The World is on Fire!

Seven, Amber Dorrian, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly translation, The Fire Sermon (SN 35.28)

Calm, cool, and collected, the Buddha at Ayutthaya,Thailand (Perstephone/flickr.com)

  

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

("Fire and Ice," Robert Frost)

"self" immolates (xfilledwithdoubt-)

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Buddha was living in Gaya, on Gaya Hill, together with a thousand ascetics. There he addressed them.

"Meditators, ALL is burning! What 'all' is burning?

"The eye is burning, forms [seen by the eye] are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, and whatever is felt as either pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact as supporting condition, that too is burning!
 

But I'm not burning, right? (Megan Fox/ArticMonkeyss/tumblr.com)

 
"Burning with what? Burning with the fire of craving [lust, greed, selfishness], with the fire of aversion [fear, hate, revulsion], with the fire of delusion [wrong view, ignorance, illusion].

"I say it is burning with rebirth, aging, and death, with sorrow, weeping, pain, grief, and despair.

"The ear is burning, sounds [heard by the ear] are burning... The nose is burning, odors [sensed by the nose] are burning... The tongue is burning, flavors [savored by the tongue] are burning... The body is burning, tangibles [felt by the body] are burning...

"The mind is burning, ideas are burning, mind-consciousness is burning, mind-contact is burning, and whatever is felt either as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact as supporting condition, that too is burning!

"Burning with what? Burning with the fire of craving, with the fire of aversion, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with rebirth, aging, and death, with sorrow, weeping, pain, grief, and despair.

 

The world is on fire -- the whole world known through the senses (winds-of-desolation).

 
"Meditators, when a noble follower who has heard (the Dharma) sees this, one becomes estranged [alienated and indifferent] regarding the eye, regarding forms, regarding eye-consciousness, regarding eye-contact, and whatever is felt as either pleasant or painful or neither-painful- nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact as supporting condition. With regard to all of these, one becomes estranged.
 

Cool (Rzoont/flickr.com)

"One becomes estranged regarding the ear... sounds... One becomes estranged regarding the nose... odors... One becomes estranged regarding the tongue... flavors... One becomes estranged regarding the body... tangibles...

"One becomes estranged regarding the mind, regarding ideas, regarding mind-consciousness, regarding mind-contact, and whatever is felt as either pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact as supporting indispensable condition. With regard to all of these, one becomes estranged.

"When one becomes estranged (alienated, disaffected, indifferent), passion fades out. 

"With the fading of passion, one is liberated. When liberated, there comes certainty that one is liberated. 

Nirvana is extinguishing, cooling

Cooling (Rzoont/flickr.com)

"One understands that, 'Birth is exhausted, the supreme life has been lived, what can be done has been done, and there is no more [suffering] beyond.'"

That is what the Buddha said. Those gathered were glad and approved of his words.

Now during his utterance, the hearts of those thousand ascetics were liberated from the taints by abandoning clinging.

The "World"?
Ven. Nyanaponika Thera ("Karma and its Fruit")

"World" as self (weakonomics.com)

"In this fathom-long body with its perceptions and thoughts there is the world, the origin of the world, the ending of the world, and the path leading to the ending of the world" (AN 4.45).

 

The "world" of which the Buddha speaks is comprised in this aggregate [heap, collection, composite] of body-and-mind. For it is only by the activity of our physical and mental sense faculties that a world can be experienced and known at all. 

The sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and bodily impressions which we perceive, and our various mental functions, conscious and unconscious -- this is the world in which we live. 

And this world of ours has its origin in that very aggregate of physical and mental processes that produces the karmic act of craving for the six physical and mental sense objects.

[The Buddha asked:] "Ananda, if there were no karma ripening in the sphere of the senses, would there appear any sense-sphere existence?" — "Surely not, venerable sir!" (AN 3.76)

Thus karma is the womb from which we spring (kamma-yoni), the true creator of the world and of ourselves as the experiencer of "the world."

 

And through our karmic [intentional] actions in deed, word, and thought, we unceasingly engage in building and rebuilding this world and [rebirth in] worlds beyond. Even our good actions, as long as they are still under the influence of craving... More