Early Monastic Buddhism v2.c38.s8.10

v2.c38.s8.10

When Anāthapiṇḍika was in his deathbed, Sāriputta delivered to him a discourse on Buddhist philosophy so that he might overcome the extreme pain.² In the discourse he pointed out that a person must not cling to the six organs of sense, or to the perceptions and feelings derived through the organs of sense, or to the dhātus like earth, water, fire, air, space (ākāsa) and consciousness (viññāṇa), or to the five constituents of a being, or to the four Arūpadhātus, or to this world or the next, or to things seen, heard, thought or known. Buddha explained to Nakulapitā how the unenlightened persons identified soul with one or all of the khandhas and thus suffered from the misconception of the existence of a self. Mahākaccāna explained to Hāliddikāni the following stanza of the Aṭṭhakavagga:—