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MAHA-PARINIBBANA-SUTTA.
51
instance, as the Ummâ flower is blue in colour, blue in appearance, and reflecting blue; or, again, as that fine muslin of Benares which, on whichever side you look at it, is blue in colour, blue in appearance, and reflecting blue,—when a man without the subjective idea of form sees externally forms which, just in that way, are blue, blue in colour, blue in appearance, and reflecting blue, and having mastered them, is conscious that he knows and sees-that is the fifth position of mastery.'
III.
30-32. [The sixth, seventh, and eighth positions of mastery are explained in words identical with those used to explain the fifth; save that yellow, red, and white are respectively substituted throughout for blue; and the Kanikåra flower, the Bandhu-givaka flower, and the morning star are respectively substituted for the Ummâ flower, as the first of the two objects given as examples.]
33. Now these stages of deliverance, Ânanda [from the hindrance to thought arising from the sensations and ideas due to external forms 1], are eight in number. Which are the eight?
34. A man possessed with the idea of form sees forms-this is the first stage of deliverance.
35. 'Without the subjective idea of form, he sees forms externally-this is the second stage of deli
verance.
1 These are the Attha Vimokkhâ. Buddhaghosa has no comment upon them; merely saying, 'The passage on the Vimokkhas is easy to understand'-which is tantalizing. The last five Vimokkhas occur again below, in Chap. VI, §§ 11-13, where it is clear that they are used to express the progress through deep meditation, into absent-mindedness, abstraction, and being sunk in thought, until finally the thinker falls into actual trance.
E 2
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