FIRE burn, cauldron bubble (sutra)

Ven. Ñanamoli (trans.), Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly, "The Fire Sermon" (Aditta-pariyaya Sutra) from Three Cardinal Discourses of the Buddha (SN 35.28)

Taking the Buddha's message to heart? No. Completely misunderstanding. Why torch and hasten the destruction of something that is already burning? Protesters in India call attention to occupied Tibet and Chinese abuses, March 2012 (Jampa Yeshi/GlobalPost.com).

There will be no protesting the U.S. war on Vietnam by Buddhist monastics! Pepper-spray torturer John Pike and the military-industrial complex agree (theburningplatform.com).

  

Wait! Everything's burning? (SuckerPunch)

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Gaya, at Gaya Head, together with a thousand monastics. There he addressed them.
 
"Meditators, all is burning! And what is the all that is burning?

• "The eye is burning,
• forms are burning,
• eye-consciousness is burning,
• eye-contact is burning, and
• whatever is felt as pleasant, painful, or neither-painful-nor-pleasant which arises with eye-contact as its indispensable condition, that too is burning!

Another self-immolation (freetibet.org)

Burning with what? Burning with

• the fire of lust,
• with the fire of hate,
• with the fire of delusion!
• I say it is burning with [re]birth, aging, and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

• "The ear is burning, sounds are burning...
• "The nose is burning, fragrances are burning...
• "The tongue is burning, flavors are burning...
• "The body is burning, tangibles are burning...
• "The mind is burning, ideas are burning, mind-consciousness is burning, mind-contact is burning, and whatever is felt as pleasant, painful, or neither-painful-nor-pleasant which arises with mind-contact as its indispensable condition, that too is burning!

Burning with what?

• Burning with the fire of lust,
• with the fire of hate,
• with the fire of delusion!
• I say it is burning with [re-]birth, aging, death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

The remains of Gaya Head today (W)

"Meditators, when a noble follower who has heard (the truth) sees thus, that person finds estrangement in the eye, finds estrangement in [visible] forms, finds estrangement in eye-consciousness, finds estrangement in eye-contact, and whatever is felt as pleasant, painful, or neither-painful-nor-pleasant which arises with eye-contact as its indispensable condition, in that too one finds estrangement.

• "One finds estrangement in the ear... in sounds...
• "One finds estrangement in the nose... in fragrances...
• "One finds estrangement in the tongue... in flavors...
• "One finds estrangement in the body... in tangibles...
• "One finds estrangement in the mind, finds estrangement in [mind objects one might call] ideas, finds estrangement in mind-consciousness, finds estrangement in mind-contact, and whatever is felt as pleasant, painful, or neither-painful-nor-pleasant which arises with mind-contact as its indispensable condition, in that too one finds estrangement.

It was ALL wasting away incredibly fast.

"When one finds estrangement, passion fades away. With the fading away of passion, one is liberated. When liberated, knowledge spontaneously arises that one is liberated. For one understands: 'Birth is exhausted, the higher life has been lived, what can be done has been done [is accomplished], of this there is no more beyond.'"

That is what the Blessed One said. The meditators were glad, and they approved his words. Now during [the Buddha's] utterance, the hearts of those thousand meditators were liberated from the taints through letting go and clinging no more (SN 35.28). More

Southern California is burning away and being reduced to smog and ashes (latimes.com).

 

EXPLANATION OF TERMS

Ven. Nanamoli (a.k.a. Mr. Osbert John Moore)

Could there be literal Buddhist hells?

The eye and five other sense bases: the six, beginning with the eye and ending with the mind, are called the six "Bases for Contact in oneself." They are are also known as the six "doors" of perception.

Their corresponding objects are called "external bases." (Translating the term as "sense-organ" is both too material and too objective because the emphasis here is on the subjective faculty of seeing and so on. It is not the sensitive piece of flesh seen in someone else or in the mirror which, in so far as it is visible, is not [the act of] "seeing" but "form" as the "external" object of the seeing "eye in oneself."
 
And insofar as it is tangible, it is the object of the body-base in oneself. And insofar as it is apprehended as a "bodily feature," it is the object of the mind-base in oneself. Here the eye should be taken simply as the perspective-pointing-inward-to-a-center in the otherwise uncoordinated visual field consisting of colors [and shadows], which makes them cognizable by eye-consciousness, and which is easy to mis-conceive of as "I." The six Bases in Oneself are comparable to an empty village, and the six External Bases to village-raiding robbers.

FORMS and other external sense media: the first of the six External Bases, respective objective fields or objects of the six Bases in Oneself. The Pali word rupa [fine material] is used for the eye's object as for the first of the Five Aggregates (or Categories) of Clinging, but here in the plural. Colors, the basis for the visual perspective of the eye, are what is intended, primarily. More

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