Earth is Not Self “Whatever there is, Rāhula, that is inside, in oneself, that is hard or has become solid, and is attached to, like this: head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, bone-marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, pleura, spleen, lungs, intestines, mesentery, undigested food, excrement - or whatever else there is that is inside, in oneself, that is hard, or has become solid, and is attached to, that, Rāhula, is called the internal earth element. Now, that which is the internal earth element, and that which is the external earth element, that is only the earth element. “This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self,” like this it is ought. Here the meditation on the elements is worked out in detail. Commenting on the meditation as given in brief in Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasuttaṁ (D. 22), Visuddhimagga (11. 30) says: Just as a cow-butcher while fattening a cow, bringing it to the slaughter-house, binding it up and making it stand there; then slaying it and seeing it slain and dead, still doesn’t lose the idea: ‘this is a cow’ so long as he has not torn it apart and dismembered it. But after dismembering it, while sitting there, he loses the idea of ‘cow’, and the idea of ‘meat’ occurs, and he doesn’t think: ‘I am selling a cow, this is cow they are carrying off’, rather he thinks ‘I am selling meat, this is meat they are carrying off’. So too, a monk...does not lose the idea ‘this is a being, this is a person, this is an individual’, so long as he does not review this body...and classify what is (otherwise) dense into the elements. But after reviewing the elements he loses the idea ‘this is a being (etc.)’ and on account of the elements he settles his mind. ........ _/\_ ........ :)
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 02:37:13 +0000
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