Difference (2nd) (AN4.124)

Numbered Discourses 4.124

13. Fears

Difference (2nd)

“Mendicants, these four individuals are found in the world.

What four?

Take an individual who, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, enters and remains in the first absorption …

They contemplate the phenomena there—included in form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness—as impermanent, as suffering, as diseased, as a boil, as a dart, as gloom, as an affliction, as alien, as breaking apart, as empty, as not-self.

When their body breaks up, after death, they’re reborn in the company of the gods of the pure abodes.

This rebirth is distinct from that of ordinary people.

Furthermore, take an individual who, as the placing of the mind and keeping it connected are stilled, enters and remains in the second absorption … third absorption … fourth absorption …

They contemplate the phenomena there—included in form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness—as impermanent, as suffering, as diseased, as a boil, as a dart, as gloom, as an affliction, as alien, as breaking apart, as empty, as not-self.

When their body breaks up, after death, they’re reborn in the company of the gods of the pure abodes.

This rebirth is distinct from that of ordinary people.

These are the four individuals found in the world.”