Sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress are given up when you understand the impermanence of form—its perishing, fading away, and cessation—and you truly see with right understanding that all form, whether past or present, is impermanent, suffering, and perishable. When these things are given up there’s no anxiety. Without anxiety you live happily. A mendicant who lives happily is said to be quenched in that respect. Sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress are given up when you understand the impermanence of feeling … perception … choices … consciousness—its perishing, fading away, and cessation—and you truly see with right understanding that all consciousness, whether past or present, is impermanent, suffering, and perishable. When these things are given up there’s no anxiety. Without anxiety you live happily. A mendicant who lives happily is said to be quenched in that respect.”
Linked Discourses 22.44 5. Be Your Own Island Practice
At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, I will teach you the practice that leads to the origin of substantial reality and the practice that leads to the cessation of substantial reality. Listen … And what is the practice that leads to the origin of substantial reality? It’s when an unlearned ordinary person has not seen the noble ones, and is neither skilled nor trained in the teaching of the noble ones. They’ve not seen true persons, and are neither skilled nor trained in the teaching of the true persons. They regard form as self, self as having form, form in self, or self in form. They regard feeling as self … They regard perception as self … They regard choices as self … They regard consciousness as self, self as having consciousness, consciousness in self, or self in consciousness. This is called the practice that leads to the origin of substantial reality. And that’s why it’s called a way of regarding things that leads to the origin of suffering.