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Nirvana
(From the Mahasakulaudayi Sutta)
To those who have met with suffering,
Become victims of suffering,
Prey to suffering, I explain
The Noble Truth of suffering,
The Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering,
The Noble Truth of the Cessation of suffering,
And the Noble Truth of the Way
Leading to the cessation of suffering.
* * *
To tread
The Noble Eightfold Path,
The path of Right View and Right Intention,
Right Speech and Right Action,
Right Livelihood,
Right Effort, Right Mindfulness,
and Right Concentration.
* * *
Thus through Virtue,
Concentration, Knowledge and Vision,
I show the way
To the Eight Liberations.
* * *
How, constituted of Form, they can sense Form.
This is the first Liberation.
They perceive external extension of
their materiality.
This is the Second Liberation.
Of this extension,
They sense only the symmetry.
This is the Third Liberation.
* * *
Beyond perception of Form,
Mind shut to sense perception,
And perception of diversity,
They are aware of the infinity of Space and merge
With the base of Infinite space.
This is the Fourth Liberation.
* * *
Beyond this is the realisation
That consciousness is infinite,
And they merge with Infinite Consciousness.
This is the Fifth Liberation.
* * *
They become aware,
That there is nothing material,
And enter the Base of Nothingness.
This is the Sixth Liberation.
* * *
Beyond the Base of Nothingness,
There is neither perception nor non-perception.
This is the Seventh Liberation.
* * *
Surmounting this base
Of neither perception no non-perception
They abide untouched by perception and feeling.
This is the Eighth Liberation.
* * *
With this cessation,
They transcend Form and Perception
Of the physical world, externally and internally,
Knowing and seeing transcendence,
In colour, form and relation,
Of the world externally, and within the mind.
* * *
They contemplate the four states of matter,
They contemplate space and light.
They contemplate consciousness,
And its extension, within and without.
* * *
Once on the Path of Purity,
Of view, intention, speech and action,
livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration
In seclusion from sensuality and
unwholesome states,
They enter and abide in the janas,
In applied and sustained thought,
Fully pervaded by the rapture of seclusion.
* * *
Then stilling thought, they abide
In the rapture of concentration,
And with the fading away of rapture,
They attain a pleasant abiding,
In the joy of equanimity and mindfulness.
* * *
Turning away from joy and grief,
Pleasure and pain, they abide suffused
With a pure, bright, mind,
The pure, bright, mind
Gives insight into the minds of others
Reveals the interdependence of
body and consciousness,
Gives true insight into impermanence
Of the body, its disintegration
The dissolution of the bond
Between body and mind.
* * *
This insight empowers
Creation of form without matter,
Mind made and fully conscious.
Thus free of the limitations of matter,
The limitations of space and time,
They have the divine ear and the divine eye,
Supernatural powers, unbound by materiality
Unbound by space and time,
And just as they appear and vanish,
Here and in the depths of space,
They recall in time
Events of past existence and know,
Their own arising and passing,
And the arising and passing of other beings
Over countless lives.
Wrong view and unwholesome actions
Leading to bad destinations,
And those with right view and conduct
Appearing in the heavenly worlds.
Finally with Direct Knowledge,
They enter upon and abide,
In the deliverance of the mind in Wisdom
Achieving abandonment and destruction
Of all the Taints.
* * *
Thus taintless, their minds
Are clear as mountain lakes,
Limpid and undisturbed,
Extending infinite and unbounded,
In total liberation
(Rendered into verse by U. Karunatilake)
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