Is "the mind is without feature or surface, limitless, ..." in the Pali canon?

Upvote:3

There's a similar phrase (not an exact match) in DN 11:

This is how the question should be asked:
Evañca kho eso, bhikkhu, pañho pucchitabbo:

85.11 “Where do water and earth,
‘Kattha āpo ca pathavī,

85.12 fire and air find no footing;
tejo vāyo na gādhati;

85.13 where do long and short,
Kattha dīghañca rassañca,

85.14 fine and coarse, beautiful and ugly;
aṇuṃ thūlaṃ subhāsubhaṃ;

85.15 where do name and form
Kattha nāmañca rūpañca,

85.16 cease with nothing left over?”
asesaṃ uparujjhatī’ti.

85.17 And the answer to that is:
Tatra veyyākaraṇaṃ bhavati:

85.18 “Consciousness that’s invisible,
‘Viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ,

85.19 infinite, radiant all round.
anantaṃ sabbatopabhaṃ;

Maybe that it's it: if MN 11 was mistaken for DN 11; but it's not an exact match.

Even so I think that may be the Pali phrase you're looking for --

Viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ, anantaṃ sabbatopabhaṃ

For example this (The Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path) translates these words as:

Nirvana is a realm where corporeality and all the pairs of opposites - long and short, great and small, pure and impure - disappears and the mind is signless (anidassanam), boundless (anantam) and all-radiant (sabbato pabhamn). It is unchanging state (nibbanam accutam) of purity (suddhi), freedom (vimitti) and supreme happiness (nibbanam paramam sukham).

... although that doesn't say which sutta[s] these words come from.

Another place that phrase appears is in MN 49 (but also not an exact match, i.e. "freed from the six-sense base" isn't part of the phrase there).

More post

Search Posts

Related post