171. [Discourse on Views about Annihilation] (SA171)

Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī in Jeta's Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika's Park.

At that time the Blessed One said to the monks: “The existence of what is the cause, by clinging to what, by being fettered and attached to what, by seeing what as the self, do living beings have a view like this and speak like this: 'If the gross body made of the four elements [after death] is destroyed and becomes nothing, that is called the proper annihilation of the self; again if the self of the sensual sphere after death is destroyed and becomes nothing, that is called the proper annihilation of the self; again if the self of the material sphere after death is destroyed and becomes nothing, that is called the proper annihilation of the self; if having attained the sphere of [infinite] space … the sphere of [infinite] consciousness … the sphere of nothingness … the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception the self after death is destroyed and becomes nothing, that is called the proper annihilation of the self?'”

The monks said to the Buddha: “The Blessed One is the root of the Dharma, the eye of the Dharma, the foundation of the Dharma …” to be recited fully in the same way in the sequence of the above three discourses.

Translated by Bhikkhu Anālayo. Originally published in ‘On Views and Penetrative Knowledge – A Translation of Saṁyukta-āgama Discourses 139 to 187 (Fascicle 7)’, Dharma Drum Journal of Buddhist Studies, 2015, vol. 17 pp. 43–100.

Prepared for SuttaCentral by Seniya Ariyakumara and Ayya Vimala.