Mvg I.54/en

CST: Mvg I.54 ; PTS: Mvg I, pp. 34-35

The Fire Sermon

Once the Blessed One dwelt in Uruvelā as long as he pleased and set out on a journey to Gayāsīsa together with one thousand monks, all of them former matted-haired ascetics. There the Blessed One stayed together with the thousand monks and said to them:

Everything is burning, monks. And what is this everything that is burning? The eye, monks, is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning in that the feeling that arises through eye-contact - whether pleasure or suffering or neither suffering nor pleasure - that, too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of passion, the fire of hate, the fire of delusion, burning with birth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair – this I say. The ear is burning, sounds are burning... The nose is burning, odours are burning... The tongue is burning, tastes are burning... The body is burning, tactile objects are burning... The mind is burning, objects of cognition are burning... - this I say.

"Monks, when a noble follower, having heard this doctrine, sees thus he is fed up with the eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact... Being tired of the world, he detaches himself from it, being dispassionate he frees himself, being free he realizes himself to be free. He knows: 'Destroyed is the possibility of rebirth, the holy life has been fulfilled, done is what had to be done, there is nothing left for this saṃsāra.'"

While this exposition was being preached, the minds of those thousand monks were released from corruptions without further grasping.

Here ends the Fire Sermon.