Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
A mendicant can gain a state of immersion where none of the four elements, the four formless dimensions, or this world and the next are perceived as themselves, and yet perception continues, by perceiving that the stilling of all activities and the ending of craving is peaceful and sublime.
An unusually precise question
Ānanda's question is remarkable for its exhaustiveness: it names all four elements, all four formless dimensions, and both this world and another, denying that any of them are perceived as themselves — a near-total inventory of possible objects of perception, all set aside at once.
Perceiving something else entirely
The Buddha's answer doesn't describe an absence of perception but a redirection of it: what remains perceived, when none of the usual objects are perceived as themselves, is the peace and sublimity of extinguishment itself — the same ‘this is peaceful; this is sublime’ formula already met turning the mind toward the deathless at AN 9.36.
A companion question, a different kind of answer next
This discourse's exchange between Ānanda and the Buddha sets up AN 10.7 directly: there, Ānanda puts the identical question to Sāriputta, who answers not with a general formula but with his own specific, personally verified experience of exactly this state.
Key terms
The text
A precisely worded question
§1Then Venerable Ānanda went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and said to him: “Could it be, sir, that a mendicant might gain a state of immersion like this? They wouldn’t perceive earth in earth, water in water, fire in fire, or air in air. And they wouldn’t perceive the dimension of infinite space in the dimension of infinite space, the dimension of infinite consciousness in the dimension of infinite consciousness, the dimension of nothingness in the dimension of nothingness, or the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. And they wouldn’t perceive this world in this world, or the other world in the other world. And yet they would still perceive.” “It could be, Ānanda, that a mendicant might gain a state of immersion like this. They wouldn’t perceive earth in earth, water in water, fire in fire, or air in air. And they wouldn’t perceive the dimension of infinite space in the dimension of infinite space, the dimension of infinite consciousness in the dimension of infinite consciousness, the dimension of nothingness in the dimension of nothingness, or the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. And they wouldn’t perceive this world in this world, or the other world in the other world. And yet they would still perceive.” “But how could this be, sir?”
What remains, when nothing else is perceived
§2“Ānanda, it’s when a mendicant perceives: ‘This is peaceful; this is sublime—that is, the stilling of all activities, the letting go of all attachments, the ending of craving, fading away, cessation, extinguishment.’ That’s how a mendicant might gain a state of immersion like this. They wouldn’t perceive earth in earth, water in water, fire in fire, or air in air. And they wouldn’t perceive the dimension of infinite space in the dimension of infinite space, the dimension of infinite consciousness in the dimension of infinite consciousness, the dimension of nothingness in the dimension of nothingness, or the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. And they wouldn’t perceive this world in this world, or the other world in the other world. And yet they would still perceive.”
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