8. The Signless State - Awakening
8.a. “Again and further, Ananda, a practitioner, having removed attention of the mind from perception of ‘no something-ness’, and having removed attention of the mind from perception of ‘neither perception nor non-perception’, places attention on the focal point dependent upon perceiving ‘the signless state’. One's perception is only of ‘the signless state’, and in it they become clear and calm, become stilled and established, and are fully drawn into and settled upon it.
Having left the formless world behind, you can simply sit in these perfectly peaceful surroundings: there is nowhere else to be, nothing to do. The signless state is, quite literally, the least you can do and still be awake and conscious. To go any further, into what is called the cessation of feeling and perception, is to temporarily suspend sensory experience completely, akin to being under general anesthetic.
Here you finally get to the portion of the Shorter Discourse where you can consciously take advantage of the utter calm that results from pausing all mental activity. It’s not that you will “do” anything; instead, it is about more consciously understanding what is or isn’t happening and why. In other words, it is about gaining insight (vipassana) into what is(n’t) happening. Suggested inquiries are in bulleted italic text below.
It may seem as though you can’t reflect or bring anything to mind in this signless state, but to some extent you can, especially if you’ve settled down into it and it is stable. Depending on how stable your experience is, it may be that reflecting on what follows is only practicable after the meditation session. Or, it may take a few sessions of being in this state for real-time inquiry to be possible, perhaps by injecting single terms such as “conditioned” or “not permanent”.
This step starts with the same instructions from the previous step, making sure that you are fully established in the signless state. By now, the novelty of this experience should be wearing off, and you should be used to not projecting anything onto what is simply happening, which now is nothing in particular. It may still feel a bit strange or discomforting that you don’t know anything about what is currently happening, but at least you’ve consented to simply being here for a while. You’re OK - it’s just different… very different.
Upon “arriving” in the signless state, the first thing you can do is understand not just what “signlessness” is, but also what your experience of it is.
What in Buddhism are called the three liberations (signless, aimless and empty) naturally manifest and complement each other. It's not like you have forgotten how you normally mentally interpret sensory information in ways that make it seem “real” and prone to suffering. However, right now you no longer feel compelled to respond in those ways.
8.b. “One understands: ‘even this signless abiding is conditioned and is manufactured in the mind’.”
In the first six stages of this meditation, there was no experience of “signlessness”. Instead, the fact that other aspects of experience such as “space” or “consciousness” were absent was remarkable: that is how those stages or layers got their names.
Here, the reason you apply the descriptor “signless” is because, unlike the rest of your daily experience, this experience is devoid of the signs or indicators that you normally use to signify “oh, that’s something in particular!”. In other words, you have conditioned yourself to assume that you know (or should know) what is happening, and that you can and even must experience something “real” and substantial.
8.c. “One understands: ‘further, whatever is conditioned and is manufactured in mind is not permanent, but something that ceases’.”
That you have thus predisposed yourself is the only reason this current meditative state is in any way remarkable, and indeed possible.
It’s not that experience isn’t happening right now - that’s clear enough. It’s just that interpretation of what is happening, overlain by projection and thus mentally created, is not occuring right now. In other words, the conditioned version of yourself and all else, the version that seems so real, has now ceased. Whatever is manufactured in the mind is not a permanent aspect of experience, but something that ceases if you allow it to cease.
Looking deeper, what aspects of you, and what you identify as, are not currently happening? The unexamined beliefs having to do with what you normally identify with can now be seen to be merely manufactured in your mind.
8.d. For one who knows and sees this, what is perceived is liberated from the projection of desire, the projection of existence, and the projection of not-knowing.
Awakening means no longer having known, existing and desirable “somethings”, because you stop projecting those three qualities onto anything. And of course, the primary focus of those projections is the “I” or “me” that you believe you are, and ultimately a “self” that is separate and distinct from all else.
8.e. With liberation, there is the knowledge: “Liberated.” One understands: “The cycles of existence are at an end, the spiritual path complete, I have done what needed to be done, and there is no going back to that state.”
