From The Discourse Collection: Selected Texts from the Sutta Nipata (WH 82), translated by John D. Ireland (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1983). Copyright ©1983 Buddhist Publication Society. Used with permission.
"As a man awakened from sleep no longer sees what happened in his dream, similarly one does not see a loved one who is dead. Those people who were seen and heard and called by their names as such and such, only their names remain when they have passed away. Those greedy for objects of attachment do not abandon sorrow, grief and avarice, but sages having got rid of possessions, live perceiving security. For a bhikkhu with a detached mind, living in a secluded dwelling, it is right, they say, that he no longer shows himself in the abodes (of existence).[1]
"A sage who is completely independent does not make close friends or enemies. In him sorrow and selfishness do not stay, like water on a lotus leaf. As a lotus is not wetted by water, so a sage is not affected by what is seen or heard, nor by what is perceived by the other senses. A wise man is not deluded by what is perceived by the senses. He does not expect purity by any other way.[2] He is neither pleased nor is he repelled (by the six sense-objects)."
-- vv. 804-813
1. There is a play on words here: "bhavana," besides meaning "an abode of existence" also means "a house." So as well as saying, he is not reborn into any realm of existence, the passage also indicates he lives secluded and does not associate with people in the village. [Go back]
2. By any way other than the Noble Eightfold Path (Comy). [Go back]