HOW SIMILARITIES IN TERMINOLOGY CONCEAL FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE
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“Even so, maharajah, if one should try to define the Tathagata by his bodily form, that bodily form of the Tathagata is abandoned, cut down at the root, made like a palm-tree stump, made some thing that is not, made of a nature not to spring up again in future time. Set free from reckoning as body, maharajah, is the Tathagata. He is deep, boundless, unfathomable, just like the mighty ocean. To say, ‘The Tathagata exists after death’ does not apply. To say, ‘The Tathagata exists not after death,’ does not apply. To say, ‘The Tathagata both exists and exists not, neither exists nor not exists after death,’ does not apply.
“If one should try to define the Tathagata by feeling,—that feeling of the Tathagata is abandoned, cut down at the root . . . Yet free from reckoning as feeling is the Tathagata, maharajah, deep, boundless, unfathomable like the mighty ocean. To say, ‘The Tathagata exists after death . . . exists not after death,’ does not apply.
“So also if one should try to define the Tathagata by perception, by the activities, by consciousness ... set free from reckoning by consciousness is the Tathagata, deep, boundless, unfathomable as the mighty ocean. To say, ‘The Tathagata exists after death . . . exists not after death,’ does not apply.”
Then the Rajah Pasenadi of Kosala was delighted with the words of the sister Khema, and took pleasure therein. And he rose from his seat, saluted her by the right and went away.
Now on another occasion the Rajah went to visit the Exalted One, and on coming to him saluted him and sat down at one side. So seated he said to the Exalted One :
“Pray, Lord, does the Tathagata exist after death ?”
“Not revealed by me, maharajah, is this matter.”
“Then Lord, the Tathagata does not exist after death.”
IV