Numbered Discourses 3
4. Messengers of the Gods
32. 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 ego, possessiveness, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body; and no ego, possessiveness, or underlying tendency to conceit for all external stimuli; and that they’d live having attained the freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom where ego, possessiveness, and underlying tendency to conceit are no more?” “It could be, Ānanda, that a mendicant gains a state of immersion such that they have no ego, possessiveness, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body; and no ego, possessiveness, or underlying tendency to conceit for all external stimuli; and that they’d live having attained the freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom where ego, possessiveness, and underlying tendency to conceit are no more.”
“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 ego, possessiveness, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body; and no ego, possessiveness, or underlying tendency to conceit for all external stimuli; and that they’d live having achieved the freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom where ego, possessiveness, and underlying tendency to conceit are no more.
And Ānanda, this is what I was referring to in ‘The Way to the Beyond’, in ‘The Questions of Puṇṇaka’ when I said:
‘Having considered the world high and low,
they’re not shaken by anything in the world.
Peaceful, unclouded, untroubled, with no need for hope—
They’ve crossed over birth and old age, I declare.’”