formless … both formed and formless … neither formed nor formless … finite … infinite … both finite and infinite … neither finite nor infinite.’

These are the eight grounds on which those ascetics and brahmins assert that the self lives on after death in a neither percipient nor non-percipient form. Any ascetics and brahmins who assert that the self lives on after death in a neither percipient nor non-percipient form do so on one or other of these eight grounds. Outside of this there is none.

The Realized One understands this … And those who genuinely praise the Realized One would rightly speak of these things.

3.2.4. Annihilationism There are some ascetics and brahmins who are annihilationists. They assert the annihilation, eradication, and nonexistence of an existing being on seven grounds. And what are the seven grounds on which they rely?

There are some ascetics and brahmins who have this doctrine and view: ‘This self is formed, made up of the four principal states, and produced by mother and father. Since it’s annihilated and destroyed when the body breaks up, and doesn’t exist after death, that’s how this self becomes rightly annihilated.’ That is how some assert the annihilation of an existing being.