If all of these sorts of projections are truly and forever gone, you will know it. It can be obvious that “this is what liberation is like”. It’s not something you’ve ever experienced before, and yet it is unmistakable. It’s not that there is a discernible state called “liberation”, “enlightenment” or “awakening” that is discovered or created. Rather, the term “liberation” simply refers to the fact that what was once present (i.e., assumptions and projections about “reality”) are no longer present: you’re liberated from them.
“What” remains is that which has always been the case: sensory experience that doesn’t need to be known or differentiated, though you can provisionally know and differentiate in order to navigate daily life. However, you’re free of, or liberated from, the assumption that there is anyone involved in that navigation.
You also know that what is sometimes translated as “birth” (jati), but can more broadly be seen as the day to day (or even moment to moment) starting and ending of your personal “existence” is at an end. What probably felt like an endless grind of trying to be happy, only to come up short and then trying again, no longer occurs. That struggle is what makes a spiritual “path” (cariya) seem necessary, but it’s clear that whatever it seemed you had to do is now over and done with. That suffering has stopped is certain proof that the removal of the projections was what you set out to do, what needed to be done ( karaniya). And though you can still remember, perhaps vividly, what that struggle was like, it is obvious that you will never go back to that mode of experience (itthatta).
8.f. “One thus understands 'there is no longer the three-fold tether based on the intoxication of sense desire, there is no longer the three-fold tether based on intoxication of existence, and there is no longer the three-fold tether based on the intoxication of not-knowing. There is now only this most subtle tether, because I am still an embodied being with six sense bases.'
“One thus understands that one's field of perception is empty of the intoxication of sense desire, it is empty of the intoxication of existence, and it is empty of the intoxication of not-knowing. All that remains is a provisional entity, namely the focal point resulting from being embodied with six sense bases.
“One now sees that whatever entity is not in one’s field of perception, that field is therefore empty of that entity. One also sees that whatever entity remains in one’s field of perception, that entity does exist in one’s field of perception. This has been a clear and unmistakable establishment of emptiness in accordance with what is true, unsurpassed by any other.”
This, then, is the ultimate meaning of emptiness: experience is empty of the projections we once attempted to overlay onto what is experienced (citta). Images and thoughts continue, but it no longer seems as though we can or should know exactly what is happening, that we or anything else “exists”, or that we need to see everything in terms of what we like or don’t like.
The last remaining tether to experience, to the extent we notice it, is the recurring functioning of the six sense bases of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought. If we are alive and conscious, our optical nerves will frequently be impinged upon, our skin will almost always have nerve endings being triggered by something, and our mind will periodically throw this or that up into our field or experience.
Of course, it’s not that we experience an actual “optical nerve”, “skin” or “mind”. Also, as with the second formless layer, there isn’t an actual “consciousness” associated with these six nominal divisions. Instead, we will know that these words are conventional or provisional items that, though helpful descriptors in daily life (and in composing commentaries like this), don’t correspond to anything in particular. Liberation and awakening means getting used to the fact that words, as important as they can be, do not signify or point to something tangible or real.
What we might simply call “experience” is always happening: it is part of being alive, as (what is conventionally described as) an embodied being in a psychophysical structure. As a result, your current field of perception, as subtle as it must be at this point, is nevertheless the indication that what can be referred to as the six sense bases are continuing to function as they always do. There is the seen and the heard, but without anything in particular being seen or heard. And, most importantly, once you stand up from meditating, this will still be so; that's part of awakening.
In a rather famous passage from the Pali Canon, the Buddha instructed Bahiya of the Bark Garment that “in the seen there is just the seen, in the heard there is just the heard” and that there is no “you” in any of that; only sensory experience is happening. This was a decisive teaching for Bahiya, in that he realized in an instant that this is all that is happening, and all that has ever happened: there never was an “I Am” or any other actual identity. While Bahiya fully awoke as a result of this, for us the awakening process will no doubt take a lot longer. This discourse is about having a stable experience of this signless, empty and aimless “state” in order to look around and see what is, and isn’t, actually happening, to facilitate our eventual awakening.
