Dabba Sutta

Category: Pataligamiyavagga

From Buddhist Encyclopedia

• Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Savatthi, in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's monastery. Then Ven. Dabba Mallaputta went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: "Now is the time for my total Unbinding, O One-Well-Gone!"

"Then do, Dabba, what you think it is now time to do."

Then Ven. Dabba Mallaputta, rising from his seat, bowed down to the Blessed One and, circling him on the right, rose up into the air and sat cross-legged in the sky, in space. Entering the fire property and emerging from it, he was totally unbound. Now, when Dabba Mallaputta rose up into the air and, sitting cross-legged in the sky, in space, entered the fire property and then emerged from it and was totally unbound, his body burned and was consumed so that neither ashes nor soot could be discerned. Just as when ghee or oil is burned and consumed, neither ashes nor soot can be discerned, in the same way, when Dabba Mallaputta rose up into the air and, sitting cross-legged in the sky, in space, entered the fire property and then emerged from it and was totally unbound, his body burned and was consumed so that neither ashes nor soot could be discerned.

Then, on realizing the significance of that, the Blessed One on that occasion exclaimed:

The body disintegrated, perception ceased, pain & rapture were entirely consumed, fabrications were stilled: consciousness has come to its end.