14.7 Of Desire as inherent in Heavenly Things (KV14.7)

Controverted Point: That lust for the things of the Rūpa heavens is inherent to and included therein.

Theravādin: You imply that the desire which seeks attainment in Jhāna, the desire which seeks rebirth in the heavens, and the delighting, under present conditions, in celestial bliss, are all three concomitant, coexistent, associated and conjoined with their respective kinds of consciousness, are one in genesis and cessation, one in seat and object with those kinds. If you deny, your proposition falls.

Is a desire for sound inherent and included in the sphere of sound, or is a desire for the other objects of sense inherent and included in their respective spheres? Why not affirm here instead of denying? If the desires are to be denied here, neither can you affirm them in the case of the heavens.

The same arguments apply to the desire for the things of the Arūpa heavens.

Andhaka, Sammitiya: But if you admit that we may speak of sensuous lusts as inherent and included in the world of sense-experience, it is surely right to affirm analogous desires in the case of the Rūpa and Arūpa heavens.

The Points of Controversy, an English translation of the Pali Abhidhamma Kathāvatthu. Translated by Shwe Zan Aung and C.A.F. Rhys Davids. First published by Pali Text Society, 1915.

This SuttaCentral edition was prepared by Manfred Wierich and Ven. Vimala and proofread by Josephine Tobin. Some changes were introduced:

Abbreviations, i.e., those of cited works and the participants in the controversies, were expanded.

Cross-references were linked.

Some typographic changes were introduced, among others, i.e.: the phonetic symbol “ŋ” was changed to the Pāli diacritical letter “ṃ”, “ô” to “o”, single quotes to double quotes, and “:—” to “:”.

Letter-spacing with fixed spaces was replaced with bold font.

The corrigenda were merged into the text. Some could not be resolved, though.

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