Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
The same immersion beyond all ordinary perception met four times across this chapter's closing discourses, here volunteered by Sāriputta himself and explained at the mendicants' request: perceiving only the peace of nibbāna, the stilling of all activities and the ending of craving.
The fourth and final combination
This discourse completes the chiasm this chapter's closing set has built: mendicants asked the Buddha (AN 11.18), the Buddha volunteered to the mendicants (AN 11.19), mendicants asked Sāriputta (AN 11.20), and now Sāriputta volunteers the same teaching to the mendicants unprompted, mirroring AN 11.19's structure exactly but with the disciple in the Buddha's role.
The same formal request, given to a disciple
The mendicants respond to Sāriputta's own question with language echoing, but not identical to, their earlier request of the Buddha at AN 11.19: rather than naming him root and refuge, they say they would travel a long way to learn this from Sāriputta specifically, asking him to clarify it in his own presence — formal deference calibrated to a senior disciple rather than the teacher himself.
Closing the chapter, and its own colophon
This discourse closes Anussativagga, the chapter these ten pages have covered, with the traditional colophon (‘Anussativaggo dutiyo’, chapter two finished, followed by an uddāna summary verse) left untranslated in the English source, following this project's established convention. With this chapter complete, the identical eleven-doors list already met at AN 11.16 will recur once more before this nipāta ends, at the close of its own Rāgapeyyāla.
Key terms
The text
Sāriputta raises the question himself
§1There Sāriputta addressed the mendicants: “Could it be, reverends, 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. They wouldn’t perceive this world in this world, or the other world in the other world. And they wouldn’t perceive what is seen, heard, thought, known, attained, sought, or explored by the mind. And yet they would still perceive.” “Reverend, we would travel a long way to learn the meaning of this statement in the presence of Venerable Sāriputta. May Venerable Sāriputta himself please clarify the meaning of this. The mendicants will listen and remember it.” “Then listen and apply your mind well, I will speak.” “Yes, reverend,” they replied. Sāriputta said this: “A mendicant could gain such a state of immersion.” “But how could this be?” “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. They wouldn’t perceive this world in this world, or the other world in the other world. And they wouldn’t perceive what is seen, heard, thought, known, attained, sought, or explored by the mind. And yet they would still perceive.”
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