even if the object is right before one, the faculties can relinquish it, let alone when it is not present; therefore it is called liberation.” Discourse 250 says that desire and craving in between are the bond; the treatise says bondage is desire and craving, and liberation is the absence of desire and craving.

The treatise speaks of suffering and happiness: “Four kinds of wrong theory about suffering and happiness are set up”; “it is only upon the coming together of these three that self and other are provisionally established. Therefore it should be known that contact alone, pervading all, is the cause of suffering and happiness.” Discourse 253 says the Arhat teaches that suffering and happiness arise from causes and conditions; the treatise says contact is the cause of suffering and happiness. The treatise speaks of effort: “Effort is rightly aroused in four aspects”; “and one is able to take good hold of the aspect of evenness in effort”; “only the arhat can rightly declare the six resolutions regarding the bases”; “first, the resolution of renunciation; second, the resolution of non-affliction; third, the resolution of seclusion; fourth, the resolution of the exhaustion of craving; fifth, the resolution of the exhaustion of clinging; sixth, the resolution of the mind without forgetfulness.” In Discourse 254 the World-Honored One teaches cultivating and taking hold of effort evenly, and Śroṇa Koṭīkarṇa declares for himself liberation in six respects; the sequence of the treatise’s six resolutions is the same as that of the discourse’s liberation in six respects. The treatise speaks of the sense doors: “Further, in brief there are two kinds of person: one who cannot closely guard the sense doors, and one who can well guard the sense doors closely”; “toward lovely forms he is bound by the entanglement of desire, and toward unlovely forms he is bound by the entanglement of hatred.” In Discourse 255 Mahākātyāyana says that not guarding the doors is giving rise to attachment toward pleasing forms and anger toward displeasing forms; the treatise explains it by the entanglement of desire and the entanglement of hatred.

At the end of Fascicle 9, Mahākātyāyana answers the brāhmaṇa Luxizhe: “The eye is a door, because it sees forms.” A door must be guarded. The ten discourses of Fascicle 11 say how to guard it. In the last discourse of the fascicle, Uttara, a disciple of another sect, reports what his teacher says: “The eye does not see forms, the ear does not hear sounds: this is called the cultivation of the faculties.” The World-Honored One asks back a single question: “If it is as your Boluoshena says, is a blind man one who cultivates the faculties? Why? Because only a blind man’s eye does not see forms.” An eye that does not see forms is a blind man’s, not the cultivation of the faculties. Guarding the door is not shutting it. This one question gathers in all ten discourses of the fascicle: the opening says what the eye is; the middle speaks of closing the doors of the senses, of restraint, of the six bases of mastery, of taming the six faculties; the end says what the unsurpassed cultivation of the faculties really is. Every discourse says one thing: the eye sees forms as before, and what matters is what happens after it has seen.

The speaker in this fascicle is mostly the World-Honored One, but the discourses are long and full of question and answer. In Discourse 273 a bhikṣu thinks alone over four questions and the World-Honored One answers; in Discourse 276 the venerable Nanda teaches five hundred bhikṣuṇīs, eight questions and eight answers, three similes, and in the middle not a single word of the Buddha; in Discourse 280 the World-Honored One teaches the brāhmaṇas and householders of the town of Pintou how to answer other people’s questions; in Discourse 281 the matted-hair Maudgalyāyana asks backward step by step and the World-Honored One answers backward step by step; Discourse 282 is a conversation among three, the World-Honored One, Ānanda, and Uttara. Four dwelling places: seven discourses at Śrāvastī, in the Jeta Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park; one each at the Śiṃśapā Grove north of the town of Pintou, at Kalandaka Bamboo Grove in Rājagṛha, and at the Jiaweiqieluo Mouzhenlintuo Grove. Two verses: in Discourse 275 a bhikṣu’s verse, in Discourse 279 the Buddha’s verse.

I. The Two Things and the Sound of Clapping Hands (Discourse 273)

A bhikṣu thinks alone over four questions: “What is the self? What does the self do? Which is the self? Where does the self dwell?” What is I, what do I do, which one is I, where do I live. He goes to ask the World-Honored One. The World-Honored One does not answer the four questions; he says, “Now I shall teach you the two things.” “The eye and forms are two. The ear and sounds, the nose and odours, the tongue and tastes, the body and tangibles, the mind and mental objects are two: these are called the two things.” The question was about the self; the answer is the eye and forms. This is the opening of the fascicle: ask about the self, and be answered with the eye.

The World-Honored One first lays down a sentence: if someone says the two things of the ascetic Gautama are not two, and I shall lay down two things of my own, “that is merely a matter of verbal reckoning; when questioned he does not know, and his doubt only grows, because it is not his domain.” Only the number of the names; one question and he does not know, because it is not his domain. Then he speaks of the eye: “That eye is fleshy form, it is internal, it is conditioned, it is solid, it is appropriated: this is called the fleshy form of the eye, the internal earth element.” The water, fire, and wind elements likewise. The eye is made of flesh, is internal, is conditioned, is the four elements. This is the answer to “Which is the self?”: you ask which one is the self; first see clearly what the eye is: it is earth, water, fire, and wind.

Next, the sound of clapping hands: “It is like two hands coming together and striking each other to make a sound. So too, in dependence on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises; the three come together as contact; and together with contact arise feeling, perception, and volition.” Only when two hands strike each other is there a sound, and the sound is neither in the left hand nor in the right; only when the eye and forms condition each other is there consciousness, and the consciousness is neither in the eye nor in the form; only when the three come together is there contact, and together with contact arise feeling, perception, and volition. “These things are not self, not permanent; they are an impermanent self, not constant, not secure, a changing self.” Why? “Because they are things that are born, age, die, pass away, and are reborn.” This is the answer to “What is the self?”: what is called the self is the feeling, perception, and volition that arise together with contact; it is a thing that is born, ages, and dies, impermanent and changing. Here the discourse does not first say there is no self; it first says “an impermanent self,” “a changing self”: you may call it a self if you like, but it is impermanent. Only further on does it say “without self, without what belongs to self.”

A step further: “Formations are like an illusion, like a mirage; in a moment they are exhausted and decay; they do not truly come or truly go.” Therefore “of the empty formations you should know, you should rejoice, you should be mindful,” and “the empty formations are empty of what is permanent, constant, abiding, and unchanging; they are without self, without what belongs to self.” What is empty is what is permanent, constant, abiding, and unchanging; what is empty is self and what belongs to self. The simile: “It is like a man with clear eyes who takes a bright lamp in his hand and enters an empty room, and looks at that empty room.” A clear-eyed man takes a lamp into an empty room, and what he sees is an empty room. The eye is not blind, the lamp is lit, and what is seen is emptiness. This simile answers the blind man at the end of the fascicle from afar: the empty room is what a clear-eyed man sees, not what a shut eye fails to see. Then three questions and three answers: is the eye permanent or impermanent? painful? is self seen in it, is it other than self, are they within each other? At the end this bhikṣu, “having heard the World-Honored One’s teaching of the simile of the clapping hands,” dwells alone and intent, and becomes an arhat. The World-Honored One did not answer any of the four questions directly; every answer was the eye. Whoever asks about the self is sent to look at the eye.

II. What Is Not Yours (Discourse 274)

“What is not yours, abandon it; having abandoned that thing, you will be at ease for a long night.” What is not yours? The World-Honored One first asks about the grasses and trees in the Jeta Grove: “If someone carried off the grasses, trees, branches, and leaves here in the Jeta Grove, would you think, ‘These things belong to me; why does that man carry them off so freely?’” The bhikṣus answer that they would not. “Because those too are not self, not what belongs to self, and so it is for you bhikṣus as well.” Then he answers what is not yours: “What is not yours? The eye. The eye is not yours; it should be abandoned.” If someone carries off the grass and leaves you do not feel you have lost anything, because they were never yours. The eye is the same. The eye is not yours; abandon the eye, and be at ease for a long night.

Abandoning the eye is not destroying the eye. The end of the discourse says: the learned noble disciple contemplates the six sense bases as not self and not what belongs to self, and “takes nothing at all in the world; taking nothing, he clings to nothing; clinging to nothing, he himself realizes nirvāṇa.” Abandoning is taking nothing. The previous discourse said the eye is the four elements, an impermanent self; this discourse says the eye is not yours. Read together: the eye is made of earth, water, fire, and wind, like the grasses and trees of the Jeta Grove, belonging to no one.

III. Nanda (Discourses 275 and 276)

Two discourses speak of Nanda. In the first the World-Honored One says three times: “If anyone says, ‘the strong one,’ it is Nanda alone: that is a right saying.” The handsome one is Nanda alone, and “if anyone says, ‘the one heavy with desire,’ it is Nanda alone: that is a right saying.” Strong, handsome, heavy with desire: all three are Nanda. Then he says “but now”: “Nanda closes the doors of the senses, knows the measure in food, strives in practice in the first and last watches of the night, and has accomplished right knowledge.” The man heaviest with desire now closes the doors of the senses. Each of the four has its definition. Closing the doors of the senses is “when the eye sees forms, he does not grasp at the signs of forms, does not grasp at the secondary features,” and “worldly greed, craving, and evil unwholesome things do not flow into his mind, and all restraints arise”: the eye sees forms, does not grasp at the signs, and evil things do not flow in. Knowing the measure in food is “not for self-exaltation, not for heedlessness, not for attachment to looks, not for attachment to adornment, but only to support the body,” “as a man greases a cart with oil not for self-exaltation, and so on to adornment, but to carry its load.” The first and last watches are walking and sitting in meditation by day and night; in the middle watch he lies on his right side with the perception of light held in mind. Right mindfulness and clear comprehension is “he is aware of feelings as they arise, aware of feelings as they abide, aware of feelings as they cease, and dwells in right mindfulness, not letting it scatter,” and likewise for perceptions and thoughts. When the World-Honored One has finished, “as I have taught the Dharma to Nanda, you too should hold it and teach it to others.” Nanda is the model. A bhikṣu speaks a verse: “Closing well the doors of the senses, / his mind held in right mindfulness, / knowing the measure in food, / aware of the signs of the mind: / the good man Nanda / is praised by the World-Honored One.”

The expression “closes the doors of the senses” must be read against the blind man at the end of the fascicle. The definition of closing the doors of the senses is “when the eye sees forms, he does not grasp at the signs of forms”: the eye seeing forms is the premise. What is shut out is not the eye but the grasping at signs.

The second discourse is long: Nanda instructs the bhikṣuṇīs. The World-Honored One says, “I am old now and no longer able to teach the Dharma to the bhikṣuṇīs.” The elders take turns instructing them, and “when Nanda’s turn came he was unwilling to instruct.” The World-Honored One tells Nanda: “I myself instruct the bhikṣuṇīs, and so should you; I teach the Dharma to the bhikṣuṇīs, and so should you.” Nanda silently accepts, and the next day, after the alms round, goes to the royal park. He first lays down the rule: “If you understand, say that you understand; if you do not understand, say that you do not understand.” Then eight questions. “Contemplating the internal sense base of the eye, is it self, is it other than self, are they within each other?” The bhikṣuṇīs answer no, and say why: “We have already known and seen this thing as it really is; contemplating the six internal sense bases, they are without self.” The external bases, the six consciousnesses, the six contacts, the six feelings, the six perceptions, the six volitions, the six cravings: eight questions in one form, eight answers in one form, “I have already contemplated this group of six classes of consciousness as it really is, as without self”; every answer says, I have already contemplated it so. After each of the first seven answers Nanda gives one line of praise, “Good, good! You should contemplate this matter in this way”; after the eighth answer there is no praise, and he says directly, “You should contemplate this matter in this way.” This passage is not Nanda teaching the bhikṣuṇīs; it is the bhikṣuṇīs reporting one by one what they have contemplated, and Nanda confirming each one.

