In the Buddha's Words - Bhikkhu Bodhi [101]
Text VI,8 highlights a particular problem posed by eternalist views. Such views can inspire meditators to attain states of deep meditative bliss, which they interpret as union with a divine reality or realization of an eternal self. From the perspective of the Buddha’s teaching, however, such attainments merely create the karmic potential for rebirth into a realm in which that meditative experience becomes the fundamental condition of consciousness. In other words, the attainment of these states in the human realm generates rebirth into the corresponding planes in the realm of subtle form or the formless realm. While many religions point to a divine realm as the final answer to the human predicament, the Buddha’s teaching holds that these worlds offer no final outlet from the impermanence and misery of saṃsāra.
The text cited here shows that certain meditators attain the four “divine abodes” and take rebirth in the corresponding planes of the brahma world, where they might abide even for as long as five hundred great eons. Eventually, however, they must inevitably pass away and may then fall into the unfortunate realms of rebirth. Similar texts not included here (AN 3:114, 4:124) say the same respectively about realms of rebirth corresponding to the jhānas and the formless attainments.
The two suttas that constitute the final section of this chapter again take up the unsatisfactoriness and insecurity of conditioned existence, reinforcing their message with dramatic imagery. In Text VI,9(1), the Buddha declares that the amount of tears we have shed while wandering through the round of rebirths is greater than the water in the four great oceans. In Text VI,9(2), he tells a group of thirty monks that the amount of blood they have shed when they were slaughtered and executed in the round of rebirths is greater than the water in the four great oceans. According to the compilers of the sutta, the impact of this discourse upon the thirty monks was so powerful that all attained full liberation on the spot.
VI. DEEPENING ONE’S PERSPECTIVE ON THE WORLD
1. FOUR WONDERFUL THINGS
“Monks, on the manifestation of the Tathāgata, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One, four wonderful and marvelous things appear. What four?
“People for the most part delight in attachment, take delight in attachment, rejoice in attachment. But when the Dhamma of nonattachment is taught by the Tathāgata, people wish to listen to it, lend an ear, and try to understand it. This is the first wonderful and marvelous thing that appears on the manifestation of the Tathāgata, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One.
“People for the most part delight in conceit, take delight in conceit, rejoice in conceit. But when the Dhamma is taught by the Tathāgata for the abolition of conceit, people wish to listen to it, lend an ear, and try to understand it. This is the second wonderful and marvelous thing that appears on the manifestation of the Tathāgata, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One.
“People for the most part delight in restlessness, take delight in restlessness, rejoice in restlessness. But when the Dhamma of peace is taught by the Tathāgata, people wish to listen to it, lend an ear, and try to understand it. This is the third wonderful and marvelous thing that appears on the manifestation of the Tathāgata, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One.
“People for the most part live in ignorance, are blinded by ignorance, fettered by ignorance. But when the Dhamma is taught by the Tathāgata for the abolition of ignorance, people wish to listen to it, lend an ear, and try to understand it. This is the fourth wonderful and marvelous thing that appears on the manifestation of a Tathāgata, an Arahant, a Perfectly Enlightened One.
“On the manifestation of