Insight (8): Equanimity about Formations

[Full title: Insight: The Eight Knowledges (8): Knowledge of Equanimity about Formations]

61. When he has discerned formations by attributing the three characteristics to them and seeing them as void in this way, he abandons both terror and delight, he becomes indifferent to them and neutral, he neither takes them as “I” nor as mine,” he is like a man who has divorced his wife.

62. Suppose a man were married to a lovely, desirable, charming wife and so deeply in love with her as to be unable to bear separation from her for a moment. He would be disturbed and displeased to see her standing or sitting or talking or laughing with another man, and would be very unhappy; but later, when he had found out the woman’s faults, and wanting to get free, had divorced her, he would no more take her as “mine”; and thereafter, even though he saw her doing whatever it might be with whomsoever it might be, he would not be disturbed or displeased, but would on the contrary be indifferent and neutral. So too this [meditator], wanting to get free from all formations, discerns formations by the contemplation of reflection; then, seeing nothing to be taken as “I” or “mine,” he abandons both terror and delight and becomes indifferent and neutral towards all formations.

63. When he knows and sees thus, his heart retreats, retracts and recoils from the three kinds of becoming, the four kinds of generation, the five kinds of destiny, the seven stations of consciousness, and the nine abodes of beings; his heart no longer goes out to them. Either equanimity or repulsiveness is established. Just as water drops retreat, retract and recoil on a lotus leaf that slopes a little and do not spread out, so too his heart … And just as a fowl’s feather or a shred of sinew thrown on a fire retreats, retracts and recoils, and does not spread out, so too his heart retreats, retracts and recoils from the three kinds of becoming … Either equanimity or repulsiveness is established.

In this way there arises in him what is called knowledge of equanimity about formations.

64. But if this [knowledge] sees Nibbāna, the state of peace, as peaceful, it rejects the occurrence of all formations and enters only into Nibbāna. If it does not see Nibbāna as peaceful, [657] it occurs again and again with formations as its object, like the sailors’ crow.

65. When traders board a ship, it seems, they take with them what is called a land-finding crow. When the ship gets blown off its course by gales and goes adrift with no land in sight, then they release the land-finding crow. It takes off from the mast-head,^[1] and after exploring all the quarters, if it sees land, it flies straight in the direction of it; if not, it returns and alights on the mast-head. So too, if knowledge of equanimity about formations sees Nibbāna, the state of peace, as peaceful, it rejects the occurrence of all formations and enters only into Nibbāna. If it does not see it, it occurs again and again with formations as its object.

66. Now, after discerning formations in the various modes, as though sifting flour on the edge of a tray, as though carding cotton from which the seeds have been picked out,^[2] and after abandoning terror and delight, and after becoming neutral in the investigation of formations, he still persists in the triple contemplation. And in so doing, this [insight knowledge] enters upon the state of the triple gateway to liberation, and it becomes a condition for the classification of noble persons into seven kinds.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Kūpaka-yaṭṭhi—“mast-head” (?): the word kūpaka appears in PED, only as an equivalent for kūpa = a hole. Cf. D I 222 for this simile.

[2]:

Vaṭṭayamāna—“sifting”: not in PED; Vism-mhṭ glosses with niccoriyamāna, also not in PED. Nibbaṭṭita—“picked out”: not in PED. Vism-mhṭ glosses nibbaṭṭita-kappāsaṃ with nibaṭṭita-bīja-kappāsaṃ.” Vihaṭamāna—“carding”: not in PED; glossed by Vismmhṭ with dhūnakena (not in PED) vihaññamānaṃ viya (Vism-mhṭ 844).