Then three similes. The lamp: “It is like a lamp that burns because of oil and because of a wick; that oil is impermanent, the wick is impermanent, the flame is impermanent, the vessel is impermanent.” If someone said that without oil, wick, flame, or vessel the light of the lamp abides permanently, would that be a fair statement? The bhikṣuṇīs answer that it would not: “without oil, without wick, without vessel, the lamplight that depends on them likewise ceases, is stilled, vanishes, is cooled, truly.” Nanda gives the meaning: “These six internal sense bases are impermanent. If someone says, ‘The delight and pleasure that arise in dependence on these six internal sense bases are permanent, constant, abiding, unchanging, and secure,’ is that a fair statement?” The six internal sense bases are the oil, wick, and vessel; the delight and pleasure are the lamplight. The bhikṣuṇīs answer: “Such and such a thing arises in dependence on such and such a thing; when such and such a conditioning thing ceases, such and such an arisen thing likewise ceases, is stilled, vanishes, is cooled, truly.” The simile of the tree’s shadow speaks of the six external sense bases: root, trunk, branch, and leaf are impermanent, and “without root, without trunk, without branch, without leaf, the shadow that depends on the tree is entirely gone.” The delight and pleasure that arise in dependence on the external bases are also like the tree’s shadow.

The third simile is the butcher. Nanda first says, “The wise understand through a simile.” “It is like a skilled butcher, or a butcher’s apprentice, who takes a sharp knife in hand and skins the ox, cutting along the gaps, injuring neither the inner flesh nor the outer hide.” When the skinning is done he lays the hide back over it; if someone said the hide and flesh are whole and not separated, would that be a fair statement? No: “the hide and flesh are already separated; it is not that they are not separated.” The meaning: “The ox stands for the gross form of a person’s body”; “the flesh is the six internal sense bases, the outer hide is the six external sense bases, the butcher is the trainee who has seen the traces, the sinews and bones between hide and flesh are greed and delight together, and the sharp knife is sharp wisdom.” The six internal bases are the flesh, the six external bases are the hide, and the sinews and bones between hide and flesh are greed and delight. The butcher’s knife injures neither flesh nor hide; it cuts only the sinews and bones in between. “The learned noble disciple, with the sharp knife of wisdom, cuts through all bonds, bindings, fetters, defilements, upper defilements, and entanglements.” This simile says it most clearly: the internal bases are not touched, the external bases are not touched; what is cut is the greed and delight in between. Fascicle 9 said, “desire and craving in between, that is the bond”; here that sentence is drawn as a picture: between hide and flesh the sinews and bones join them, and the knife goes in through the gap. The hide laid back, it still looks like an ox; inside, it has already come apart.

At the end Nanda says that they should train thus: “toward things that can be delighted in, the mind should not cling, so as to cut off greed,” and likewise for hatred and delusion; “contemplate arising and passing away in the five aggregates of clinging; contemplate arising and cessation in the six sense bases of contact; bind the mind well to the four foundations of mindfulness; dwell in the seven factors of awakening,” and having cultivated the seven factors of awakening, “toward the outflow of desire the mind does not cling, and the mind is liberated,” and likewise for the outflow of existence and the outflow of ignorance.

The bhikṣuṇīs return to see the World-Honored One, and the World-Honored One tells the bhikṣus: “It is like the bright moon on the fourteenth night: when a crowd looks at the moon, is it full, or not yet full? Know that that moon is not yet completely full.” Nanda has taught well; “in their liberation they are not yet at the end,” but “I see not one bond uncut that could cause them to be reborn in this world.” The World-Honored One orders Nanda to teach once more. After the second teaching: “It is like the bright moon on the fifteenth night: no one doubts whether the moon is full or not, for that moon is completely full.” The bhikṣuṇīs are “at the end of liberation; when their life ends, no one will speak of where their path leads: know that this is the end of suffering.” “Thus did the World-Honored One declare the first fruit for the five hundred bhikṣuṇīs.” Between the fourteenth and the fifteenth there is only one more teaching, and what Nanda teaches is the same Dharma. In this discourse the World-Honored One did teach the Dharma to the bhikṣuṇīs, but what he said the discourse does not record; the Dharma that is recorded is all in Nanda’s mouth, and at the end the World-Honored One uses only the simile of the moon to say whether their liberation has reached its end.

IV. Restraint (Discourses 277 to 279)

Three discourses speak of restraint, each more concrete than the last. Discourse 277 lays down two names. Non-restraint: “The eye faculty is not held in restraint. Eye-consciousness clings to forms; because of that clinging, painful feeling arises; because of painful feeling, the mind is not unified; because the mind is not unified, there is no knowing and seeing as it really is; because there is no knowing and seeing as it really is, doubt is not left behind; because doubt is not left behind, he is led astray by others and dwells always in suffering.” Beginning from eye-consciousness clinging to forms, step by step to dwelling always in suffering: six steps. Restraint: “The eye faculty is held in restraint. Eye-consciousness cognizes forms and the mind is not stained with attachment; the mind not being stained, he always dwells in ease; the mind dwelling in ease, it is always unified; being unified, he knows and sees as it really is; knowing and seeing as it really is, he leaves all doubt behind; having left doubt behind, he is not led astray by others and dwells always at ease.” The same six steps, to dwelling always at ease. On both sides the starting point is eye-consciousness and forms; non-restraint is “eye-consciousness clings to forms,” restraint is “eye-consciousness cognizes forms and the mind is not stained with attachment.” Cognizing forms and clinging to forms differ by one word. Restraint is not eye-consciousness failing to cognize forms; it is cognizing without clinging.

Discourse 278 has three names: “There is the thing that leads to decline, the thing that does not lead to decline, and the six bases of mastery.” The thing that leads to decline: “When eye-consciousness and forms give rise to the thought of desire, and that bhikṣu delights and praises, takes hold and is attached, and turns along with that thing, know that this bhikṣu declines from wholesome things.” The thing that does not lead to decline: “When in dependence on eye-consciousness and forms the thought of desire arises as a bond, and that bhikṣu does not delight, does not praise, does not take hold, is not attached, and does not turn along with that thing.” In both decline and non-decline the thought of desire has arisen; the difference lies in whether, once it has arisen, he delights or not, takes hold or not, follows or not. The six bases of mastery go one step further: “When in dependence on eye-consciousness and forms the thought of desire, the bond, and the stain of attachment do not arise, know that this bhikṣu has mastered that base.” When the thought of desire does not arise, that is mastery over that base. “Having mastered the six bases of mastery, the bond of greed is cut, and the bonds of hatred and delusion are cut. It is like a king who crushes his enemies and overcomes his foes and is called a conquering king; one who has cut off all bonds is called a conquering brāhmaṇa.” The three names are three levels: the thought of desire arising and being followed is decline; arising and not being followed is non-decline; not arising is mastery. Eye-consciousness cognizes forms in all three; at the level of mastery, too, the eye cognizes forms as before.

Discourse 279 speaks of five things concerning the six faculties: “If these six faculties are not tamed, not closed, not guarded, not held, not cultivated, in future lives one will surely reap a painful result.” What is untamed? “The foolish, unlearned ordinary person, when the eye faculty sees forms, takes hold of the signs, takes hold of the secondary features, lets the eye faculty go where it tends, taking hold without restraint.” What is well tamed? “The learned noble disciple, when the eye sees forms, does not grasp at the signs of forms, does not grasp at the secondary features, lets the eye faculty go where it tends, and always dwells in restraint.” On both sides “the eye sees forms”; on both sides “lets the eye faculty go where it tends”: the eye looks at whatever it wants to look at, unhindered. The difference lies in grasping at the signs or not. This sentence, “lets the eye faculty go where it tends,” must be remembered: guarding the doors of the senses is not holding the eye back from looking; the eye looks at what it will, and the mind does not grasp at the signs.

The verse of twenty lines goes through the six faculties one by one: “The eye sees that form, / agreeable or disagreeable; / toward the agreeable no desire arises, / toward the disagreeable no aversion.” Ear, nose, tongue, and body likewise. Then it speaks of equanimity: “Equanimous toward pain and pleasure alike, / what is not yet ceased he brings to cessation.” Then of mind and thought: “False and discriminating, / desire and craving grow ever wider; / awakening to those evils, / he dwells secure in a mind free from desire.” The last line: “Gathering in well these six faculties, / untouched by the six objects, / he crushes the hosts of Māra / and crosses to the far shore of birth and death.” The six objects touch as before; the mind is unmoved. Toward the agreeable no desire arises, toward the disagreeable no aversion: this line of the verse is the root of the five phrases of the unsurpassed cultivation of the faculties at the end of the fascicle.

V. Worthy and Unworthy of Offerings (Discourse 280)

The World-Honored One comes to the town of Pintou, and the brāhmaṇas and householders come to see him. The World-Honored One does not teach the Dharma; he teaches them how to answer other people’s questions. If someone asks, “What kind of ascetics and brāhmaṇas should not be honoured, respected, venerated, and supported?” they should answer: “Ascetics and brāhmaṇas who, when the eye sees forms, are not free of greed, not free of desire, not free of craving, not free of thirst, not free of longing, whose minds within are not stilled, who practise what is unrighteous and practise coarse and harsh conduct.” If asked why, they should answer: “When our eyes see forms, we are not free of desire, not free of craving, not free of thirst, not free of longing, and our minds within are not stilled.” They are the same. “I seek a difference among them and see no difference in conduct.” A householder, when his eye sees forms, is not free of greed; if the ascetic, when his eye sees forms, is also not free of greed, I can find no difference, and so I do not support him. Those worthy of support are the reverse: when the eye sees forms, free of greed and free of desire, the mind within stilled, “among them we seek a difference, and we see a difference.”

This discourse has one criterion only: after the eye sees forms, is there freedom from greed or not. The difference between an ascetic and a householder lies not in what he wears or where he lives, but in the moment the eye sees forms. The fifth question concerns outward appearance: “What conduct, what appearance, what sign?” How does one know he is free of greed? They should answer: one sees him “in empty places, in forests and under trees, on low beds of grass, practising seclusion, keeping away from women, keeping close to those who delight in solitude, together with those who meditate,” and “in those places there is no form that the eye could see and delight in.” He lives where there are no forms to delight in. This answer seems to speak of seclusion, but it is still about the eye: a dwelling place with no delightful forms is the outward sign of an eye that sees forms free of greed. The brāhmaṇas and householders praise the Buddha: “He neither praises himself nor disparages others; he rightly explains the meaning; at each of the sense bases he distinguishes the defiled and the pure, and expounds dependent arising at length,” “he rescues the drowning, opens what is shut, shows the way to the lost, and lights a lamp in the dark.” They have heard it: the World-Honored One distinguishes defiled and pure at each of the sense bases.

VI. Dharma Depends on Dharma (Discourse 281)

The matted-hair Maudgalyāyana comes from the hall of the other sects. The World-Honored One asks what he went there to hear, and he says: “I went to try hearing the benefit of their contending debates, to hear the benefit of their contradicting arguments.” The World-Honored One says: “For a long night, through long ages, ascetics and brāhmaṇas of various other paths and renunciant carakas have contended in debate and contradicted one another for the sake of benefit, each destroying the other.” Maudgalyāyana asks what benefit of the Dharma Gautama teaches his disciples that can be passed on to others with no one able to refute it. The World-Honored One answers: “The benefit of the fruit of knowledge and liberation: one who passes it on to others does not slander the Tathāgata, does not go against its principle, and speaks of the Dharma in due order, and no one can come to compare, to refute, or to find fault.”

Then Maudgalyāyana asks backward step by step: what thing, cultivated, brings knowledge and liberation to fulfilment? “There are the seven factors of awakening; cultivated and much cultivated, they bring the benefit of knowledge and liberation to fulfilment.” What brings the seven factors of awakening to fulfilment? The four foundations of mindfulness. What brings the four foundations of mindfulness to fulfilment? The three good conducts. What brings the three good conducts to fulfilment? “There is restraint of the six sense bases of contact; cultivated and much cultivated, it brings the three good conducts to fulfilment.” Five levels, asked downward from knowledge and liberation, and at the bottom is restraint of the six sense bases of contact. Asked what restraint of the six sense bases of contact is: “When the eye sees a form that is agreeable, lovable, delightful, that nourishes desire and pleasure and makes one cling, that bhikṣu, having seen it, does not delight, does not praise, does not take it as condition, is not attached, does not dwell on it”; toward a disagreeable form, “he is not afraid, not hostile, not resentful, not angry.” Beautiful forms and ugly forms are both seen by the eye, and he never takes them as condition or clings, “his mind within dwells secure and unmoved, well cultivating liberation, the mind never slack.” This is restraint of the six sense bases of contact, and it is the same sentence as Discourses 279 and 280 before it: the eye sees forms, toward the agreeable no desire arises, toward the disagreeable no aversion.

