Mahâ-Parinibbâna-Suttanta: The Book of the Great Decease

23. [And in the same words the Blessed One spake of how he had been used to enter into assemblies of each of the other of the eight kinds, and of how he had not been made known to them either in speaking or in vanishing away.] 'Now these, Ânanda, are the eight assemblies.' ------------------------ 24. 'Now these, Ânanda, are the eight positions of mastery [over the delusion arising from the apparent permanence of external things[1]]. What are the eight? [1. Abhibhâyatanî ti abhibhavanakâranâni. Kim abhibhavanti? Pakkanîka-dhamme pi ârammanâni pi: tâni hi patipakkha-bhâvena pakkanîka-dhamme abhibhavanti puggalassa ñânuttaritâya ârammanâni, says Buddhaghosa. (Sum. Vil. thî.) This and the next paragraph are based upon the Buddhist belief as to the long-vexed question between the Indian schools who represented more or less closely the European Idealists and Realists. When cleared of the many repetitions inserted for the benefit of the repeaters or reciters, the fundamental idea seems to be that the great necessity is to get rid of the delusion that what one sees and feels is real and permanent. Nothing is real and permanent but character. The so-called eight Positions of Mastery are merely an expansion of the first two of the following eight Stages of Deliverance, and the whole argument is also expressed in another form in the {footnote p. 50} passage on the nine successive 'Cessations,' of which an abstract will be found in Childers, sub voce nirodha.