THE HOUSE BUILDER

Before my enlightenment, while I was still only an unenlightened Bodhisattva, I thought: In the case of material form, of feeling [of pleasure, pain or neither], of perception, of formations, of consciousness, what is the gratification, what is the danger, what is the escape? Then I thought: In the case of each the bodily pleasure and mental joy that arise in dependence on these five aggregates are the gratification; the fact that these things are all impermanent, painful and subject to change is the danger; the disciplining and abandoning of desire and lust for then is the escape.

 "As long as I did not know by direct knowledge, as it actually is, that such was the gratification, such the danger, and such the escape, in the case of these five aggregates affected by clinging, so long did I make no claim to have discovered the enlightenment that is supreme in the world with its deities, its Maras and its divinities, in this generation with its minks and Brahmans with its princes and men, But as soon as I knew by direct knowledge, as it actually is that such is the gratification, such the danger, and such the escape, the case of theses five aggregates affected by clinging , then I claimed to have discovered the enlightenment that is supreme in the world with its deities. Its Maras and its divinities, in this generation with its monks and Brahmans, with its princes and men."

"Being myself subject to birth, aging, ailment, death, sorrow, and defilement, seeing danger in what is subject to those things and seeking the unborn, unaging, unailing, deathless, sorrowless undefiled supreme surcease of bondage, Nirvana, I attained it. The Knowledge and vision was in me: My deliverance is unassailable; This is my last birth; There is now no renewal of being.

"Seeking but not finding the House Builder,  I traveled through the round of countless births; O painful is birth ever and again. House Builder, you have now been seen;  You shall not build the house again. Your rafters have began broken down; Your ridge pole is shattered. My mind has attained the peace of Nirvana and reached the end of every kind of craving"