The World-Honored One then speaks forward through three stages. Cultivating the three good conducts fulfils the four foundations of mindfulness: the noble disciple, in an empty place, reflects, “this bodily misconduct will surely reap an evil result in this world and the next,” “therefore he removes bodily misconduct and cultivates good bodily conduct,” and likewise for speech and mind. Cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness fulfils the seven factors of awakening: “A bhikṣu dwells thus in contemplation of the body as body, following it; while he dwells in contemplation of the body as body, following it, he gathers in mindfulness and dwells secure without forgetting; at that time he diligently cultivates the awakening factor of mindfulness.” Mindfulness, investigation of dharmas, energy, joy, tranquillity, concentration, equanimity: when one factor is fulfilled the next arises. Cultivating the seven factors of awakening fulfils knowledge and liberation: “Based on seclusion, based on dispassion, based on cessation and relinquishment, he cultivates the awakening factor of mindfulness in forward progress, and attains knowledge and liberation, pure and fulfilled.” The final sentence: “dharma depends on dharma, and from this shore one reaches the far shore.”

Five levels, each depending on the next, and at the bottom is restraint of the six sense bases of contact. Maudgalyāyana asked what thing can be passed on to others with no one able to refute it; the World-Honored One answered with knowledge and liberation, and then traced the root of knowledge and liberation down to the eye seeing forms without clinging. The other sects contend in debate and destroy one another; the Dharma here is not argued out, it is cultivated upward from the eye seeing forms, and so no one can refute it. When this Dharma was spoken, Maudgalyāyana “was far from dust, free of stain, and attained the pure Dharma-eye,” “crossed beyond all doubt, not depending on another, and attained fearlessness in the Dharma and Discipline”; he asked to go forth, and the World-Honored One allowed it.

VII. The Unsurpassed Cultivation of the Faculties (Discourse 282)

The World-Honored One asks the young Uttara: “Does your teacher Boluoshena teach you the cultivation of the faculties?” He does. How? “The eye does not see forms, the ear does not hear sounds: this is called the cultivation of the faculties.” The World-Honored One answers: “If it is as your Boluoshena says, is a blind man one who cultivates the faculties? Why? Because only a blind man’s eye does not see forms.” Ānanda, standing behind with the fan, adds a line: “Is a deaf man one who cultivates the faculties?” The World-Honored One tells Ānanda: “It is different from the unsurpassed cultivation of the faculties in the noble Dharma and Discipline.” Ānanda asks him to teach it.

The five phrases of the unsurpassed cultivation of the faculties: “In dependence on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises; seeing an agreeable form, he wishes to cultivate the Tathāgata’s weariness with right mindfulness and right knowledge.” Seeing a disagreeable form, he cultivates non-weariness; agreeable and disagreeable, he cultivates weariness and non-weariness; disagreeable and agreeable, he cultivates non-weariness and weariness; the fifth phrase, “in dependence on the eye and forms eye-consciousness arises, agreeable, disagreeable, agreeable-and-disagreeable, and he wishes to cultivate the Tathāgata’s equanimity that leaves both weariness and non-weariness behind, dwelling in right mindfulness and right knowledge.” Toward the agreeable he cultivates weariness, toward the disagreeable non-weariness; he can do both, and at the end leaves both weariness and non-weariness behind and dwells in equanimity. “If in these five phrases the mind is well tamed, well closed, well guarded, well gathered, well cultivated, that is the unsurpassed cultivation of the faculties with regard to the eye and forms.” The five things of Discourse 279, “well tamed, well closed, well guarded, well held, well cultivated,” are here said to be cultivated in the five phrases. In dependence on the eye and forms eye-consciousness arises: all five phrases start from this one sentence. If the eye does not see forms, not one of them can be cultivated.

Ānanda asks again: “What is the noble cultivation of the faculties in the noble Dharma and Discipline?” The World-Honored One answers with six faculties and six similes. The eye: in dependence on the eye and forms eye-consciousness arises, and the agreeable, the disagreeable, and the agreeable-and-disagreeable arise; the noble disciple knows as it really is, “this is quiescence, this is sublime, namely equanimity toward both; having attained that equanimity, he is free of weariness and non-weariness. It is like the instant of a strong man,” “in an instant they are wholly extinguished, and he attains freedom from weariness and non-weariness, equanimity.” The ear: “It is like a man of great strength snapping his fingers: the sound ceases as soon as it is made.” The nose: “It is like a lotus, which water does not stain.” The tongue: like a strong man spitting out the saliva at the tip of his tongue, spat out and gone. The body: “It is like an iron ball heated red hot, and a few drops of water sprinkled on it, which vanish at once.” The mind: “It is like a strong man cutting off the top of a palmyra tree.” The six similes say one word: fast. The agreeable has arisen, the disagreeable has arisen; in a finger-snap they are wholly extinguished, a drop of water on a red-hot iron ball. They do arise; eye-consciousness gives rise to the agreeable and disagreeable as before; they are extinguished fast, and equanimity is attained. The noble cultivation of the faculties is not that the agreeable and disagreeable do not arise; it is that, having arisen, they are wholly extinguished.

Ānanda asks a third time: “What is the trainee who has seen the traces in the noble Dharma and Discipline?” The answer: in dependence on the eye and forms eye-consciousness arises, and the agreeable, the disagreeable, and the agreeable-and-disagreeable arise, and “that noble disciple is ashamed and repelled.” The trainee who has seen the traces, when the agreeable and disagreeable arise, is ashamed and repelled. This is what one in training looks like: they still arise, and when they arise he knows shame. Compared with the instant extinction of the noble cultivation of the faculties, the difference lies in how fast they are extinguished. The World-Honored One concludes: “I have taught the noble cultivation of the faculties, I have taught the trainee who has seen the traces.” “What I do for my disciples, I have done; you should do what is to be done.”

This discourse has three levels: the unsurpassed cultivation of the faculties is the five phrases, the noble cultivation of the faculties is the six similes, the trainee who has seen the traces is being ashamed and repelled. The starting point of all three is eye-consciousness arising in dependence on the eye and forms. Boluoshena’s cultivation of the faculties cuts off the starting point; the World-Honored One says that is a blind man.

VIII. How to Read the Fascicle

The ten discourses begin with the question “What is the self?” and end with “Is a blind man one who cultivates the faculties?” The first discourse asks about the self, and the World-Honored One answers with the eye: the eye is fleshy form, the four elements; the eye and forms condition each other like two hands making a sound. The second discourse says the eye is not yours; abandon it. And after abandoning? Not destroying the eye. The remaining eight discourses all say the eye is still there, forms still come, and what matters is what happens after seeing: Nanda’s closing the doors of the senses is “when the eye sees forms, he does not grasp at the signs of forms”; restraint is “eye-consciousness cognizes forms and the mind is not stained with attachment”; the six bases of mastery are eye-consciousness and forms giving rise to no thought of desire; the taming of the six faculties is “when the eye sees forms, he does not grasp at the signs of forms, does not grasp at the secondary features, lets the eye faculty go where it tends”; the ascetic worthy of offerings is one whose eye sees forms free of greed; restraint of the six sense bases of contact is the eye seeing an agreeable form without delight or attachment and a disagreeable form without fear or anger; the unsurpassed cultivation of the faculties is eye-consciousness arising in dependence on the eye and forms while one cultivates leaving both weariness and non-weariness behind. The starting point of every discourse is the eye seeing forms, and the work of every discourse lies after the seeing.

So the “Is a blind man one who cultivates the faculties?” at the end of the fascicle is a one-sentence summary of the whole. An eye that does not see forms is blind; an eye that sees forms without grasping at the signs is restraint; seeing the agreeable and disagreeable and having them extinguished in an instant is the noble cultivation of the faculties. The butcher simile says it most thoroughly: the hide is the external bases, the flesh is the internal bases, the knife injures neither hide nor flesh, and what is cut is the sinews and bones in between. The one who guards the door stands at the door, and the door is open.

Fascicle 8 contemplated the eye as impermanent, Fascicle 9 said the eye is a door, and this fascicle says how to guard the door. Read the three together: the eye is impermanent; the eye is the world, is a door; guarding the door is not shutting it. Nanda is the man of this fascicle: the one heaviest with desire, whose eye sees forms as before and does not grasp at the signs.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The Compendium of Topics, in its Selection on the Sense Bases within the section on the discourses, has a mātṛkā for each discourse of this fascicle in order of the discourses; they are recorded here for reference. The treatise speaks of Discourse 273: “Further, in brief there are four kinds of searching in the doctrine of self,” “first, searching: by what is the self in its functioning constituted?” and so on to “fourth, searching: where does the self with what belongs to it dwell?” The four searchings follow the same order as the four questions of the discourse. The answer is “namely, the six consciousnesses arising from the twelve bases designated, together with feeling, perception, and volition, are taken as its self,” which is the discourse’s two things and the feeling, perception, and volition that arise together with contact. Of formations: “they are said to be like an illusion,” “they are said to be like a mirage,” “they come from nowhere and go nowhere,” “therefore emptiness is established in emptiness in every respect”; the discourse says “you should know, you should rejoice, you should be mindful,” and the treatise says “one should rejoice, one should rejoice evenly, one should rejoice fully.” The treatise speaks of Discourse 275: there are three causes of conduct of the strongest greed, “first, being vigorous, not feeble; second, being handsome, not ugly; third, being habituated to greed, not having relinquished greed,” in the same order as the discourse’s strong, handsome, and heavy with desire; the antidotes are “first, closely guarding the sense doors as the basis,” “second, knowing the measure in food and reducing sleep in the first and last watches of the night as the basis,” “third, supreme right mindfulness and clear comprehension as the basis.” The treatise speaks of Discourse 276: “the Tathāgata himself said that his years were in decline,” and so he urged his disciples to ask others to teach the Dharma; “here, by analysing the inner and outer bases, consciousness, contact, feeling, perception, volition, and craving, each in its group, the absence of self is shown,” in the same order as Nanda’s eight questions; “as light depends on the lamp and shadow depends on the tree, when those are not, these too are not,” “with the knife of wisdom one can cut off and extinguish all defilements for ever.”

The treatise speaks of Discourse 277: “there are bhikṣus who dwell without guarding the faculties,” and there are two sufferings, “first, the suffering produced by grossness; second, the suffering produced by doubt about things”; the six steps of non-restraint in the discourse the treatise gathers under the two sufferings of grossness and doubt. The treatise speaks of Discourse 278: “I have already mastered the bases,” “like a great king who turns freely as he wishes and subdues all the villages of Māra.” The treatise speaks of Discourse 279: “Further, with regard to the six faculties, because the five aspects of stillness spoken of before are not stilled, know that one takes on three kinds of painful fruit”; the five negatives of the discourse the treatise calls the five aspects of stillness not being stilled. The treatise speaks of Discourse 280: “Further, in brief there are two kinds of worldly brāhmaṇas who are truly not fields of merit,” “know that they differ in no way from all foolish ordinary people,” which is the discourse’s “I see no difference in conduct.” The treatise speaks of Discourse 281: “only for the sake of realizing the two fruits and benefits of knowledge and liberation”; the sequence of the path, “by cultivating the faculties one can rightly cultivate the body; by cultivating the wholesome conduct induced by cultivating the body one can rightly cultivate precepts; by cultivating without error the foundations of mindfulness and factors of awakening induced by cultivating precepts one can cultivate mind and wisdom,” runs in the same direction as the five levels of the discourse though its names and numbers do not fully match; “called based on seclusion,” “called based on dispassion,” “called based on cessation,” “called relinquishment turned toward” explain the discourse’s based on seclusion, based on dispassion, based on cessation and relinquishment. The treatise speaks of Discourse 282: the cultivation of the faculties of the other sects “sees only turning away from all objects, and calls that guarding the faculties”; the noble “do not merely turn away from objects in every respect,” “and this is called the unsurpassed good cultivation of the faculties”; the five phrases of the discourse the treatise “calls the five turnings of the unsurpassed cultivation of the faculties”; attaining equanimity, the treatise says “dwelling secure in equanimity”; the shame and repulsion of the trainee who has seen the traces, the treatise says “is then able skilfully to dwell in the perception of repulsion and the perception of danger.” The treatise’s distinction between “turning away from all objects” and “not merely turning away from objects in every respect” is exactly the discourse’s distinction between the blind man and the cultivation of the faculties.