“Ananda, whatever wanderers and holy persons who in the past became established in and dwelt with an emptiness that was clear and conclusive, they all became established in and dwelt with this same emptiness that is clear and conclusive. Whatever wanderers and holy persons who in the future will become established in and dwell with an emptiness that is clear and conclusive, they all will become established in and dwell with this same emptiness that is clear and conclusive. Whatever wanderers and holy persons who now are now established in and dwell with an emptiness that is clear and conclusive, they all are established in and dwell with this same emptiness that is clear and conclusive.
Therefore, Ananda, you should train yourselves: 'I shall become established in and abide with the emptiness that is clear and conclusive’.” That is what the Blessed One said. Delighted, the Venerable Ananda rejoiced in the Blessed One's words.
Finally, the Buddha reminds us that he has not been describing some esoteric meditative state, nor one that is unique to the Buddhist tradition. Instead, it is simply what happens as the mind and mental interpretations calm down and even stop. That we create illusory versions of not just mountains and mobile phones, but especially of ourselves, is something we all need to see in order to awaken. The temporary meditative states described in the Shorter Discourse on Emptiness, in which we can start to realize this, are available to all of us. While such an approach is not necessarily suitable for everyone, even reading and reflecting on such a discourse can help dislodge our long-held beliefs that bar the way to awakening.
References
Bodhi. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya ; Translated from the Pāli ; Original Translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2000.
Bodhi, Nyanaponika, and Bodhi. The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: A Complete Translation of the Anguttara Nikaya Teachings of the Buddha. Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 2012.
Buddhaghosa, and Ñāṇamoli. The Path of Purification: Visuddhimagga. Berkeley, CA: Shambhala Publications : Distributed in the United States by Random House, 1976.
Davids, T. W. Rhys, and William Stede. The Pāli Text Society's Pāli-English Dictionary. London: Pāli Text Society; Sole Agents Routledge & K. Paul, 1972.
De Silva, Lily. Cetovimutti, Paññāvimutti and Ubhatobhāgavimutti. Pāli Buddhist Review 3.3 (1987): 118-45.
Milarepa, and Ch'eng Chi. Chang. The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa. Boulder: Shambhala, 1977.
Monier-Williams, Monier, Ernst Leumann, and Carl Cappeller. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European Languages. Oxford: Clarendon, 1899.
Ñāṇamoli, and Bodhi. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya. Boston: Wisdom in Association with the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, 1995.
Thrangu, and Clark Johnson. Essentials of Mahamudra: Looking Directly at the Mind. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004.
Trenckner, V., Robert Chalmers, and Caroline A. F. Rhys Davids. The Majjhima-nikāya. Oxford: Pāli Text Society, 1991.
Walshe, Maurice. The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Dīgha Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995.
Having left the formless world behind, you can simply sit in these perfectly peaceful surroundings: there is nowhere else to be, nothing to do. The signless state is, quite literally, the least you can do and still be awake and conscious. To go any further, into what is called the cessation of feeling and perception, is to temporarily suspend sensory experience completely, akin to being under general anesthetic.
Here you finally get to the portion of the Shorter Discourse where you can consciously take advantage of the utter calm that results from pausing all mental activity. It’s not that you will “do” anything; instead, it is about more consciously understanding what is or isn’t happening and why. In other words, it is about gaining insight (vipassana) into what is(n’t) happening. Suggested inquiries are in bulleted italic text below.
It may seem as though you can’t reflect or bring anything to mind in this signless state, but to some extent you can, especially if you’ve settled down into it and it is stable. Depending on how stable your experience is, it may be that reflecting on what follows is only practicable after the meditation session. Or, it may take a few sessions of being in this state for real-time inquiry to be possible, perhaps by injecting single terms such as “conditioned” or “not permanent”.
This step starts with the same instructions from the previous step, making sure that you are fully established in the signless state. By now, the novelty of this experience should be wearing off, and you should be used to not projecting anything onto what is simply happening, which now is nothing in particular. It may still feel a bit strange or discomforting that you don’t know anything about what is currently happening, but at least you’ve consented to simply being here for a while. You’re OK - it’s just different… very different.
Upon “arriving” in the signless state, the first thing you can do is understand not just what “signlessness” is, but also what your experience of it is.
- Start by silently intoning “signless” a few times, to verify that this is in fact a signless state. Use this to make sure that you are not experiencing anything in particular, or even an indicator of it, whether it is your body, a thought, etc.
