an9.36:8.1 ‘The dimension of infinite consciousness is a basis for ending the defilements.’ …
an9.36:8.2 ‘The dimension of nothingness is a basis for ending the defilements.’
an9.36:8.3 That’s what I said, but why did I say it?
an9.36:8.4 Take a mendicant who, going totally beyond the dimension of infinite consciousness, aware that ‘there is nothing at all’, enters and remains in the dimension of nothingness.
an9.36:8.5 They contemplate the phenomena there—included in feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness—as impermanent, as suffering, as diseased, as a boil, as a dart, as gloom, as an affliction, as alien, as breaking apart, as empty, as not-self.
an9.36:8.6 They turn their mind away from those things,
an9.36:8.7 and apply it to freedom from death:
an9.36:8.8 ‘This is peaceful; this is sublime—that is, the stilling of all activities, the letting go of all attachments, the ending of craving, fading away, cessation, extinguishment.’
an9.36:8.9 Abiding in that they attain the ending of defilements.
an9.36:8.10 If they don’t attain the ending of defilements, with the ending of the five lower fetters they’re reborn spontaneously, because of their passion and love for that meditation. They are extinguished there, and are not liable to return from that world.