The last discourse of Fascicle 11 teaches the unsurpassed cultivation of the faculties: the eye sees forms, the agreeable and the disagreeable arise, in an instant they are extinguished, and equanimity is attained. The thirty-nine discourses of Fascicle 13 return to the eye and forms themselves and ask: who is it that sees the forms? Discourse 335 answers most directly: “When the eye arises there is no place it comes from; when it ceases there is no place it goes to. Thus the eye arises without substance, and having arisen is wholly extinguished; there is the result of action, but no agent. When this aggregate has ceased, another aggregate continues, apart from conventional reckoning.” There is the result of action; there is no agent. From the six sets of six at the start to the six constant abidings at the end, the whole fascicle says this one sentence.

This fascicle has many short discourses. The long ones gather in the first half: the six sets of six, the six analyses of the six sense bases, the two discourses on seeing the Dharma, the two discourses of Luniu, Pūrṇa, Moluojiajiu, the teaching of the discourses. The second half is mostly short discourses: eight on the six classes, seven on the six courses, one sentence to a discourse. The short discourses are not an appendix; they are the words of the first half gathered into a list. How to read them is said in the last section.

I. The Six Sets of Six and the Six Analyses (Discourses 304 and 305)

Both discourses are set in the cowherds’ village in the Kuru country, both open with “good in the beginning, the middle, and the end, good in meaning and good in flavour, wholly pure and complete, the pure conduct spotless,” and each names itself: “this is called the Discourse on the Six Sets of Six,” “this is called the Discourse on the Six Analyses of the Six Sense Bases.” A discourse naming itself occurs four times in this fascicle; the other two are the Discourse on Things with a Cause, a Condition, and a Bond and the Discourse on Emptiness in the Ultimate Sense.

The six sets of six: “namely the six internal sense bases, the six external sense bases, the six classes of consciousness, the six classes of contact, the six classes of feeling, the six classes of craving.” Having listed them, it refutes the self: “If someone says the eye is the self, that is not so. Why? The eye arises and ceases; if the eye were the self, the self would undergo birth and death; therefore to say the eye is the self is not so.” The eye arises and ceases; if the eye were the self, the self would follow it into birth and death. Forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling born of eye-contact are refuted one by one in the same way. There is only one reason: “the feeling born of eye-contact is a thing that arises and ceases.” After the refutation comes the cultivation: “one should know as it really is what is done by the eye, what is done by knowledge, what is done by quiescence, open up the supernormal powers, and head rightly toward nirvāṇa.” What is done by the eye the discourse itself answers: the eye is not self, and forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, feeling “are likewise observed to be not self.” To know what is done by the eye is to observe that the eye is not self.

The Discourse on the Six Analyses of the Six Sense Bases divides attachment from non-attachment. Not knowing and seeing the eye as it really is, one is “attached to the eye,” and being attached one is “in darkness, longing, with the mind bound, nourishing the five aggregates of clinging,” the body and mind weary and ill, blazing, deranged; “this is called the arising of the whole mass of suffering, wholly and solely.” Knowing and seeing it as it really is, one is not attached, one “diminishes the five aggregates of clinging,” body and mind feel at ease, “thus the whole mass of suffering ceases.” This is arising and cessation on the six sense bases. Then the fruit: “this is called right view cultivated to fulfilment,” the eightfold noble path fulfilled, the four foundations of mindfulness, the four right efforts, the four bases of supernormal power, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening fulfilled. The last passage has four sentences: “What things are to be known and understood, wholly known and wholly understood? Name and form. What things are to be known and abandoned? Ignorance and the craving for existence. What things are to be known and realized? Knowledge and liberation. What things are to be known and cultivated? Calm and insight.” To know name and form, to abandon ignorance and the craving for existence, to realize knowledge and liberation, to cultivate calm and insight: “this is called the bhikṣu cutting the bonds of craving, rightly attaining unbroken comprehension, reaching the end of suffering.” The six analyses are the six sense bases each analysed; taking the eye alone, it is divided into five items, eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, feeling, and of each item one asks whether it is known as it really is.

II. Seeing the Dharma (Discourses 306 and 307)

Both discourses have the same question: “How does a bhikṣu know, how does he see, so that he sees the Dharma?” The World-Honored One answers with the two things, eye and forms being the two; the base text abbreviates with “thus taught at length, up to,” and what follows is new: “Eye and forms as condition give rise to eye-consciousness; the three things meeting are contact; together with contact arise feeling, perception, volition. These four formless aggregates and the eye and forms, these things are called a person, and on these things one forms the notion of a person, a being, a nara, a manuja, a mānava, a man, a pudgala, a jīva, a jantu.” Eye, forms, consciousness, contact, feeling, perception, volition: these things are called a person. A person is the name of these things, not something outside them.

Then it says how a person speaks of himself: “My eye sees forms, my ear hears sounds, my nose smells odours, my tongue tastes tastes, my body feels tangibles, my mind cognizes mental objects.” And again: “This venerable one has such a name, such a birth, such a clan, such food, undergoes such pleasure and pain, lives so long, stays so long, has such a span of life.” The World-Honored One passes a single judgement: “This is a notion, this is a designation, this is a verbal expression; all these things are impermanent, conditioned, arisen from conditions by volition and wish; and what is impermanent, conditioned, arisen from conditions by volition and wish, that is suffering.” Name, clan, span of life, what is seen, heard, sensed, and known: all are notion, designation, verbal expression. The things that the words point to are impermanent, conditioned, arisen from conditions by volition and wish, and so are suffering. When suffering is cut off, “the remaining suffering does not continue, does not arise; that is quiescence, that is the sublime.” What is seeing the Dharma? “If regarding these things the mind enters into them, dwells in liberation without turning back, and in the attachment that arose toward them there is no self—bhikṣu, knowing thus, seeing thus, that is seeing the Dharma.” Seeing the Dharma is not seeing a thing; it is, regarding these things, the mind entering in, dwelling in liberation, and no self where the attachment was.

The second discourse asks the same question and the World-Honored One gives the same answer; the base text has “as taught at length above.” Then comes a verse, introduced by “Venerable One! As the verse says.” The base text names no speaker and uses the address “Venerable One.” The Buddha does not address a bhikṣu as “Venerable One”; the end of the verse, “craving ended, all suffering stilled, spoken by the unsurpassed Buddha-eye,” speaks of what the Buddha has spoken. Here it is read as a bhikṣu reciting the verse to the Buddha, gathering the World-Honored One’s words into thirteen lines. The verse says: “Eye and forms, two kinds of condition, give rise to mind and mental states; consciousness, contact, and what arises with them, feeling, perception, and the rest, all have a cause; not self, not what belongs to self, nor yet a pudgala”; nara, manuja, mānava, these names “all arise from the aggregate of suffering”; those of other paths who teach a different two things, “they have only words; having heard, one grows more deluded.” The verse is the preceding discourse in short.

III. Dwelling with a Second and Dwelling Alone (Discourses 308 to 311)

Four discourses form one chain: seeing forms, delight, attachment, craving, obstruction. Discourse 308 first speaks of gods and men and of the Tathāgata: “Gods and men dwell attached to forms, delighting and enjoying; when those forms are impermanent, change, and are extinguished, those gods and men suffer greatly.” The Tathāgata is different: “The Tathāgata knows forms as they really are, the arising of forms, the cessation of forms, the gratification of forms, the danger of forms, the escape from forms; knowing them as they really are, he no longer dwells attached to forms, delighting and enjoying; when those forms change, are impermanent, and are extinguished, he dwells at ease.” The same forms change and are extinguished; gods and men suffer greatly, the Tathāgata dwells at ease. The difference lies in knowing arising, cessation, gratification, danger, and escape. The verse says: “Only the noble ones see their cessation as ease; what the world delights in, they observe as an enemy.” “The noble ones see as suffering what the world takes as ease; what the world takes as suffering is ease to the noble.”

Luniu asks: “As the World-Honored One has said, there is dwelling with a second and there is dwelling alone.” The World-Honored One answers: eye-consciousness cognizes a lovely form, “that bhikṣu, having seen it, delights, praises, and dwells attached; having delighted, praised, and dwelt attached, his mind turns to gladness; having become glad, he deeply enjoys; having deeply enjoyed, he craves; having craved, he is obstructed”; “this is called dwelling with a second.” “Even if he is alone in a secluded place, it is still called dwelling with a second. Why? Because craving and delight are not cut off, not extinguished.” Conversely, not delighting, not praising, not dwelling attached, “this is called dwelling alone”; “even if he lives in a lofty tower of many storeys, he is still one who dwells alone.” Dwelling with a second is having craving for company; dwelling alone is living alone. Where one lives does not count; whether craving is cut off counts. Luniu’s second discourse is short; the World-Honored One teaches the same chain in brief, “then delight arises; when delight has arisen, suffering arises,” and conversely, “because delight does not arise, suffering ceases.” Luniu hears the Dharma, reflects alone, “and so on until he attains arhatship, his mind well liberated.”

The first half of the Pūrṇa discourse is the same chain, gathered on nirvāṇa: “Because of gladness, delight, craving, and obstruction, one is far from nirvāṇa.” “Because of no gladness, no deep enjoyment, no craving, no obstruction, one gradually draws near to nirvāṇa.” The second half is Pūrṇa about to go to Shuluna in the west. The World-Honored One asks four questions: if the people there are fierce and abuse you, what then? if they strike you with hands and stones? if they put knife and staff to your body? if they kill you? Pūrṇa gives four answers, each beginning “the people of Shuluna in the west are good and wise”: they abuse but do not strike, strike but do not use knife and staff, use knife and staff but do not kill; if they kill, “with little effort upon this decaying body of mine, I shall gain liberation.” The World-Honored One says: “You have learned patient endurance well; you are now able to live among the people of Shuluna; go now, carry across those not yet carried across, settle those not yet settled, bring to nirvāṇa those not yet brought to nirvāṇa.” Pūrṇa goes, keeps the summer retreat, “teaches the Dharma to five hundred lay followers and establishes five hundred monasteries,” and “when the three months have passed, perfect in the three knowledges, there and then enters nirvāṇa without remainder.” The first half of the discourse says the eye sees forms and does not dwell attached; the second half says abuse, knife, and staff do not obstruct. It is one thing.

IV. The Teaching in Brief and the Teaching of the Discourses (Discourses 312 and 313)

Moluojiajiu, gone forth in old age, asks for instruction taught in brief. The World-Honored One at first does not give it: “The young, sharp, and keen of faculty, not long gone forth in my Dharma and Discipline, are not yet slack in my Dharma and Discipline—how much less you, aged now, the faculties ripe, wishing to hear my instruction taught in brief.” Three requests, three refusals. Then the World-Honored One asks one question: “If your eye has never seen a form, and you wish to see it, do you give rise to desire, craving, longing, attachment toward that form?” Answer: no. Toward a form never seen, craving cannot arise. So the World-Honored One says: “In the seen, only the seen as its measure; in the heard, only the heard; in the sensed, only the sensed; in the cognized, only the cognized.” Two lines of verse: “If you are not in that, and that is not in this, nor in between the two, that is the end of suffering.” Seeing goes only as far as seeing, and craving is not added to seeing. What “that,” “this,” and “between the two” refer to the discourse does not specify; read in the flow of the passage, you are not in that form, that form is not here in you, and there is nothing in between: this is the end of suffering.

Moluojiajiu says “I have understood,” and the World-Honored One asks how he explains it at length. He speaks twenty-six lines of verse: “If the eye has seen a form and loses right mindfulness, then toward the form it sees it grasps the sign of fond longing.” Grasping the sign, dwelling attached, craving arises, “thoughts of greed, ill will, and harm make the mind decline, nourish the mass of suffering, and keep one far from nirvāṇa”; conversely, “seeing forms without grasping signs, the mind following right mindfulness, not stained by craving in an evil mind, not giving rise to attachment,” “the mass of suffering is little nourished, and one gradually draws near to nirvāṇa.” Ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind are the same. The World-Honored One confirms it: “You have truly explained at length the meaning of what I taught in brief.” This is the only time in the thirty-nine discourses that a disciple expands the World-Honored One’s teaching in brief into verse and the World-Honored One confirms it. “Only the seen as its measure” is the teaching in brief; losing right mindfulness and grasping the sign is the explanation at length.

