The Buddha's Third Talk: The Fire Sermon: the original, side by side

At one time the Buddha was staying near Gayā on Gayā Head together with a thousand mendicants. There the Buddha addressed the mendicants:

The Buddha was on a hill near Gaya with a thousand seekers — men who had spent their whole lives tending sacred fires before they joined him. So he put it to them in the language they knew best:

“Mendicants, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning? The eye is burning. Sights are burning. Eye consciousness is burning. Eye contact is burning. The painful, pleasant, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on eye contact is also burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fires of greed, hate, and delusion. Burning with rebirth, old age, and death, with sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress.

Everything is on fire. Let me show you what I mean — and what's burning. Take seeing. Your eyes are on fire. The things you see are on fire. The seeing itself — the awareness that lights up when eye meets object — is on fire. The contact between them is on fire. And whatever you feel because of that contact — good, bad, or in-between — that's on fire too. Burning with what? Burning with wanting. Burning with anger. Burning with confusion. And burning with the whole weight that comes attached: birth, aging, death, sorrow, wailing, pain, depression, despair. That's the fire.

The ear … nose … tongue … body … The mind is burning. Ideas are burning. Mind consciousness is burning. Mind contact is burning. The painful, pleasant, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on mind contact is also burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fires of greed, hate, and delusion. Burning with rebirth, old age, and death, with sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress, I say.

Then he ran it through every way a person takes in the world — not just seeing, but all six channels: Seeing — eyes, sights, and everything that follows: on fire. Hearing — ears, sounds, and everything that follows: on fire. Smelling — nose, smells, and everything that follows: on fire. Tasting — tongue, tastes, and everything that follows: on fire. Touching — body, sensations, and everything that follows: on fire. Thinking — mind, thoughts, and everything that follows: on fire. Every single one — the sense, what it lands on, the consciousness that arises, the contact, and the feeling that comes out of it — all of it burning with the same three flames: wanting, anger, confusion. And all of it dragging along birth, aging, death, and every kind of sorrow. (These six are the Six Sense Bases. The three flames are traditionally translated as greed, hatred, and delusion.)

Seeing this, a learned noble disciple grows disillusioned with the eye, sights, eye consciousness, and eye contact. And they grow disillusioned with the painful, pleasant, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on eye contact. They grow disillusioned with the ear … nose … tongue … body … mind … painful, pleasant, or neutral feeling that arises dependent on mind contact. Being disillusioned, desire fades away. When desire fades away they’re freed. When they’re freed, they know they’re freed. They understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is nothing further for this place.’”

So here's what happens when you really see this. You stop delighting in all of it. You cool toward your eyes and toward what you see; toward your ears and what you hear; toward your nose, tongue, body, and mind, and everything they reach for; and toward every feeling that any of it stirs up — good, bad, or in-between. Clinging begins to fall away. And when you stop grasping — when the wanting cools — you're free. Once you're free, you know it directly: Birth is ended, the holy life has been lived, the task is done, there is no more becoming.

That is what the Buddha said. Satisfied, the mendicants approved what the Buddha said.

That's what the Buddha said.

And while this discourse was being spoken, the minds of the thousand mendicants were freed from defilements by not grasping.

And as he was speaking, something let go in all thousand of them. With nothing left to cling to, their minds came completely free — every one of them.