Insight (3): Knowledge of Appearance as Terror

[Full title: Insight: The Eight Knowledges (3): Knowledge of Appearance as Terror]

29. As he repeats, develops and cultivates in this way the contemplation of dissolution, the object of which is cessation consisting in the destruction, fall and breakup of all formations, then formations classed according to all kinds of becoming, generation, destiny, station, or abode of beings, appear to him in the form of a great terror, as lions, tigers, leopards, bears, hyenas, spirits, ogres, fierce bulls, savage dogs, rut-maddened wild elephants, hideous venomous serpents, thunderbolts, charnel grounds, battlefields, flaming coal pits, etc., appear to a timid man who wants to live in peace. When he sees how past formations have ceased, present ones are ceasing, and those to be generated in the future will cease in just the same way, then what is called knowledge of appearance as terror arises in him at that stage.

30. Here is a simile: a woman’s three sons had offended against the king, it seems. The king ordered their heads to be cut off. She went with her sons to the place of their execution. When they had cut off the eldest one’s head, they set about cutting off the middle one’s head. Seeing the eldest one’s head already cut off and the middle one’s head being cut off, she gave up hope for the youngest, thinking, “He too will fare like them.” Now, the meditator’s seeing the cessation of past formations is like the woman’s seeing the eldest son’s head cut off. His seeing the cessation of those present is like her seeing the middle one’s head being cut off. His seeing the cessation of those in the future, thinking, “Formations to be generated in the future will cease too,” is like her giving up hope for the youngest son, thinking, “He too will fare like them.” When he sees in this way, knowledge of appearance as terror arises in him at that stage.

31. Also another simile: a woman with an infected womb had, it seems, given birth to ten children. [646] Of these, nine had already died and one was dying in her hands. There was another in her womb. Seeing that nine were dead and the tenth was dying, she gave up hope about the one in her womb, thinking, “It too will fare just like them.” Herein, the meditator’s seeing the cessation of past formations is like the woman’s remembering the death of the nine children. The meditator’s seeing the cessation of those present is like her seeing the moribund state of the one in her hands. His seeing the cessation of those in the future is like her giving up hope about the one in her womb. When he sees in this way, knowledge of appearance as terror arises in him at that stage.

32. But does the knowledge of appearance as terror [itself] fear or does it not fear? It does not fear. For it is simply the mere judgment that past formations have ceased, present ones are ceasing, and future ones will cease. Just as a man with eyes looking at three charcoal pits at a city gate is not himself afraid, since he only forms the mere judgment that all who fall into them will suffer no little pain;—or just as when a man with eyes looks at three spikes set in a row, an acacia spike, an iron spike, and a gold spike, he is not himself afraid, since he only forms the mere judgment that all who fall on these spikes will suffer no little pain;—so too the knowledge of appearance as terror does not itself fear; it only forms the mere judgment that in the three kinds of becoming, which resemble the three charcoal pits and the three spikes, past formations have ceased, present ones are ceasing, and future ones will cease.

33. But it is called “appearance as terror” only because formations in all kinds of becoming, generation, destiny, station, or abode are fearful in being bound for destruction and so they appear only as a terror.

Here is the text about its appearance to him as terror: “When he brings to mind as impermanent, what appears to him as terror? When he brings to mind as painful, what appears to him as terror? When he brings to mind as not-self, what appears to him as terror? When he brings to mind as impermanent, the sign appears to him as terror. When he brings to mind as painful, occurrence appears to him as terror. When he brings to mind as not-self, the sign and occurrence appear to him as terror” (Paṭis II 63).

34. Herein, the sign is the sign of formations. This is a term for past, future and present formations themselves. [647] He sees only the death of formations when he brings them to mind as impermanent and so the sign appears to him as a terror. Occurrence is occurrence in material and immaterial becoming. He sees occurrence—though ordinarily reckoned as pleasure—only as a state of being continuously oppressed when he brings them to mind as painful, and so occurrence appears to him as a terror.

He sees both the sign and the occurrence as empty, vain, void, without power or guide, like an empty village, a mirage, a goblin city, etc., when he brings [them] to mind as not-self, and so the sign and occurrence appear to him as a terror.

Knowledge of appearance as terror is ended.