Discourse 313 speaks of “a teaching of the discourses.” The World-Honored One asks: is there a teaching of the discourses which a bhikṣu esteems and inclines toward, yet “apart from faith, apart from inclination, apart from hearing, apart from reasoned reflection, apart from acceptance of a view after pondering, with right knowledge he declares: ‘My birth is ended, the pure conduct established, what was to be done is done; I know for myself that I shall not undergo another existence’”? The bhikṣus ask him to teach it. The World-Honored One answers: a bhikṣu’s eye sees forms, and “he is aware of the form but is not aware of lust for the form; ‘before, my eye-consciousness had lust for forms; now my eye-consciousness has no lust for forms,’ he knows as it really is.” Does such a bhikṣu rely on faith, inclination, hearing, reflection, acceptance of a view after pondering? No. “Does he resort to this Dharma, rightly knowing as it really is what is known and seen?” Yes. The teaching of the discourses does not come by faith; it is knowing as it really is that one’s own eye-consciousness formerly had lust and now has none. This is inner realization.

V. The All (Discourses 314 to 322)

Five short discourses: abandon desire for the eye “like cutting off the top of a palmyra tree, so that in the future it never grows again”; when the eye arises, persists, and comes forth, “suffering arises, sickness persists, old age and death come forth,” and when the eye ceases, subsides, and vanishes, suffering ceases, sickness subsides, death vanishes; the eye is impermanent, the eye is suffering, the eye is not self, three discourses of one form: “if the eye were permanent, it would not undergo oppressive suffering, and one could say of the eye, let it be thus, let it not be thus.” If the eye were permanent, pleasant, self, one could tell it to be thus or not thus; one cannot, and so it is impermanent, suffering, not self.

The brāhmaṇa Shengwen asks three questions: the all, all that exists, all dharmas. “The all means the twelve sense bases: eye and forms, ear and sounds, nose and odours, tongue and tastes, body and tangibles, mind and mental objects; this is called the all.” If someone says this is not the all and sets up another all, “he has only words; asked, he does not know, and his doubt grows. Why? Because it is not within his range.” All that exists: the World-Honored One asks back: does the eye exist? do forms exist? do eye-consciousness, eye-contact, feeling exist? The brāhmaṇa answers three times that they exist. All dharmas: “the eye and forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact, and the feeling arisen from the condition of eye-contact, whether painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant; ear, nose, tongue, body; mind and mental objects, mind-consciousness, mind-contact, and the feeling arisen from the condition of mind-contact, whether painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant: this is called all dharmas.” The all is the twelve sense bases, with consciousness, contact, and feeling added. At the end the discourse says the same three questions are also asked by a bhikṣu, by Ānanda, and spoken by the World-Honored One himself, three discourses each, “likewise taught as above.”

Discourse 322 distinguishes the internal and external sense bases. The eye, an internal sense base, is “subtle matter made of the four great elements, invisible, resistant”; the mind, an internal sense base, is “mind, thought, consciousness, not matter, invisible, non-resistant”; forms, an external sense base, are “matter made of the four great elements, visible, resistant”; sounds, odours, tastes are “invisible, resistant”; tangibles, an external sense base, are “the four great elements and matter made of the four great elements, invisible, resistant”; mental objects, an external sense base, are “what is not included in the eleven sense bases, invisible, non-resistant.” This is the most orderly definition of the sense bases in the Saṃyukta Āgama. Only forms are visible; ten are resistant; mind and mental objects are non-resistant.

VI. The Six Classes and Cause and Condition (Discourses 323 to 334)

Eight discourses, eight sentences: the six internal sense bases, the six external sense bases, the six classes of consciousness, of contact, of feeling, of perception, of volition, of craving. Each discourse states one list. The six sets of six of Discourse 304 are here split into eight discourses, with perception and volition added. Then the six longings: “longing for forms, longing for sounds, longing for odours, longing for tastes, longing for tangibles, longing for mental objects”; the six coverings: “forms with outflows, clung to, the mind covered over.” Longing and covering are two illnesses on the six external sense bases. Discourse 333 speaks of the three times: “The past and future eye are impermanent, how much more the present eye; a learned noble disciple, observing thus, does not look back to the past eye, does not long for the future eye, and toward the present eye is weary, free from desire, heading toward cessation.”

The Discourse on Things with a Cause, a Condition, and a Bond reasons backward: “The eye has action as cause, action as condition, action as bond.” The cause of action is craving, the cause of craving is ignorance, the cause of ignorance is wrong reflection, and the cause of wrong reflection: “with the eye and forms as condition arises wrong reflection, and delusion is born.” Then forward: “That delusion is ignorance. Delusion seeking desire is called craving; what craving does is called action. Thus, bhikṣus, wrong reflection is the cause of ignorance, ignorance the cause of craving, craving the cause of action, action the cause of the eye.” The eye comes from action, action from craving, craving from ignorance, ignorance from wrong reflection conditioned by eye and forms. Round the circle, the cause of the eye lies in the eye and forms.

VII. Emptiness in the Ultimate Sense (Discourse 335)

“When the eye arises there is no place it comes from; when it ceases there is no place it goes to. Thus the eye arises without substance, and having arisen is wholly extinguished; there is the result of action, but no agent. When this aggregate has ceased, another aggregate continues, apart from conventional reckoning.” The eye’s arising comes from nowhere, its ceasing goes nowhere; there is action and there is result, but no one who does the action and receives the result; when this aggregate has ceased, another follows. Only conventional reckoning is excepted. “Conventional reckoning means: this existing, that exists; this arising, that arises; as, conditioned by ignorance, formations; conditioned by formations, consciousness,” up to the arising of the whole mass of suffering; this not existing, that does not exist, up to the cessation of the whole mass of suffering. “This is called the Discourse on Emptiness in the Ultimate Sense.”

The preceding discourse says the eye has a cause, a condition, a bond; this discourse says the eye has no place it comes from, no place it goes to, no agent. They do not conflict. Cause and condition are conventional reckoning, this existing, that exists; no agent is the ultimate sense. Conventional reckoning is not excluded; what is excluded is the agent. Discourse 306 says “these things are called a person,” and a person is a name; Discourse 335 says “there is the result of action, but no agent,” and the agent too is a name. Twenty-nine discourses apart, the two say one thing.

VIII. The Six Constant Abidings (Discourses 336 to 342)

The course of joy, the course of sorrow, the course of equanimity: “if the eye sees a form and is joyful, it moves in that form.” Sorrow and equanimity are the same. The six constant abidings: “if a bhikṣu’s eye sees a form, neither suffering nor pleased, he dwells with a mind of equanimity, with right mindfulness and right knowledge.” Four discourses repeat it, adding layer by layer: one who accomplishes the six constant abidings is “rare in the world”; “he should be served, honoured, and supported; he is the unsurpassed field of merit in the world”; the last discourse names him: “if a bhikṣu accomplishes these six constant abidings, know that he is Śāriputra and his like.” The courses of joy, sorrow, and equanimity are seeing forms and turning with the forms; the six constant abidings are seeing forms neither suffering nor pleased, dwelling with a mind of equanimity, with right mindfulness and right knowledge. The earlier course of equanimity is one of the six courses, moving along with an object of equanimity; the mind of equanimity of the six constant abidings does not follow the object. One word used two ways, and the discourse itself keeps them apart.

IX. How to Read the Fascicle

This fascicle is long first and short after. The ten discourses of the first half say everything: the six sets of six are not self (304), arising and cessation on the six sense bases (305), a person is the name of things (306, 307), seeing forms and dwelling attached is dwelling with a second, far from nirvāṇa (308 to 311), only the seen as its measure (312), knowing as it really is that there was lust before and none now (313). The twenty-nine discourses of the second half are a list: impermanent, suffering, not self; the all; the definition of the sense bases; the six classes; longing and covering; the three times; action as cause; emptiness in the ultimate sense; the six courses and the six constant abidings. Read the short discourses with the long ones: the one sentence on the six classes of consciousness is the six classes of consciousness of 304; the four discourses on the six constant abidings are 312’s “seeing forms without grasping signs, the mind following right mindfulness.”

Fascicle 11 says guard the door without shutting it; this fascicle says there is no one inside the door. “There is the result of action, but no agent”: when forms are seen there is only seeing, only the seen as its measure; when craving arises, that is dwelling with a second; when craving does not arise, dwelling alone, dwelling with a mind of equanimity, right mindfulness and right knowledge.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

The Compendium of Topics, in its Selection on the Sense Bases, Fascicle 92, gathers this fascicle under two summary verses. The last four headings of the first verse: the doctrine of not self, concentration, seeing the Dharma, suffering last of all. The doctrine of not self: “Those who teach the doctrine of not self have in brief three right tasks.” The first: in the formations gathered under the truths of suffering and arising, “their own characteristics and common characteristics should be rightly shown, and not self established”; the Discourse on the Six Sets of Six lists them one by one and refutes the self one by one, and this is that. Concentration: “For one who has accomplished the worldly right view and much learning but is not yet fixed and settled in the right Dharma, becoming one who has accomplished the worldly right view and much learning and is fixed and settled in the right Dharma, know that in brief there are five kinds of excellent fruit of right effort, praised and beneficial.” The last passage: “What is to be fully known he rightly fully knows; what is to be permanently abandoned he rightly permanently abandons; what is to be realized he rightly realizes; what is to be cultivated he rightly cultivates.” “Of the form that is the support and the name that is supported, he rightly knows, has known; of the ignorance that is the support and the craving for existence that is supported, he rightly abandons, has abandoned; of the pure knowledge that is the support and the liberation, the cutting of the afflictions, that is supported, he rightly realizes, has realized; of the calm that is the support and the insight that is supported, he rightly cultivates, has cultivated.” This stands in one line with the four sentences at the end of the Discourse on the Six Analyses of the Six Sense Bases. Seeing the Dharma: “There are two seeings of the Dharma: first, seeing the conditioned Dharma; second, seeing the unconditioned Dharma.” The conventional truth is “the notional establishing of a self or a being, up to a life and one who is born; and again one declares, my eye sees forms, up to my mind knows mental objects; and again one speaks, such a name, up to such a limit of life”; the ultimate truth is “there is impermanence, taught at length up to there is arising from conditions.” The person, name, and life spoken of in the two discourses on seeing the Dharma the treatise judges to be conventional truth; impermanent, conditioned, arisen from conditions by volition and wish, it judges to be ultimate truth. Suffering last of all: “Here the Tathāgata has passed beyond these two faults and dwells in unalloyed ease”; this is the Tathāgata’s dwelling at ease in Discourse 308.