- Verify that all that is happening right now is raw, unprocessed sensory experience, where nothing is recognized, labeled, or even labelable. You can silently intone “sign… sign…” and see if those words seem to correspond to anything.
- In other words, make sure the term “signless” is in fact an accurate descriptor of what is currently (not) happening.
- If you do start to notice a “something”, how do you know that? For example, what information do you use that signifies that a “thought” is a “thought”? Is that actually a sign of anything, of a “something”?
What in Buddhism are called the three liberations (signless, aimless and empty) naturally manifest and complement each other. It's not like you have forgotten how you normally mentally interpret sensory information in ways that make it seem “real” and prone to suffering. However, right now you no longer feel compelled to respond in those ways.
- Take some time to see if and how each of these descriptors fit, not in the sense of recognizing something that is true and happening but, as each makes clear, in negating something, it’s about what isn’t true or is not happening.
- Are there any “signs” or indicators that something in particular is happening? Is there any urge or aim to identify or “land on” something in particular, as if to gain knowledge or a degree of certainty? Does there appear to be any substance or “is-ness” right now?
8.b. “One understands: ‘even this signless abiding is conditioned and is manufactured in the mind’.”
In the first six stages of this meditation, there was no experience of “signlessness”. Instead, the fact that other aspects of experience such as “space” or “consciousness” were absent was remarkable: that is how those stages or layers got their names.
Here, the reason you apply the descriptor “signless” is because, unlike the rest of your daily experience, this experience is devoid of the signs or indicators that you normally use to signify “oh, that’s something in particular!”. In other words, you have conditioned yourself to assume that you know (or should know) what is happening, and that you can and even must experience something “real” and substantial.
- See how the only reason this temporary state appears to be “signless” is that you expect there to be signs, but the only thing you currently and actually know or understand is that they are absent.
- Further, experience that what in daily life seems to be “knowing” is in fact not-knowing. See that your projections don’t result in any certainty or knowledge about what is happening; instead, they are just mental interpretations.
- See how you have conditioned this experience to be “signless” because you want to know what is happening. Feel the urge to project “knowing”, and how that isn’t possible, or necessary, right now.
- See how the “signless” experience is manufactured in your mind. The term “signless” only has meaning because the term “sign” has meaning.
8.c. “One understands: ‘further, whatever is conditioned and is manufactured in mind is not permanent, but something that ceases’.”
That you have thus predisposed yourself is the only reason this current meditative state is in any way remarkable, and indeed possible.
- Notice how you want to know or discern what is happening.
- Apply no label to what is happening right now, not even “signless”.
- Notice that it’s fine that you don’t know anything in particular right now.
It’s not that experience isn’t happening right now - that’s clear enough. It’s just that interpretation of what is happening, overlain by projection and thus mentally created, is not occuring right now. In other words, the conditioned version of yourself and all else, the version that seems so real, has now ceased. Whatever is manufactured in the mind is not a permanent aspect of experience, but something that ceases if you allow it to cease.
- Note how the manufactured versions of things that you normally take for granted are not here
- The sensations normally interpreted as meaning a “body” are all available right now. In this signless state, however, is there a body?
- Experience is happening: you are doing this meditation. Where exactly is the mind that is involved? Is there something called a mind?
- Is there anything about yourself that you identify with that is happening right now, or that you can find?
- Is there anything more important than your own existence that you want or need to know?
Looking deeper, what aspects of you, and what you identify as, are not currently happening? The unexamined beliefs having to do with what you normally identify with can now be seen to be merely manufactured in your mind.
- In the entirety of experience right now, what is internal? What is external? Do these opposites even apply? Or, are they mental creations that have now ceased?
- In the entirety of experience right now, what is owned? What is not owned? Do these opposites even apply? Or, are they mental creations that have now ceased?
- In the entirety of experience right now, what is being controlled? What is not being controlled? Do these opposites even apply? Or, are they mental creations that have now ceased?
- In the entirety of experience right now, what is inherent or innate to it? What is alien to it? Do these opposites even apply? Or, are they mental creations that have now ceased?
