With Ānanda

Then Venerable Ānanda went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and said to the Buddha:

“Could it be, sir, that a mendicant might gain a state of immersion such that there’s no I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body; and no I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit for externally for all signs;

and that they’d live having attained the freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom where I-making, mine-making, and the underlying tendency to conceit are no more?”

“It could be, Ānanda, that a mendicant gains a state of immersion such that they have no I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body; and no I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit for externally for all signs;

and that they’d live having attained the freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom where I-making, mine-making, and the underlying tendency to conceit are no more.”

“But how could this be, sir?”

“Ānanda, it’s when a mendicant thinks:

‘This is peaceful; this is sublime—that is, the stilling of all activities, the letting go of all attachments, the ending of craving, fading away, cessation, extinguishment.’

That’s how, Ānanda, a mendicant might gain a state of immersion such that there’s no I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body; and no I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit for externally for all signs;

and that they’d live having achieved the freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom where I-making, mine-making, and the underlying tendency to conceit are no more.

And Ānanda, this is what I was referring to in ‘The Way to the Far Shore’, in ‘The Questions of Puṇṇaka’ when I said:

‘Having appraised the world high and low,

there is nothing in the world that disturbs them.

Peaceful, unclouded, untroubled, <j>with no need for hope—

they’ve crossed over rebirth and old age, I declare.’”