The second summary verse: “Dwelling alone, far from nirvāṇa, in brief, inner realization, discerning the all, the mark of knowledge, forsaking the training, action, equal, emptiness, following along, constant abiding, the twofold perfection of teacher and disciple.” Dwelling alone: “From two causes, know that it is called having a second: namely, because there is craving”; having craving is in three layers, enjoying, gladness, attachment, which are the delighting, praising, and dwelling attached, the gladness, the deep enjoyment and craving of the Luniu discourse. Far from nirvāṇa: “Having settled in defiled things, one then turns along with future existence; when one turns along with future existence, know that this is called being far from nirvāṇa.” The treatise further speaks of six kinds of mean and petty behaviour and the two things, patient endurance and gentleness: “Patient endurance means never returning an enemy’s injury. Gentleness means a mind without anger, a nature that does not trouble others”; this is the second half of the Pūrṇa discourse. In brief: “The Tathāgata, relying in brief on two bases, teaches the teaching on the element of non-existence: first, the teaching on the element of nirvāṇa with remainder; second, the teaching on the element of nirvāṇa without remainder.” “In brief there are three causes of strong mindfulness: first, youth and vigour; second, habituation in former lives; third, repeated practice in this life.” Moluojiajiu, aged and the faculties ripe, asks for the teaching in brief, and the treatise speaks from the power of mindfulness. Inner realization: “By five marks, know that nirvāṇa is a thing realized inwardly: namely, because it is apart from faith, up to because it is apart from acceptance of a view after examination”; this is the Teaching of the Discourses, apart from faith, inclination, hearing, reflection, and acceptance of a view after pondering. Discerning the all: “By three causes the unsurpassed awakening of the Buddhas is shown: first, because they have awakened to all objects; second, because they have awakened to existence and non-existence as they really are; third, because they have awakened to all dharmas of the two kinds, defiled and pure. Therefore he questioned the World-Honored One on these three points.” All objects, existence and non-existence, all dharmas: these are the brāhmaṇa Shengwen’s three questions. The mark of knowledge: “When conditioned things turn together, they confuse the mind and make it grasp signs wrongly and discriminate. Therefore the Tathāgata distinguishes and discloses them for his disciples, so that they enter decisively into those signs”; this is the distinction of the internal and external sense bases. Forsaking the training: “Those gone forth, by the power of forsaking the training, know that longing for objects is established.” “Hiding within the evils one has done, covering arises”; these are the six longings and the six coverings. Action: “The six sense bases have action as cause; action has craving as cause; craving has ignorance as cause; ignorance has attention not in accord with reason as cause; attention not in accord with reason has contact with ignorance as cause,” in the same backward order as the Discourse on Things with a Cause, a Condition, and a Bond. Emptiness: “If it is said that at all times all formations are only cause and effect, with no one who receives and no one who acts, know that this is called emptiness in the ultimate truth.” The treatise opens seven emptinesses: emptiness of the later limit, of the earlier limit, of the middle limit, of permanence, of self, of the receiver, of the agent; “because agent and receiver have no existence, there are only formations ceasing before and only formations arising after, and in between there is no one who lets go of the former birth and takes up the later”; “only within those things of cause and effect, by conventional truth, is a function notionally established, and it is taught that this thing gives rise to that thing.” In the Discourse on Emptiness in the Ultimate Sense, no place it comes from at arising is emptiness of the later limit, no place it goes to at ceasing is emptiness of the earlier limit, no agent is emptiness of the agent, and this existing, that exists is the notional establishing of conventional truth. Following along: “By five marks one follows along with objects that favour joy”; favouring joy gives rise to greed, favouring sorrow to anger, favouring equanimity to delusion: these are the six courses of joy, sorrow, and equanimity. Constant abiding: “There are bhikṣus who have realized arhatship, the outflows permanently ended, who move along with all objects and at no time can lose mindfulness and give rise to afflictions; therefore they abide constantly in undefiled abiding. For this reason it is called constant abiding.” “Because those who accomplish it are extremely hard to find, they are called the foremost true field of merit”; this is the rare in the world and the unsurpassed field of merit of the four discourses on the six constant abidings. The heading on the twofold perfection of teacher and disciple speaks of two marks each for the great teacher and the disciple whose virtue is perfected; the last discourse of this fascicle names Śāriputra as one who accomplishes the six constant abidings, and the treatise says the disciple’s perfection “must lie in practising the Dharma in accordance with the Dharma and realizing deliverance, not in mere retention”; the correspondence is weak, and it is noted.

Carrying forward continues with Fascicle 43.

The first four fascicles of the Connected Discourses on the Six Sense Bases say what the six sense bases are: they are doors, they are impermanent, they are not self, and there is no one inside the door. The fourteen discourses of Fascicle 43 change the manner of speaking: almost every discourse is a simile. The tortoise, the grain, the cattle, the lute, the leper, the six creatures, the venomous snakes, the pit of fire, the great tree, the kiṃśuka tree, the border city, the river of ashes. They all say one thing: how the six faculties are to be guarded before the six objects. The World-Honored One himself gives the way to read them: “I have spoken this simile; I will now explain its meaning”; “I have spoken this simile; now I shall tell its meaning.” After most of the similes comes a passage of “such-and-such is a likeness for such-and-such,” and the World-Honored One explains it himself; only the two similes of Discourse 1176, the dry grass and the tower, are spoken by Maudgalyāyana, and the World-Honored One, having listened, approves. So this fascicle does not need much explaining from me; it is enough to set the simile and its meaning side by side and read them together.

Apart from the similes, this fascicle has another thread: at the end of three discourses the World-Honored One says, “Out of compassion the Teacher has done for his disciples what should be done; I have now done it, and you too must now do what should be done.” The Discourse on the Basket of Venomous Snakes says it once; the kiṃśuka discourse and the river-of-ashes discourse each say it once, and both of those say only “as in the Discourse on the Basket of Venomous Snakes.” What the teacher had to do has been done; what remains is the disciple’s. This is the last fascicle of the Connected Discourses on the Six Sense Bases, and the World-Honored One closes it with this sentence.

I. The Two Extremes and the Seam (Discourse 1164)

The bhikṣus in the assembly hall are discussing a verse. “One who knows the two extremes does not cling anywhere in the middle; he is called the great man, who does not look back at the five desires, has no fetter of defilement, and has passed beyond the sorrow of the seam.” What are the two extremes? What is the middle? What is the seam? Five bhikṣus give five answers: the six internal and the six external sense bases; the past and the future; pleasant feeling and painful feeling; existence and arising; the body and the arising of the body. Every answer takes feeling, or the present, as the middle, and every answer takes craving as the seam. They say of themselves, “All that we have said differs,” and go to ask the World-Honored One.

The World-Honored One first says, “What you have all said is well said,” and then gives his own: “Contact is one extreme, the arising of contact is the second extreme, feeling is the middle, and craving is the seam. Having frequented craving, whatever one obtains, the body grows and is born again through contact.” Contact and the arising of contact are the two extremes, feeling lies between them, and craving sews them together. The World-Honored One does not judge the five answers one by one; he says only that they are all well said. The point of this discourse is not which answer is right but the seam: wherever the two extremes are placed, once craving arises upon the feeling in the middle, the seam is sewn. A seam is the thread in a garment; craving is the thread that sews the two extremes into one and makes the body grow out again and again. One who knows the two extremes “does not cling anywhere in the middle,” not by finding another middle outside the two extremes, but by not raising craving upon the feeling.

Placed at the head of the fascicle, this discourse is the outline of the whole: the similes of the thirteen discourses that follow all say how craving is not raised upon feeling, how the six faculties are not sewn fast.

II. Why Young Bhikṣus Dwell at Ease (Discourse 1165)

This whole discourse is the venerable Piṇḍola answering Udayana, king of Vatsa; the World-Honored One is not present. The king asks: young bhikṣus not long gone forth, why can they “dwell at great ease, their faculties joyful, their countenance clear, their skin fresh and bright”? Piṇḍola answers three times, and each time he cites the World-Honored One’s words.

The first answer: “If you see an elderly woman, regard her with the thought of a mother; one of middle years, with the thought of a sister; a young one, with the thought of a daughter.” The king says: but the mind follows after all the same, “burning with greed, burning with anger, burning with delusion”; is there a stronger cause? The second answer: contemplate the body as impure, “this body from the soles to the crown, a frame of bones plastered with flesh, covered with thin skin, filled with every kind of impurity.” The king says again: “The mind is swift and unsteady; while contemplating impurity, the thought of purity appears”; is there more? The third answer: “You should guard the sense doors and restrain your minds well. When the eye sees a form, do not grasp at the sign of the form, do not grasp at its particulars, holding on all the more.”

The three answers are three levels. The thought of mother, sister, daughter is to change the thought; the contemplation of impurity is to see through the object; guarding the sense doors is to grasp no sign at the faculty itself. To the first two levels the king raises a counter-case; at the third he asks no more, but bears witness himself: “I too am like this. At times I do not guard my body, do not keep restraint of the faculties, do not unify my attention, and when I enter the palace my mind burns fiercely with greed”; “and at times I guard my body well, restrain my faculties well, unify my attention, and when I enter the palace, greed, anger, and delusion do not arise to burn my mind.” The same palace, guarded or unguarded: two different things. The king’s testimony is stronger than a bhikṣu’s: he did not test it in a quiet room. This discourse names the subject of the whole fascicle: guarding the sense doors. The similes that follow are all similes for guarding the sense doors.

III. Because There Is an Eye, Feeling Arises; the Tortoise Withdraws Its Six (Discourses 1166 and 1167)

Discourse 1166 takes the body as its likeness: “Because there are hands, taking and letting go are known; because there are feet, coming and going are known; because there are joints, bending and stretching are known; because there is a belly, hunger and thirst are known.” Because there is an eye, there is “feeling born of eye-contact as its condition, felt within as painful, pleasant, or neither painful nor pleasant”; without an eye there is none. The discourse is very short; it says where feeling comes from: from there being a faculty. The hand is not the taking and letting go, but without a hand there is no taking and letting go. The faculty is not the feeling, but without the faculty there is no feeling. This is another way of saying “contact is one extreme” in Discourse 1164.

Discourse 1167 is the tortoise. A tortoise lives in the grass of a river; a hungry jackal comes to catch it; “seeing it come, the tortoise at once withdraws its six”; the jackal keeps watch, waiting for it to put out its head or feet; “it watched a long while, but the tortoise never put out its head or its feet; the jackal, hungry and weary, went off in anger.” The World-Honored One says: “You today are the same. Know that Māra Pāpīyas ever watches for his chance at you,” waiting for the eye to attach to forms, the ear to sounds. To withdraw its six is “to dwell holding to restraint of the eye.” The verse says: “The tortoise, fearing the jackal, withdraws its six into its shell; the bhikṣu, restraining his mind well, hides away his thoughts and perceptions. Not relying on it, not fearing it, he guards his mind and does not speak.”

Withdrawing its six: the six are head, tail, and four feet; the bhikṣu’s six are the six faculties. The tortoise does not never come out; it does not come out while the jackal is watching. The point of the simile is the watching: Māra does not charge in, he waits outside. The moment the eye attaches to a form, the head is out. Guarding the sense doors is not destroying the six faculties; it is knowing that someone is waiting outside and not putting the head out at that moment. This fascicle takes “withdrawing its six into the shell” as its title from this line.

IV. Wavering, Keeping the Field, the Lute (Discourses 1168 and 1169)

Discourse 1168 begins with the grain. Grain is set at the head of the crossroads and six strong men beat it with staves until “in an instant it is dust,” and then a seventh comes and beats it again. The foolish man is beaten by the six sense bases of contact and “still seeks existence in a future life, like the seventh man beating it again to pieces.” The six faculties have already beaten him, and he still seeks future existence: that is the seventh staff. Then the World-Honored One speaks of wavering: “If one says ‘this is I,’ that is wavering; if one says ‘this is mine,’ that is wavering. ‘In the future I shall be,’ that is wavering; ‘in the future I shall not be,’ that is wavering.” With form or without form, with perception or without, neither with nor without perception: to say one sentence is to waver once. “Because of wavering there is disease, because of wavering a boil, because of wavering a thorn, because of wavering attachment.” The same series is said again in terms of craving: to say “I” is craving, to say “mine” is craving, future existence and future non-existence are both craving. Wavering and craving are two faces of one thing.

The second half is the story of the asura king. Vemacitra is “bound with five bonds” by the gods of the Thirty-three and set in the hall of the right Dharma to be entertained with the five heavenly desires. The moment he thinks “I shall now go back to the asura palace,” he sees himself bound and the five desires vanish; the moment he thinks “I shall now stay in this heavenly palace,” the bonds loosen and the five desires appear again. The World-Honored One says: the asura king’s bond is already this fine, and “the bond of Māra Pāpīyas is subtler still. When the mind wavers, Māra binds it at once; when the mind does not waver, Māra loosens it at once.” The bond is not in the fetters but in the thought; the thought moves, and the bond is there. This takes the watching of Discourse 1167 to its finest point: Māra need not wait for you to put out your head; the moment the mind moves, he has bound it.

Discourse 1169 has two similes. One is keeping the field: a farmer has good crops in his field; if the field-keeper is lazy, the pen cattle come in and eat them; if the field-keeper is not heedless, the moment the cattle come in he drives them out, “leading them by the nose with his left hand, holding a stick in his right, beating them all over and driving them from the field,” and the cattle, having tasted pain, do not come again. The noble disciple “toward the six sense bases of contact gives rise to extreme weariness and fear, his mind dwelling at rest within, held to a single point.” The other is the lute: a king hears the sound of a lute and loves it, and tells his minister, “Bring me that sound.” The minister brings the lute; the king says, “I have no use for the lute; bring me the lovely sound I heard before.” The minister answers: the lute has a neck, a body, a holder, strings, and skin; a skilled man plays it, and only when many conditions come together is there a sound; “the sound you heard before has long since passed, has turned and wholly ceased, and cannot be brought.” The king says, “Bah! What use is this false thing?” and has the lute split to pieces. The World-Honored One explains: “If, knowing that form, feeling, perception, volition, and desire are impermanent, conditioned, arisen with the mind as cause and condition, one nevertheless says ‘this is I, this is mine,’ then at another time all of it is gone.”

