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UNTHINKABLES, THE |
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To
call something unthinkable is to say that it is too unpleasant or too
abstruse to think about or that no amount of thinking about it will
yield a clear understanding of it. The Buddha uses the term
unthinkable (acinteyya) in this last sense. He said:
'There are these four unthinkables, not to be thought about, thinking
about which one will become mad and confused. What four? Thinking
about the range of a Buddha's understanding, thinking about the range
of some meditative states, thinking about the results of kamma and
thinking about the origins of the world' (A.II,80). Paradoxically, a
great deal of Buddhist commentarial writing has been devoted to the
first three of these subjects. Buddhist theoreticians and abhidhamma
thinkers of the past speculated endlessly and argued with one another
about the nature of the Buddha's realization and about what past
action would have caused what kammic results. See World.
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