Reading guide
Turbulence named as disease, boil, and dart
The mendicants are addressed directly, without a questioner: turbulence (ejā) is a disease, a boil, a dart, and it is because of this that “the Realized One lives unperturbed, with dart drawn out.”
Not conceiving, across the six fields and “the all”
The practice for a mendicant who wishes the same unperturbed state: do not conceive anything to be the eye, in the eye, as the eye, or “the eye is mine” — run for each of the six fields, then for “the all” itself, the identical totalizing term this book has already defined at SN 35.23 and revisited at SN 35.82.
Beyond even the fourth absorption's own stillness
Sujato's own note draws a real distinction: the fourth absorption is called “imperturbable” because it is free of ordinary reactivity to pleasure and pain, but this discourse's own concern is with “the ultimate imperturbability of the perfected one” — a stillness this project has not yet needed to distinguish from jhāna's own so explicitly.
Key terms
The text
§1“Mendicants, turbulence is a disease, a boil, a dart. That’s why the Realized One lives unperturbed, with dart drawn out. Now, a mendicant might wish: ‘May I live unperturbed, with dart drawn out.’ So let them not conceive anything to be the eye, let them not conceive it in the eye, let them not conceive it as the eye, let them not conceive that ‘the eye is mine.’ Let them not conceive sights … eye consciousness … eye contact … Let them not conceive anything to be the pleasant, painful, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on eye contact. Let them not conceive it in that, let them not conceive it as that, and let them not conceive that ‘that is mine.’
§2Let them not conceive anything to be the ear … nose … tongue … body … mind … ideas … mind consciousness … mind contact … Let them not conceive anything to be the pleasant, painful, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on mind contact. Let them not conceive it in that, let them not conceive it as that, and let them not conceive that ‘that is mine.’ Let them not conceive anything to be all, let them not conceive it in all, let them not conceive it as all, let them not conceive that ‘all is mine’.
§3Not conceiving, they don’t grasp at anything in the world. Not grasping, they’re not anxious. Not being anxious, they personally become extinguished. They understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is nothing further for this place.’”
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