Keeping the field speaks of guarding; the lute speaks of seeing through. The cattle must be driven out; the sound must be seen through as made of many conditions, gone once it is past. This discourse says both sides of guarding the sense doors: not being heedless is one side, observing as it really is the other.

V. Restraint, the Six Creatures, the Firm Post (Discourses 1170 and 1171)

Discourse 1170 is the leper. A leper whose four limbs are covered with sores walks into reeds and rushes and “is wounded by the thorns and needle-like leaves, his pain doubled.” The foolish ordinary person suffers at the six sense bases of contact in the same way: “the mind of the foolish, unlearned ordinary person is like a leper’s sore.” Then the World-Honored One speaks directly of restraint and non-restraint. Non-restraint: “Having seen a form with the eye, toward an agreeable form he raises greed and attachment, toward a disagreeable form he raises hatred; one after another many thoughts arise and continue, and he does not see the danger; or, seeing the danger, he cannot remove it.” Restraint: “When the eye sees a form, toward an agreeable form he does not raise the thought of desire, toward a disagreeable form he does not raise the thought of hatred; one after another many thoughts do not arise and continue, and he sees the danger in the form; having seen the danger, he can let it go.” The two passages differ in only a few words: raising or not raising, seeing or not seeing the danger, being able or unable to let go. The definition of restraint is here, not in the rules of training, but in the moment the eye sees a form.

Discourse 1171 is the six creatures. In an empty house a man gets a dog, a bird, a venomous snake, a jackal, a crocodile, and a monkey, and ties them together with a rope. The dog wants to go into the village, the bird to fly into the sky, the snake to go into its hole, the jackal to the burial ground, the crocodile into the sea, the monkey into the forest. “These six creatures, all tied in one place, have different likings; each craves to reach the place where it is at ease, and none is pleased with another’s place; and because they are bound, each uses its strength to pull toward the direction it likes, and cannot get free.” So it is with the six faculties: “the eye faculty always seeks lovely forms, and toward disagreeable forms it gives rise to aversion”; each of the six seeks its own, and none wants another’s object. The man ties the six creatures to a firm post; however they pull, “going back and forth until they are exhausted, because they are bound by the rope, in the end they rest against the post.” The World-Honored One explains: “The six creatures are a likeness for the six faculties; the firm post is a likeness for mindfulness of the body.”

That the six faculties have different desires was said in the earlier fascicles of this section; what is new here is the post. When the rope is tied to the post, the creatures cannot pull away. Mindfulness of the body is the post. “If one cultivates mindfulness of the body well, there is mindfulness and there is no thought of form; seeing a lovely form one does not attach to it, seeing an unlovely form one does not turn from it.” At this point guarding the sense doors has a method: not guarding the six bases one by one, but tying all six to the one post of mindfulness of the body.

VI. The Basket of Venomous Snakes (Discourse 1172)

This is the simile the last two discourses refer back to. A man is handed a basket with four venomous snakes in it and told to “stroke them and bathe them, feed them kindly, and take them out and put them back at the proper times”; if a snake is angered it can kill him. He is afraid, and runs. Someone says: “Suddenly there are five enemies with drawn swords following you, seeking to kill you.” He runs again. Someone says again: “Within there are six thieves following and watching you; when they get the chance they will kill you.” He runs into an empty village, whose houses are “crumbling and rotten, full of foul things; whatever he grasps is fragile, nothing is firm.” Someone says: a band of thieves will come to the empty village. He runs to the bank of a great river; the current is swift; this shore is fearful, the far shore “safe and happy, cool and without fear”; there is no bridge or boat, so he gathers grass and wood, binds a raft, and “with the effort of hands and feet cuts across the current.”

The World-Honored One explains item by item: the basket is this body, “gross form of the four great elements, a body of blood and seed made of the four great elements, nourished by foul food, bathed and clothed, a thing impermanent, decaying, and fragile”; the four venomous snakes are the four great elements, earth, water, fire, and wind, “if the earth element is at strife, it can bring the body to death or near to death”; the five enemies with drawn swords are the five aggregates of clinging; the six inner thieves are the six delights of craving; the empty village is the six internal sense bases, “observe the eye base: it is impermanent and decaying, and whoever holds to the eye is likewise an impermanent and false thing”; the thieves in the empty village are the six external sense bases, “the eye is harmed by agreeable and disagreeable forms”; the torrent is the four floods, the flood of desire, the flood of existence, the flood of views, and the flood of ignorance; the river is the three cravings; this shore full of fear is the existing body; the far shore cool and at ease is nirvāṇa without remainder; the raft is the eightfold noble path; cutting across the current with the effort of hands and feet is vigorous striving to reach the far shore; the brāhmaṇa’s dwelling is the Tathāgata.

This simile sets the six sense bases back within the whole body. The body is the basket, the four elements are the snakes: the body itself is the danger. The five aggregates of clinging are the enemies, the six delights of craving the inner thieves: the danger is within. The six internal bases are the empty village, the six external bases the thieves in the village: the six bases are empty, and in the empty place there are thieves. From beginning to end the man does only one thing: he knows the danger, he runs, he crosses. Knowing is the “knowing and seeing as it really is” of Discourse 1173. The raft for crossing the river is the eightfold noble path, and the way of crossing is the effort of hands and feet: this simile lets no one come to rescue him.

At the end the World-Honored One says: “Out of compassion the Teacher has done for his disciples what should be done; I have now done it, and you too must now do what should be done: under a tree in an empty place, in a clean dwelling, spreading grass for a seat, in the open, in the burial ground, sitting apart in seclusion, striving in meditation, careful not to be heedless, lest you regret it later. This is my instruction.” The simile is spoken, the explanation is finished, and what remains is to go and sit under the tree.

VII. The Pit of Fire, the Thorny Grove, the Ganges, the Great Tree (Discourses 1173 and 1174)

Discourse 1173 turns it round, giving the meaning first and the similes after. The learned noble disciple “knows and sees as it really is the arising, cessation, gratification, danger, and escape of all painful things, and sees the five desires as a pit of fire.” What is knowing and seeing as it really is? It is knowing the four noble truths as they really are. What is seeing the five desires as a pit of fire? Beside a village there is a deep pit full of fire, and a man neither foolish nor deluded knows, “if I fall in I shall surely die,” and “keeps far from it, thinks of keeping far, wishes to keep far.” Another simile: in a mango grove full of thorns, one who enters “walks with right mindfulness, comes and goes with right mindfulness, with right mindfulness opens his eyes, with right mindfulness looks straight ahead, with right mindfulness bends his body,” fearing the thorns will wound him. So too the bhikṣu entering the village for alms fears the sharp thorn that wounds the noble Dharma and Discipline. What is the sharp thorn? “Agreeable and lovely forms: this is called the sharp thorn that wounds the noble Dharma and Discipline.”

Then the World-Honored One says: at times the noble disciple too may raise an evil, unwholesome thought, but “like an iron ball heated to a glow, sprinkled with a little water, it dries up at once”: arisen, it is extinguished. If kings and ministers come to ask him to return to lay life, offering stipends and the five desires, will he fall back? The bhikṣus answer: no, “there is no such possibility.” The World-Honored One gives another simile: “It is like the Ganges, which has long slanted, sloped, and inclined toward the east; if a crowd of people tried to dam it and make it slant, slope, and incline toward the west, could they?” They could not. The noble disciple’s mind “has long slanted, sloped, and inclined toward seclusion, toward being free from desire, toward nirvāṇa, quiet and letting go”; to make him fall back is labour lost. The four similes of this discourse run in a line: the pit of fire speaks of keeping far, the thorny grove of right mindfulness, the iron ball of what arises being at once extinguished, the Ganges of a direction already fixed. Guarding the sense doors, cultivated to this point, is no longer a guarding done time after time; it is the direction of the whole river.

Discourse 1174 continues the Ganges. A bhikṣu asks the World-Honored One for a teaching; the World-Honored One sees a great tree in the Ganges floating downstream and asks him: this tree, if it “does not get stuck on this shore, does not get stuck on the far shore, does not sink to the bottom, is not stranded on an islet, is not drawn into a whirlpool, is not taken by humans, is not taken by non-humans, and does not rot,” will it go with the stream into the sea? It will. “So too the bhikṣu,” who then “slants, slopes, and inclines toward nirvāṇa.” The bhikṣu asks: what are this shore and the far shore? The World-Honored One explains: “This shore is the six sense bases. The far shore is the six external sense bases.” To be taken by humans is to share the joys and sorrows of laypeople and renunciants and follow them from first to last; to be taken by non-humans is to practise the pure conduct for the sake of rebirth in heaven; the whirlpool is giving back the training and falling away; rotting is breaking the precepts and doing evil, “not an ascetic yet putting on the appearance of an ascetic, not of pure conduct yet putting on the appearance of pure conduct.”

The previous discourse spoke of the direction of the mind; this one speaks of the eight obstacles on the way. This shore and the far shore are the internal and the external six sense bases: the tree leans on neither shore. This points to something different from “contact is one extreme, the arising of contact is the second extreme” in Discourse 1164, there contact and the arising of contact, here the internal and external bases, but the essential is the same: not stuck on either side, the stream goes of itself. In the second half of this discourse there is one more person, the cowherd Nantu, who hears this and says that he too can stay unstuck on this shore and the far shore, and asks to go forth. The World-Honored One first has him give the cattle back to their owner: “You have now received food and clothing from others; you must repay the head of the house.” Śāriputra asks why he was not ordained on the spot, and the World-Honored One says: “That the cowherd Nantu should go back to live at home and enjoy the five desires: there is no such possibility! Once the cattle are handed to their owner he will come back of himself.” Nantu returns the cattle, comes back, goes forth, and becomes an arhat. The direction of the Ganges is confirmed once more in him: the direction is fixed, so first go back and finish the task; the stream will not change.

VIII. The Kiṃśuka, the Border City, Outflows and No Outflows (Discourses 1175 and 1176)

A certain bhikṣu in Discourse 1175 asks: “How does one know, how does one see, to attain purity of vision?” He asks at three bhikṣus’ dwellings. The first answers: by knowing as it really is the arising, cessation, gratification, danger, and escape of the six sense bases of contact. The second: of the six elements. The third: by observing the five aggregates of clinging “as a disease, as a boil, as a thorn, as a killer, impermanent, painful, empty, not self.” At each answer “his mind is not pleased,” and he goes to ask the World-Honored One. The World-Honored One tells of the kiṃśuka: a man who has never seen a kiṃśuka asks those who have, and one says “its colour is black like a fire-burnt post,” one says “its colour is red and open, like a piece of flesh,” one says it hangs down like the śirīṣa fruit, one says “its leaves are green, its leaves are smooth, its leaves are long and broad, like the nyagrodha tree.” All are the kiṃśuka; each man saw it at a different time. “Each describes it according to what he saw.” The three bhikṣus who spoke of purity of vision from the six bases, the six elements, and the five aggregates were each describing what they had seen; none was wrong.

Then the World-Honored One gives another simile, the border city: its walls are firm, its four gates have four gatekeepers, and in the city, at the crossroads, the lord of the city sits on his couch; when messengers come from the four directions the gatekeepers tell them where the lord is, and the messengers go, “receive his instructions, and return by the road they came.” The World-Honored One explains: “The city is a likeness for the gross form of a person’s body”; “the well-made walls are right view. The level crossroads are the six internal sense bases. The four gates are the four stations of consciousness. The four gatekeepers are the four foundations of mindfulness. The lord of the city is the aggregate of consciousness. The messengers are calm and insight. The true word means the four truths. Returning by the road they came is the eightfold noble path.” This explanation gathers the answers from the six bases, the six elements, and the five aggregates into one city: the six internal bases are the roads in the city, the aggregate of consciousness is its lord, the four foundations of mindfulness are its gatekeepers. The gatekeepers are not the lord; the lord sits in the middle, and calm and insight go as his messengers, coming and going and bringing back the four noble truths.

