King Prasenajit rose and said to the Buddha, "In the past, when
I had not yet received the teachings of the Buddha, I met Katyayana
and Vairatiputra, both of whom said that this body is annihilated
after death, and that this is Nirvana. Now, although I have met the
Buddha, I still have doubts about their words. How much I wish to
be enlightened to the ways and means to perceive and realize the
true mind, thereby proving that it transcends production and
extinction! All those who have outflows also wish to be instructed
on this subject."
The Buddha said to the great King, "Now I ask you, as it is now
is your physical body like Vajra, indestructible and living
forever? Or does it change and go bad?"
"World Honored One, this body of mine will keep changing until
it eventually becomes extinct."
The Buddha said, "Great King, you have not yet become extinct.
How do you know you will become extinct?"
"World Honored One, although my impermanent, changing, and
decaying body has not yet become extinct, I observe it now, and
every passing thought fades away. Each new one fails to remain, but
gradually perishes like fire turning to ashes. This perishing
without cease convinces me that this body will eventually become
completely extinct."
The Buddha said, "So it is."
"Great King, at your present age you are already old and
declining. How do your appearance and complexion compare to when
you were a youth?"
"World Honored One, in the past when I was young my skin was
moist and shining. When I reached the prime of life, my blood and
breath were full. But now in my declining years, as I race into old
age, my form is withered and wizened and my spirit dull. My hair is
white and my face is in wrinkles and I haven't much time remaining.
How can I be compared to how I was when I was full of life?"
The Buddha said, "Great King, your appearance should not decline
so suddenly."
The King said, "World Honored One, the changes has been a hidden
transformation of which I honestly have not been aware. I have come
to this gradually through the passing of winters and summers.
"How did it happen? In my twenties, I was still young, but my
features had aged since the time I was ten. My thirties were a
further decline from my twenties, and now at sixty-two I look back
on my fifties as hale and hearty. "World Honored One, I am
contemplating these hidden transformations. Although the changes
wrought by this process of dying are evident through the decades, I
might consider them further in finer detail: these changes do not
occur just in periods of twelve years; there are actually changes
year by year. Not only are there yearly changes, there are also
monthly transformations. Nor does it stop at monthly
transformations; there are also differences day by day. Examining
them closely, I find that Kshana by Kshana, thought after thought,
they never stop."
"And so I know my body will keep changing until it is
extinct."
The Buddha told the great King, "By watching the ceaseless
changes of these transformations, you awaken and know of your
extinction, but do you also know that at the time of extinction
there is something in your body which does not become extinct?"
King Prasenajit put his palms together and exclaimed, "I really
do not know."
The Buddha said, "I will now show you the nature which is not
produced and not extinguished."
"Great King, how old were you when you saw the waters of the
Ganges?"
The King said, "When I was three years old my compassionate
mother led me to visit the Goddess Jiva. We passed a river, and at
the time I knew it was the waters of the Ganges."
The Buddha said, "Great King, you have said that when you were
twenty you had deteriorated from when you were ten. Day by day,
month by month, year by year until you have reached sixty, in
thought after thought there has been change. Yet when you saw the
Ganges River at the age of three, how was it different from when
you were thirteen?"
The king said, "It was no difference from when I was three, and
even now when I am sixty-two it is still no difference."
The Buddha said, "Now you are mournful that your hair is white
and your face is wrinkled. In the same way that your face is
definitely more wrinkled than it was in your youth, has the seeing
with which you look at the Ganges aged, so that it is old now but
was young when you looked at the river as a child in the past?"
The King said, "No, World Honored One."
The Buddha said, "Great King, you face is in wrinkles, but the
essential nature of your seeing has not yet wrinkled. What wrinkles
are subject to change. What does not wrinkle does not change."
"What changes will become extinct, but what does not change is
fundamentally free of production and extinction. How can it be
subject to your birth and death? Furthermore, why brings up what
Maskari Goshaliputra and the others say: that after the death of
this body there is total extinction?"
The King heard these words, believed them, and realized that
when the life of this body is finished, there will be rebirth. He
and the entire great assembly were greatly delighted at having
obtained what they had never had before.