8.
The Discourse on the Great View
213.
At Sāvatthī.
"When what exists, monks, clinging to what, having clung to what, does such a view arise:
'These seven classes are not made, not of made kind, not created, not caused to be created, barren, standing like a peak, standing firm like a pillar;
they do not move, they do not change, they do not harm one another;
they are not able to cause one another happiness or suffering or happiness-and-suffering.
Which seven?
The earth class, the water class, the fire class, the air class, happiness, suffering, and the soul as the seventh.
These seven classes are not made, not of made kind, not created, not caused to be created, barren, standing like a peak, standing firm like a pillar;
they do not move, they do not change, they do not harm one another;
they are not able to cause one another happiness or suffering or happiness-and-suffering.
Even if one cuts off the head with a sharp knife, no one deprives anyone of life;
the knife just passes through the opening between the seven classes.
There are these fourteen hundred thousand chief modes of generation, and sixty hundreds, and six hundreds, and five hundreds of actions, and five actions, and three actions, and action, and half-action, and sixty-two practices, and sixty-two intermediate cosmic cycles, and six classes of rebirth, and eight stages of man, and forty-nine hundred ājīvaka ways of life, and forty-nine hundred wandering ascetic ways of life, and forty-nine hundred serpent abodes, and twenty hundred faculties, and thirty hundred hells, and thirty-six dust elements, and seven conscious wombs, and seven unconscious wombs, and seven knotted wombs, and seven gods, and seven humans, and seven goblins, and seven lakes, and seven knots, and seven precipices, and seven hundred precipices, and seven dreams, and seven hundred dreams, and eighty-four hundred thousand great cosmic cycles, through which both the fool and the wise, having transmigrated and wandered, will make an end of suffering.
Therein there is no such thing as: "By this morality or by this ascetic practice or by this austerity or by this holy life I shall ripen unripened action;
or having repeatedly touched ripened action I shall put an end to it" - thus it is not. Pleasure and pain are measured out as if by a measure, in the round of rebirths with a fixed limit; there is no decrease or increase, there is no superiority or inferiority.
Just as when a ball of string is thrown, it runs along unwinding;
even so both the fool and the wise, unwinding, run through pleasure and pain'?"
"The teachings have the Blessed One as their root, venerable sir, etc. "When matter exists, monks, clinging to matter, having clung to matter, such a view arises: 'These seven classes are not made, not of made kind, etc. they run through pleasure and pain.' When feeling exists, etc. when perception exists... when activities exist... when consciousness exists, clinging to consciousness, having clung to consciousness, such a view arises: 'These seven classes are not made, not of made kind, etc. they run through pleasure and pain.'" "What do you think, monks, is materiality permanent or impermanent?" "Impermanent, venerable sir." Etc. "But what is impermanent, suffering, subject to change, would such a view arise by non-clinging to that: 'These seven classes are not made, not of made kind, etc. they run through pleasure and pain'?" "No, Venerable Sir." "Whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognised, attained, sought after, pondered over by the mind, is that too permanent or impermanent?" "Impermanent, venerable sir. Etc. would such a view arise by non-clinging to that: 'These seven classes are not made, not of made kind, etc. unwinding, they run through pleasure and pain'?" "No, Venerable Sir."
"When, monks, for a noble disciple uncertainty regarding these states has been abandoned, and his uncertainty regarding suffering has been abandoned, etc. and his uncertainty regarding the practice leading to the cessation of suffering has been abandoned - this is called, monks, a noble disciple who is a stream-enterer, no longer subject to fall into lower realms, fixed in destiny, heading for the highest enlightenment." The eighth.