{"collection":"Buddhism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/angu/an4-45.htm","path":"bud/angu/an4-45.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bud/angu/an4-45.htm","text":"\"I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear.\"\n\"It is amazing, lord, and awesome, how well that has been said by the Blessed One: 'I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear.' Once I was a seer named Rohitassa, a student of Bhoja, a powerful sky-walker. My speed was as fast as that of a strong archer -- well-trained, a practiced hand, a practiced sharp-shooter -- shooting a light arrow across the shadow of a palm tree. My stride stretched as far as the east sea is from the west. To me, endowed with such speed, such a stride, there came the desire: 'I will go traveling to the end of the cosmos.' I -- with a one-hundred year life, a one-hundred year span -- spent one hundred years traveling -- apart from the time spent on eating, drinking, chewing & tasting, urinating & defecating, and sleeping to fight off weariness -- but without reaching the end of the cosmos I died along the way. So it is amazing, lord, and awesome, how well that has been said by the Blessed One: 'I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear.'\"\n[When this was said, the Blessed One responded:] \"I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear. But at the same time, I tell you that there is no making an end of suffering & stress without reaching the end of the cosmos. Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos.\"\nIt's not to be reached by traveling,\nthe end of the cosmos --\nregardless.\nAnd it's not without reaching\nthe end of the cosmos\nthat there is release\nfrom suffering & stress.\nSo, truly, the wise one,\nan expert with regard to the cosmos,\na knower of the end of the cosmos,\nhaving fulfilled the holy life,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 calmed,\nknowing the cosmos' end,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 doesn't long for this cosmos\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 or for any other.","title":"AN IV.45: Rohitassa Sutta","type":"page"}