Early Buddhism borrowed two of its central terms from the workings of fire. Upadana, or clinging, originally referred to the fuel that kept fire burning; nibbana, the name of the goal, to a fire’s going out. This is the first book to examine these terms from the perspective of how the early Buddhists themselves viewed fire—what they say happening as a fire burned, and what happened to the fire when it went out—to show what light this perspective throws on Buddhist doctrine in general, and the practice of meditation in particular. With extensive quotations from the Pali Canon, newly translated, this is also a useful sourcebook for anyone who wants to encounter Buddhist teachings in their earliest known context.
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Contents Preface 7 PART ONE: THE ABSTRACT 9 “Released…with unrestricted awareness.” 10 PART TWO: THE ESSAY 14 Introduction: “The enlightened go out like this flame.” 15 I “This fire that has gone out… in which direction from here has it gone?” 20 II “Fire burns with clinging, and not without clinging.” 37 III “Forty cartloads of timber.” 41 IV “And taking a pin, I pulled out the wick.” 78 End Notes 96 Bibliography 98