Discourse 1176 is Mahāmaudgalyāyana speaking in the World-Honored One’s place. The Śākyans have built a new assembly hall and invite the Buddha; the World-Honored One teaches until the first watch is over, and then, “my back is in pain; I shall rest it,” tells Maudgalyāyana to teach the bhikṣus, and lies down on his right side. Maudgalyāyana speaks the Discourse on Things with Outflows and Things without Outflows. Things with outflows: “The foolish, unlearned ordinary person, having seen a form with the eye, raises delight and attachment toward an agreeable form and hatred toward a disagreeable form, does not dwell in mindfulness of the body, and has not the least knowledge of the liberation of mind and the liberation by wisdom”; Māra Pāpīyas “watches for his weakness and finds his opening in the eye and forms,” “like a heap of dry grass with fire rising on four sides, burnt at once.” Things without outflows: “The learned noble disciple, seeing a form with the eye, does not raise delight and attachment toward an agreeable form or hatred toward a disagreeable form, but dwells with attention fixed”; Māra comes watching for a weakness and finds none, “like a tower with walls firm, windows and doors shut tight, thickly plastered with mud; fire rising on four sides cannot burn it.” The World-Honored One rises and praises him, and tells the bhikṣus, “You should keep in mind the Discourse on Things with Outflows and Things without Outflows and teach it widely.”

The outflows and no outflows of this discourse are the same pair of sentences as the non-restraint and restraint of Discourse 1170, only with Māra and the fire added: the one who does not dwell in mindfulness of the body is dry grass, burnt the moment the fire reaches him; the one who dwells with attention fixed is a tower the fire cannot enter. The firm post of Discourse 1171 has here become the walls. And this is said by Maudgalyāyana, while the World-Honored One lies listening, and when it is done he says, “Excellent! Excellent, Maudgalyāyana! To teach people this discourse brings much benefit.” The disciple teaches, the Teacher approves: in this discourse “I have now done it, and you too must now do what should be done” is not a sentence but an event.

IX. The River of Ashes (Discourse 1177)

The last discourse is the river of ashes. Both banks are scorching hot and full of sharp thorns, in darkness, and many sinners drift and sink with the stream. A man neither foolish nor deluded thinks, “Why am I now in this river of ashes?” and with the effort of hands and feet goes against the stream. First he sees a little light, then level ground; he climbs a great rock mountain, sees the cool eightfold water, sees seven kinds of flowers, climbs a hall of four storeys, enters a canopy on five posts, sits upright with body composed, and cool winds gather from the four directions. Sitting high, he calls down into the river of ashes: “Beings of the river of ashes, good and upright men! This river of ashes has both banks scorching hot, full of sharp thorns, a place of darkness; seek a way out of it.” Someone in the river asks which way out, and someone else says: what are you asking, the one calling does not know either, “he too will be back in this river of ashes.”

The World-Honored One explains item by item: the ashes are the three evil, unwholesome thoughts; the river is the three cravings; “the two banks scorching hot are the internal and external six sense bases. The many sharp thorns are the five strands of sense pleasure. The place of darkness is ignorance shutting off the eye of wisdom”; the stream is the river of birth and death; the man neither foolish nor deluded “is the bodhisattva mahāsattva”; going upstream is diligent training; the little light is the acceptance of the Dharma; the level ground is keeping the precepts; looking in the four directions is seeing the four noble truths; the great rock mountain is right view; the eightfold water is the eightfold noble path; the seven flowers are the seven factors of awakening; the four-storeyed hall is the four bases of supernormal power; the canopy on five posts is the five faculties beginning with faith; sitting with body upright is nirvāṇa without remainder; the scattering of flowers is the meditations, liberations, samādhis, and attainments; sitting and lying at ease is the Tathāgata; the winds from the four directions are the four higher states of mind, dwelling at ease in the Dharma seen; “raising his voice and calling is turning the wheel of the Dharma”; those who ask are Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, and the rest; those who say “what are you asking” are the six teachers and their kind of wrong view. At the end the discourse says again: “What the Teacher has to do for his hearers I have now done; you must now do what should be done, as in the Discourse on the Basket of Venomous Snakes.”

The Discourse on the Basket of Venomous Snakes takes crossing the river as its likeness; the river-of-ashes discourse takes going upstream and climbing the mountain; in both, one man walks out by himself. In the basket of snakes this shore and the far shore are the existing body and nirvāṇa without remainder; in the river of ashes the two banks are the internal and external six sense bases. Here the six sense bases are not doors but the heat of the two banks; the five desires are the thorns on the banks; ignorance is the dark. The way out is not to cross to the other bank, which is just as hot, but to go against the stream, up onto the land, up the mountain. The one who has walked out turns and calls; those in the river do not believe him. This is the last discourse of the Connected Discourses on the Six Sense Bases, and the World-Honored One puts himself into the simile: the one who calls is the Tathāgata, and turning the wheel of the Dharma is the calling. He has called; whether those in the river come out is their affair. “What the Teacher has to do for his hearers I have now done.”

X. How to Read the Fascicle

This fascicle may be read by first taking the passages where the World-Honored One himself explains the similes, and then going back to the similes. The basket of snakes, the great tree, the border city, and the river of ashes are the four discourses where the explanation is finest, item set against item; that is the way of reading the World-Honored One gives. When those are matched, read the other, shorter similes, the tortoise, the grain, the cattle, the lute, the leper, the six creatures, and one knows which step of guarding the sense doors each simile speaks of.

On guarding the sense doors this fascicle says four levels: knowing that someone is watching (the tortoise, Māra); grasping no sign at the faculty itself (the third answer of Discourse 1165, restraint); tying the six faculties to the one post of mindfulness of the body (the six creatures, the gatekeepers of the border city, the walls of the tower); and once the direction is fixed, no longer needing to guard time after time (the Ganges, the great tree). The four levels are not four kinds of person but four moments of one person.

Last, read “what the Teacher has to do I have now done.” This is the final fascicle of the Connected Discourses on the Six Sense Bases, which began in Fascicle 8 with “the eye is impermanent” and ends here with “you too must now do what should be done.” The six sense bases have been fully spoken; what remains is to go and sit under the tree.

Carrying Forward — What the Compendium of Topics Gathers

One summary verse in Fascicle 91 of the Compendium of Topics, in the section on the sense bases, gathers this fascicle directly: “Only a condition; thought; wish; restraint of every kind; entering the holy teaching without guarding; excellent provisions well prepared; abandoning the training; points of attachment; unskilled in the meaning; going with the stream; the bodhisattva surpasses the other vehicles; the treatise’s arrangement last.” The first eleven headings answer in order to the twelve discourses from 1166 to 1177; only “the treatise’s arrangement” belongs to another fascicle. The passage before the summary verse glosses Discourse 1165: “Newly ordained bhikṣus who deeply love the Buddha’s well-taught Dharma and Discipline are rightly known by two marks: first, the mark of the body unchanged; second, the mark of the mind unchanged.” The unchanged mark of the body is the discourse’s “faculties joyful, countenance clear, skin fresh and bright”; the treatise then gives three antidotes to sensual greed: “first, the thought of what is not to be done; second, the thought of utter impurity; third, close guarding of all the sense doors.” That is the order of Piṇḍola’s three answers: the thought of a mother, impurity, guarding the faculties. The treatise closes with “guarding the body well, keeping the faculties well, dwelling well in mindfulness,” and the king’s own words, “guard my body well, restrain my faculties well, unify my attention,” are these three phrases. Discourse 1164 the treatise gathers under the heading “teaching and affection,” but the treatise and the discourse share few words, so it is recorded and not matched.

“Only a condition” glosses Discourse 1166: “the six bases of contact serve only as a condition. As the hand can only serve as a helping condition for the taking and receiving set in motion by the mind’s activity”: the hand is not the taking but a condition of taking; the faculty is not the feeling but a condition of feeling. “Thought” glosses Discourse 1167: “if anything causes the sign of an excellent object to appear in the mind and disturb one’s thought, know that it is the work of Māra’s kind”; the jackal watching the tortoise, the treatise names outright as Māra. “Wish” glosses Discourse 1168: “if a bhikṣu, seeking future existence, vows of himself to practise the pure conduct, at that time he makes the seventh cause of suffering, future existence, grow all the more”: the meaning of the seventh staff is here; and of the asura king’s bond the treatise says, “this wish for existence, know, is the subtlest of all subtle bonds,” “the moment the thought arises, he is bound by the subtle bond.” “Restraint of every kind” glosses Discourse 1169: “toward lovely objects he does not tolerate, does not receive, does not hold, does not grasp the defiled mind; should it arise for a moment, it is at once cast off: this is called restraint”; and non-restraint is to “let loose the ox of the mind, joined to improper attention, into the field of objects to trample the crops of wholesome roots”: the treatise too uses the simile of keeping the field.

“Entering the holy teaching without guarding” glosses Discourses 1170 and 1171: “one who thus does not guard the faculties is like a leper going into a thicket of reeds and rushes”; and the fulfilment of restraint, “having gone forth, he uses the wisdom of hearing, joined to spiritual power, to hold in the six faculties that are like beasts,” “he then cultivates more diligently mindfulness that follows the body; because this mindfulness is well cultivated, they can no longer scatter each to its own object”: the discourse makes the firm post a likeness for mindfulness of the body, and the treatise makes mindfulness that follows the body the end. “Excellent provisions well prepared” glosses Discourse 1172: “next, by the pure true knowledge of not self, as if entering an empty room, he sees directly that the internal and external six bases are all empty”: the meaning of the empty village is here; “he has first cultivated the wisdom of the gate of the right Dharma, like the branches, stems, and leaves of grass and trees, and gathered the practice of the Dharma according to the Dharma on the noble path as the raft he depends on,” “know that he has wholly passed beyond all suffering and reached the far shore.” “Abandoning the training” glosses Discourse 1173: “by seven causes, in the well-taught Dharma and Discipline, having gone forth, one turns back and abandons the training rightly undertaken”; among the seven are “constantly thinking improper thoughts, the evil thorn of the wholesome” and “if a king or someone else summons and presses him, out of fear he follows”: the discourse’s sharp thorn and the king’s and ministers’ invitation to return are both there.

“Points of attachment” glosses the four wrong courses of Discourse 1174: “he delights in dwelling mixed with laypeople and renunciants: this is called the first wrong course,” which is the discourse’s being taken by humans; “he raises a wrong wish and practises the pure conduct: this is called the second wrong course,” being taken by non-humans; “it can make him turn back and abandon the training rightly undertaken: this is called the third wrong course,” the whirlpool; “he breaks the precepts, and so on down to the conch-blower’s dog-like conduct,” the rotting. Of the eight obstacles, the four wrong courses answer to the last four; the internal and external bases of this shore and the far shore the treatise has already spoken of in the first point of attachment; sinking and the islet are left unglossed. “Unskilled in the meaning” glosses Discourse 1175: “hearing from others various words for one meaning, he falls into doubt and is not pleased,” which is the bhikṣu whose “mind is not pleased” at all three answers; the treatise says, “the words differ, the meaning does not differ; by this doubt can be cut off,” the meaning of the kiṃśuka; and the meaning of the border city lies in “taking the internal and external bases as objects, the four stations of consciousness. To cut off the consciousnesses that cling to existence, he cultivates mindfulness that follows the body, held by excellent calm and insight.” “Going with the stream” glosses Discourse 1176: “like a dry and rotten house of reeds and grass, Māra heaps up the torch of lovely objects there and sets it ablaze”; the treatise’s “drifting with the stream, called one who goes with the stream” is losing the road and being carried off, the opposite of the great tree of Discourse 1174 going with the stream into the sea; the two are not to be read together. “The bodhisattva surpasses the other vehicles” glosses Discourse 1177: “the great bodhisattvas in their last existence see the foolish fallen into the river of craving, drifting and drowning with the stream,” “they see them dwelling on the two banks, the internal and external six bases, in the fire of the three poisons”: the meaning of the two scorching banks, the treatise says outright, is the fire of the three poisons at the internal and external six bases.

The end of Fascicle 92 speaks of the twofold perfection of teacher and disciple: “the Buddha, the World-Honored One, first laid down for his disciples the right practice of the middle way that leaves the two extremes: this is called the first perfection of the teacher’s virtue”; the disciple’s perfection lies in “first accepting the Teacher’s view, namely the view that in all dharmas there is emptiness and no self,” and then “rightly practising the Dharma according to the Dharma.” The sentence at the end of three discourses in this fascicle, “what the Teacher has to do I have now done; you too must now do what should be done,” carries forward into the treatise’s twofold perfection: what the teacher has to do is to lay down; what the disciple has to do is to accept and then practise.

The five fascicles of the Connected Discourses on the Six Sense Bases end with this fascicle. Carrying forward continues with the remaining connected discourses.