108. BUDDHA SPEAKS ABOUT CHARACTERISTICS

108 Buddhist Parables

“Whether Buddhas arise, O Monks, or whether Buddhas do not arise, there are three facts. It remains a fact and a necessary constitution of being that all conformations are transitory. It remains a fact and a necessary constitution of being that all conformations are suffering. It remains a fact and a necessary constitution of being that all conformations are lacking a self. These facts any Buddha discovers and masters, and when he has discovered and mastered it, he announces, proclaims, minutely explains them.”

On hearing this, one disciple, who still had some doubt left in his heart, asked the Blessed One, “The Buddha teaches that all conformations are transient, that all conformations are subject to suffering, that all conformations are lacking a self. How then can there be liberation, a state of eternal bliss?”

And the Blessed One answered, “There is, O Monks, a state where there is neither earth, nor water, nor heat, nor air; neither infinity of space nor infinity of consciousness, nor nothingness, nor perception nor non-perception; neither this world nor that world; neither sun nor moon. It is the uncreate. It is neither coming nor going nor standing; neither death nor birth. It is without stability and without change. It is the eternal which never originates and never passes away. There is an unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, unformed. Since there is an unborn, unoriginated, uncreated and unformed, therefore there is an escape from the born, originated, created, formed.”

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