King Bimbisāra's Disciples (II)

"and the friction of confused and disordered thought kindles it further; the fires of craving, desire, and hatred then burn sentient beings to their very core.

The fire of these afflictions, once ablaze, never rests — submerging beings deep in birth and death, this fire of suffering, too, burns on forever.

Having seen these two kinds of fire, ablaze with nothing at all to shelter one from them — how could any person of true feeling fail to give rise to weariness and renunciation at the sight?

Weariness and renunciation remove craving and desire; once craving is exhausted, liberation is attained; and once liberation is attained, the very knowledge and vision of that liberation arises.

Observing closely the current of birth and death, and taking up instead the holy life — once all of this has been accomplished, one receives no further existence to come."

Hearing the World-Honored One teach the Dharma in this way, these thousand monks found that not a single defiling outflow arose in them ever again, and every one of their minds attained liberation.

The Buddha then taught Kāśyapa and these thousand monks further still: "What needed to be done has now been done; pure wisdom stands as your own wondrous adornment, and the whole retinue of your virtues — generosity, moral discipline, and purified faculties — is now complete.

A great and virtuous sage who abandons the true path, losing the very glory found in the forest of ascetic practice, is no different from a man who casts aside moral virtue altogether — his body left empty, living out his life in vain."

The World-Honored One, together with his great company of followers, then made his way to Rājagṛha, recalling the solemn vow he had once made to the king of Magadha.

Once the World-Honored One had arrived, he settled at the Bamboo Grove; and King Bimbisāra, hearing of this, came with his own great retinue, the whole kingdom's men and women following behind him, to where the World-Honored One sat.

Seeing the Tathāgata seated there from a distance, he humbled his own heart and mastered every one of his faculties, setting aside all worldly show, and descended from his carriage to approach on foot — just as Śakra, lord of the gods, once went on foot to visit Brahmā himself.

He came forward and bowed his head at the Buddha's own feet, respectfully asking after his health and well-being; and the Buddha, having offered him the same courteous greeting in return, bid him be seated to one side.

The king thought silently to himself: "Could it truly be that Kāśyapa, of such great power and excellent virtue, is now a disciple of this Śākya sage?"

The Buddha, knowing the thought in the assembly's own hearts, asked Kāśyapa directly: "What benefit did you see, that led you to abandon the practice of fire-worship?"

Kāśyapa, receiving the Buddha's own question, rose in astonishment before the whole assembly, and, kneeling with palms joined, declared in a loud voice: "In cultivating merit through the worship of the fire-god, the fruit obtained was, in every case, only further circling through birth and death, only a deepening of the afflictions of birth and death — and it was for this reason that I cast it aside.

Diligently serving the fire in pursuit of the realm of the five desires only deepened my own craving and desire without end — and it was for this reason, too, that I cast it aside.

Fire-worship and the cultivation of ritual incantations only lead one further from liberation and toward yet further rebirth — and since rebirth is itself the very root of suffering, I abandoned it, and sought instead a true peace.

I had once believed that ascetic austerity and the holding of great sacrificial assemblies were themselves the very finest and most excellent path — only to find that they, too, run contrary to the true path.

And so I have now cast them aside, seeking instead the far more excellent quiescent extinction, free of birth, old age, sickness, and death, the inexhaustible place of true coolness and peace.

It was through coming to understand this very meaning that I set aside the practice of fire-worship entirely."

The World-Honored One, hearing Kāśyapa recount this understanding he had reached for himself, and wishing that the whole world might come, through this, to give rise to a pure and genuine faith, said to Kāśyapa: "You are most welcome, great one, having discerned so many different teachings and now following the most excellent path of all.

Now, before this whole assembly, display your own excellent spiritual powers — as a great and wealthy elder might open up his own treasury to reveal its contents — so that these poor and suffering beings here might have their own weariness with the world deepened all the more."

"How excellent — I shall obey your honored instruction." And so, right there before the whole assembly, he composed his own body and entered true absorption, rising lightly into the empty sky, walking, standing, sitting, and lying down there in the air; at times his whole body blazed with fire, and water and fire poured forth from his left and right sides at once, and yet he was neither burned nor drenched by either one.

