Chinese literature · Confucius
CHAPTER XXX
Along the sides of the hill, there are also a very great many cells among the rocks, where the various Arhans sat and meditated. As you leave the old city on the north, and go down east for three li, there is the rock dwelling of Devadatta, and at a distance of fifty paces from it there is a large, square, black rock. Formerly there was a bhikshu, who, as he walked backwards and forwards upon it, thought with himself:--"This body is impermanent, a thing of bitterness and vanity, and which cannot be looked on as pure. I am weary of this body, and troubled by it as an evil." With this he grasped a knife, and was about to kill himself. But he thought again:--"The World-honored one laid down a prohibition against one's killing himself." [2] Further it occurred to him:--"Yes, he did; but I now only wish to kill three poisonous thieves." Immediately with the knife he cut his throat. With the first gash into the flesh he attained the state of a Srotâpanna; when he had gone half through, he attained to be an Anâgâmin; and when he had cut right through, he was an Arhat, and attained to pari-nirvâna, and died.
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