They will enter some heavenly body!
They go to many a refuge—
To the mountains and the forest....
(and so on down to)
Having gone to this as their refuge,
They are freed from every pain.[241]
The above was not all the discourse which the Teacher uttered to them. He also said, “Disciples! the meditation on the Buddha, the Truth, and the Order, gives the Entrance and the Fruit of the First Path, and of the Second, and of the Third, and of the Fourth.” And having in this way laid down the Truth to them, he added, “You have done wrong to reject so great salvation!”
And here the fact of the gift of the Paths to those who meditate on the Buddha, the Order, and the Truth, might be shown from the following and other similar passages: “There is one thing, O mendicants, which, if practised with increasing intensity, leads to complete weariness of the vanities of the world, to the end of longings, to the destruction of excitement, to peace of mind, to higher knowledge, to complete enlightenment, to Nirvāna. What is that one thing? The meditation on the Buddhas.”
Having thus exhorted the disciples in many ways, the Blessed One said, “Disciples! formerly, too, men trusting to their own reason foolishly mistook for a refuge that which was no refuge, and becoming the prey of demons in a wilderness haunted by evil spirits, came to a disastrous end. Whilst those who adhered to the absolute, the certain, the right belief, found good fortune in that very desert.” And when he had thus spoken, he remained silent.
Then Anātha Piṇḍika, the house-lord, arose from his seat, and did obeisance to the Blessed One, and exalted him, and bowed down before him with clasped hands, and said, “Now, at least, O Lord! the foolishness of these disciples in breaking with the best refuge is made plain to us. But how those self-sufficient reasoners were destroyed in the demon-haunted desert, while those who held to the truth were saved, is hid from us, though it is known to you. May it please the Blessed One to make this matter known to us, as one causing the full moon to rise in the sky!”