With equal and impartial mind, he considered
the nature of sorrow, for evermore freed from a cleaving heart. Whether
we think "this is" or "this is not" he thought, both tend to produce a
listless, idle mode of life. But when with equal mind we see the truth,
then certainty is produced and no more doubt. If we rely for support on
wealth or form, then wild confusion and concupiscence result: inconstant
and impure. But lust and covetous desire removed, the heart of love and
equal thoughts produced, there can be then no enemies or friends, but
the heart is pitiful and kindly disposed to all, and thus is destroyed
the power of anger and of hate. Trusting to outward things and their
relationships, then crowding thoughts of every kind are gendered.
Reflecting well, and crushing out confusing thought, then lust for
pleasure is destroyed. Though born in the Arupa world he saw that there
would be a remnant of life still left; unacquainted with the four right
truths, he had felt an eager longing for this deliverance, for the quiet
resulting from the absence of all thought. And now putting away forever
covetous desire for such a formless state of being, his restless heart
was agitated still, as the stream is excited by the rude wind. Then
entering on deep reflection in quiet he subdued his troubled mind, and
realized the truth of there being no "self," and that therefore birth
and death are no realities; but beyond this point he rose not: his
thought of "self" destroyed, all else was lost.
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