DN1.4.1. Anxiety and Evasiveness

Brahmajāla Sutta ("The Prime Net")

Now, these things are only the feeling of those who do not know or see, the agitation and evasiveness of those under the sway of craving. Namely, when those ascetics and brahmins assert that the self and the cosmos are eternal on four grounds …

partially eternal on four grounds …

finite or infinite on four grounds …

or they resort to equivocation on four grounds …

or they assert that the self and the cosmos arose by chance on two grounds …

they theorize about the past on these eighteen grounds …

or they assert that the self lives on after death in a percipient form on sixteen grounds …

or that the self lives on after death in a non-percipient form on eight grounds …

or that the self lives on after death in a neither percipient nor non-percipient form on eight grounds …

or they assert the annihilation of an existing being on seven grounds …

or they assert the ultimate extinguishment of an existing being in the present life on five grounds …

they theorize about the future on these forty-four grounds …

When those ascetics and brahmins theorize about the past and the future on these sixty-two grounds, these things are only the feeling of those who do not know or see, the agitation and evasiveness of those under the sway of craving.



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