Clouds and rain issued forth from his own body, and thunder and lightning shook heaven and earth; the whole assembly gazed up at him in wonder, their eyes never once growing weary of the sight.

With one voice, though from many mouths, they cried out in praise of this wonder such as had never before been seen.

Only then did he withdraw his own spiritual powers, and bow in reverence at the World-Honored One's own feet.

"The Buddha is my great teacher, and I am his honored disciple; having received his teaching and heard and practiced accordingly, what needed to be done has now, for me, been fully accomplished."

The whole assembly, seeing with their own eyes that Kāśyapa was truly the Buddha's disciple, came to know with certainty that the World-Honored One was indeed possessed of true and complete omniscience.

The Buddha, knowing that the whole assembly was now a fit vessel to receive the Dharma, said to King Bimbisāra: "Listen now, and consider carefully what I say!

Mind and intention, and every one of the faculties, are all subject to arising and cessation — and to fully understand the fault inherent in this arising and cessation is itself what is called perfectly equal contemplation.

Such perfectly equal contemplation is itself what it means to truly know the body; and to know the body as subject to arising and cessation is to hold to it neither by grasping nor by any sense of ownership.

Just as the body and its faculties of awareness are themselves without any self and without anything belonging to a self, so, too, is this entire aggregation nothing but suffering in its purest form, arising and ceasing as suffering alone.

Having thus known that every mark of the body is without any self and without anything belonging to a self, this alone is the very foremost and inexhaustible place of true coolness and peace.

The view that clings to a self, and every affliction like it, binds fast the whole of this world — but once one sees that there is no self and nothing belonging to a self, every one of these bonds is entirely loosened.

It is a false view that binds a person fast; seeing the truth of the matter is itself liberation — and the world's own clinging to a self is nothing but a mistaken and false form of clinging.

Should there indeed be a self, whether one holds it to be permanent or impermanent, both of these views fall to the two extremes concerning birth and death, and the fault in either case is exceedingly grave.

Should the self be impermanent, then spiritual practice would bear no fruit at all, since one would receive no future body to inherit its result, and liberation itself would be attained without any true merit behind it.

Should the self instead be permanent, then there would be no interval at all between death and birth, and it would have to be exactly like empty space, neither arising nor ceasing at all.

Should there indeed be a self, then it ought to be exactly the same in every being — every being would possess a self in precisely the same way, and the fruits of karma would then arise of themselves, without any actual karmic action behind them at all.

Should there be a self that is itself the doer of actions, then there would be no need to labor at spiritual practice at all — for if that self already possessed complete sovereignty over itself, what need would there be for any further striving or effort?

And should this self be permanent, then by its very nature it could admit of no change or alteration at all — yet we plainly observe the marks of suffering and pleasure arising and changing constantly; how, then, could one possibly call it permanent?

To know birth truly is itself to attain liberation, far removed from every trace of defilement — yet if everything were entirely permanent already, what use could liberation possibly serve at all?

To say there is no self is not merely an assertion made in words — the very nature of reality itself holds no such fixed, real self at all; since we never actually observe any self performing any action, how could one possibly speak of "the self acting" at all?

Since the self performs no action of its own, and there is likewise no agent that produces this self, and since neither of these two things can be found at all, it follows that, in ultimate truth, there is no self whatsoever.

There is no doer and no knower, no master presiding over anything, and yet everything is in constant flux, the very stream of birth and death flowing on day and night without pause — now listen closely as I explain this to you.

The six sense-faculties and their six corresponding objects give rise, through the aggregation of conditions, to the six consciousnesses; when these three things come together, contact arises, and thought and karmic action follow along in its wake.

Just as a burning-glass, meeting dry grass, produces fire through the condition of the sun's own light, so too do the faculties, their objects, and consciousness give rise, in this same way, to the very arising of a person.

A sprout arises from its seed, and yet the seed itself is not identical to the sprout — neither the same as it nor entirely different from it either; and the arising of a sentient being is, in this same way, exactly the same."

As the World-Honored One spoke this truth, this perfectly equal and ultimate meaning, King Bimbisāra rejoiced greatly, and the pure Dharma-eye, free of every defilement, arose within him.

The king's own household and people, and hundreds and thousands of spirits and demons besides, hearing this teaching of the Dharma of immortality, likewise attained freedom from every trace of defilement along with him.