8.d. For one who knows and sees this, what is perceived is liberated from the projection of desire, the projection of existence, and the projection of not-knowing.
Awakening means no longer having known, existing and desirable “somethings”, because you stop projecting those three qualities onto anything. And of course, the primary focus of those projections is the “I” or “me” that you believe you are, and ultimately a “self” that is separate and distinct from all else.
- In this quiet experience, where nothing is obstructed or hidden, where is your “self”? To what or whom is your name applied? Where is the agent doing this looking right now? Who is having this current experience? Is there a “self”? Or is that a projection?
- In this quiet experience, where nothing is obstructed or hidden, is there any desire that this current experience be any different than it is? Where is the source of desire that projects it onto what is happening? Where do your desires emanate from? Is desire real? Or is that a projection?
- In this quiet experience, where nothing is obstructed or hidden, does anything exist? Your body? Your mind? And how would something that exists be perceived? Where is the perceiver? Is existence real? Or is that a projection?
- In this quiet experience, where nothing is obstructed or hidden, where is anything that is known? Is there anything called “knowing” that you can find? And where does knowing happen? What knows, or could know, anything? Is knowing real? Is there even a need to know? Or is that a projection?
- Is there any sign of you, or what you identify with or as? If you silently intone “I Am”, does that even seem true? Why do you ever reach that conclusion? Where is that “I” that “is”?
8.e. With liberation, there is the knowledge: “Liberated.” One understands: “The cycles of existence are at an end, the spiritual path complete, I have done what needed to be done, and there is no going back to that state.”
If all of these sorts of projections are truly and forever gone, you will know it. It can be obvious that “this is what liberation is like”. It’s not something you’ve ever experienced before, and yet it is unmistakable. It’s not that there is a discernible state called “liberation”, “enlightenment” or “awakening” that is discovered or created. Rather, the term “liberation” simply refers to the fact that what was once present (i.e., assumptions and projections about “reality”) are no longer present: you’re liberated from them.
“What” remains is that which has always been the case: sensory experience that doesn’t need to be known or differentiated, though you can provisionally know and differentiate in order to navigate daily life. However, you’re free of, or liberated from, the assumption that there is anyone involved in that navigation.
You also know that what is sometimes translated as “birth” (jati), but can more broadly be seen as the day to day (or even moment to moment) starting and ending of your personal “existence” is at an end. What probably felt like an endless grind of trying to be happy, only to come up short and then trying again, no longer occurs. That struggle is what makes a spiritual “path” (cariya) seem necessary, but it’s clear that whatever it seemed you had to do is now over and done with. That suffering has stopped is certain proof that the removal of the projections was what you set out to do, what needed to be done ( karaniya). And though you can still remember, perhaps vividly, what that struggle was like, it is obvious that you will never go back to that mode of experience (itthatta).
8.f. “One thus understands 'there is no longer the three-fold tether based on the intoxication of sense desire, there is no longer the three-fold tether based on intoxication of existence, and there is no longer the three-fold tether based on the intoxication of not-knowing. There is now only this most subtle tether, because I am still an embodied being with six sense bases.'
“One thus understands that one's field of perception is empty of the intoxication of sense desire, it is empty of the intoxication of existence, and it is empty of the intoxication of not-knowing. All that remains is a provisional entity, namely the focal point resulting from being embodied with six sense bases.
“One now sees that whatever entity is not in one’s field of perception, that field is therefore empty of that entity. One also sees that whatever entity remains in one’s field of perception, that entity does exist in one’s field of perception. This has been a clear and unmistakable establishment of emptiness in accordance with what is true, unsurpassed by any other.”
This, then, is the ultimate meaning of emptiness: experience is empty of the projections we once attempted to overlay onto what is experienced (citta). Images and thoughts continue, but it no longer seems as though we can or should know exactly what is happening, that we or anything else “exists”, or that we need to see everything in terms of what we like or don’t like.
The last remaining tether to experience, to the extent we notice it, is the recurring functioning of the six sense bases of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought. If we are alive and conscious, our optical nerves will frequently be impinged upon, our skin will almost always have nerve endings being triggered by something, and our mind will periodically throw this or that up into our field or experience.
Of course, it’s not that we experience an actual “optical nerve”, “skin” or “mind”. Also, as with the second formless layer, there isn’t an actual “consciousness” associated with these six nominal divisions. Instead, we will know that these words are conventional or provisional items that, though helpful descriptors in daily life (and in composing commentaries like this), don’t correspond to anything in particular. Liberation and awakening means getting used to the fact that words, as important as they can be, do not signify or point to something tangible or real.
What we might simply call “experience” is always happening: it is part of being alive, as (what is conventionally described as) an embodied being in a psychophysical structure. As a result, your current field of perception, as subtle as it must be at this point, is nevertheless the indication that what can be referred to as the six sense bases are continuing to function as they always do. There is the seen and the heard, but without anything in particular being seen or heard. And, most importantly, once you stand up from meditating, this will still be so; that's part of awakening.
In a rather famous passage from the Pali Canon, the Buddha instructed Bahiya of the Bark Garment that “in the seen there is just the seen, in the heard there is just the heard” and that there is no “you” in any of that; only sensory experience is happening. This was a decisive teaching for Bahiya, in that he realized in an instant that this is all that is happening, and all that has ever happened: there never was an “I Am” or any other actual identity. While Bahiya fully awoke as a result of this, for us the awakening process will no doubt take a lot longer. This discourse is about having a stable experience of this signless, empty and aimless “state” in order to look around and see what is, and isn’t, actually happening, to facilitate our eventual awakening.
“Ananda, whatever wanderers and holy persons who in the past became established in and dwelt with an emptiness that was clear and conclusive, they all became established in and dwelt with this same emptiness that is clear and conclusive. Whatever wanderers and holy persons who in the future will become established in and dwell with an emptiness that is clear and conclusive, they all will become established in and dwell with this same emptiness that is clear and conclusive. Whatever wanderers and holy persons who now are now established in and dwell with an emptiness that is clear and conclusive, they all are established in and dwell with this same emptiness that is clear and conclusive.
Therefore, Ananda, you should train yourselves: 'I shall become established in and abide with the emptiness that is clear and conclusive’.” That is what the Blessed One said. Delighted, the Venerable Ananda rejoiced in the Blessed One's words.
Finally, the Buddha reminds us that he has not been describing some esoteric meditative state, nor one that is unique to the Buddhist tradition. Instead, it is simply what happens as the mind and mental interpretations calm down and even stop. That we create illusory versions of not just mountains and mobile phones, but especially of ourselves, is something we all need to see in order to awaken. The temporary meditative states described in the Shorter Discourse on Emptiness, in which we can start to realize this, are available to all of us. While such an approach is not necessarily suitable for everyone, even reading and reflecting on such a discourse can help dislodge our long-held beliefs that bar the way to awakening.
References
Bodhi. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya ; Translated from the Pāli ; Original Translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2000.
Bodhi, Nyanaponika, and Bodhi. The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: A Complete Translation of the Anguttara Nikaya Teachings of the Buddha. Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 2012.
Buddhaghosa, and Ñāṇamoli. The Path of Purification: Visuddhimagga. Berkeley, CA: Shambhala Publications : Distributed in the United States by Random House, 1976.
Davids, T. W. Rhys, and William Stede. The Pāli Text Society's Pāli-English Dictionary. London: Pāli Text Society; Sole Agents Routledge & K. Paul, 1972.
De Silva, Lily. Cetovimutti, Paññāvimutti and Ubhatobhāgavimutti. Pāli Buddhist Review 3.3 (1987): 118-45.
Milarepa, and Ch'eng Chi. Chang. The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa. Boulder: Shambhala, 1977.
Monier-Williams, Monier, Ernst Leumann, and Carl Cappeller. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European Languages. Oxford: Clarendon, 1899.
Ñāṇamoli, and Bodhi. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya. Boston: Wisdom in Association with the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, 1995.
Thrangu, and Clark Johnson. Essentials of Mahamudra: Looking Directly at the Mind. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004.
Trenckner, V., Robert Chalmers, and Caroline A. F. Rhys Davids. The Majjhima-nikāya. Oxford: Pāli Text Society, 1991.
Walshe, Maurice. The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Dīgha Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995.